“That means,” said Jesse, “that some time or other, if we have luck, we may be discovered here by his people, even if our own people never find us.”
“Yes,” Rob added, “but I only hope that may be before winter comes and leaves us unable to get out.”
XXI
AN ALEUT GOOSE-HUNT
Although utterly remote from the ordinary haunts of man, our young hunters found their new environment one free from monotony, after all. The sea was never twice the same, and even the weather was capricious enough to afford variety. As spring wore on the region seemed to teem with wild life, whether on the earth, in the water, or the air. The gulls, crows, ravens, and eagles were continually passing, with clouds of shags or cormorants, which nested on the rocks a mile or so down the bay, together with numbers of oyster-birds, whale-birds, and other strange fowl of the outlying coast.
Each night and morning also there passed up the lagoon a stream of honking and chattering wild-fowl, the largest of which and most valuable, though least attainable, were the great Canada geese, which frequented this part of the island in large numbers.
“If only we could get hold of some of those fellows,” said John, longingly, one morning, as they saw an especially fine flock pass slowly up toward the head of the lagoon. “I’ll warrant they’d be good to eat. See, some of them can hardly fly yet, they’re so young.”