During this time the dogs had been almost always within sight, and their near approach during the night would frequently awaken the sleepers in the cabin, Rex quickest, of course. Katy was sure that if the animals could have been fed they would speedily have become docile; and when Tug proposed to shoot them for food, everybody resisted, at least, until they should be in a worse strait than now. Nevertheless it was probably fortunate for the mastiff family that it kept out of gun-range.
The next and last day of their stay on the island was very cold, and a heavy wind brought hosts of birds, so that they captured twenty snow-flakes, and shot over thirty cross-bills, red-polls, and other small fry, which were placed on the roof as fast as obtained, where they froze solid, and thus kept fresh. This made Katy the most happy of all, for she alone knew that everything was gone except about two messes of coffee and one potful of corn-meal mush.
"Now, if only we could catch a big fish, we should be fixed grandly," said Jim, as he went out to look at and bring home the lines. When he came back, however, he wore the long face and empty hands of disappointment, but left one line in hope of taking something during the night.
At sunset the gale went down, the stars glistened like gems, and the frost showed no signs of ceasing. By the light of a great fire of drift-wood on the beach the little scow was partly loaded, and then all hands went for the last time to their mattresses of hemlock boughs. What was ahead they had little notion, but they were now used to peril, and eager to begin their journey, not only because each one felt that he could scarcely be worse off, but from the excitement of commencing new adventures.
REPAIRING THE OLD SCOW.
The morning of departure dawned clear and cold, continuing the promises of good weather.
Jim's early visit to his set-line next morning yielded him one small pickerel, while the traps gave a solitary snow-bird. These, with some other feathered mites, Katy cooked, while Aleck and Tug finished the packing. It was not a bad breakfast, you may think, for shipwrecked persons, but try it once for yourself—fish fried in bacon grease, some fragments of stewed snow-bird, and weak coffee. No bread, no butter, no potatoes, no green relish, no hot cakes, no anything except pickerel and weak coffee. But they thought it the best meal they had had on the island; and after a hasty washing and stowing of dishes they buckled on their skates, took their familiar places at the drag-ropes, and with a cheer started southward, steering by the compass.