Malleys and gulls came floating around them, nearer and nearer, tack and half tack, so close at last that they could have stretched out their hands and touched them on their beautiful breasts. Fulmars trotted about, nodding their heads and looking for the little fishes the tide had left in the pools. Looms, love-making on stone tops, stared at them with a kind of sleepy surprise. Great auks and penguins, that lined the shore in rows, flapped their apologies for wings, but never dreamed of making their escape. High in air, too, circled their friend and namesake the snowbird; and not far off the restless allan and the jet-black boatswain bird; while on the land itself were dozens of strange fowl that they could not even name.
The very tameness of all these creatures seemed proof, that they had never before been disturbed in their haunts by the presence of man.
Allan and Rory rowed into a beautifully-wooded bay, and inland along a quiet, broad-bosomed river. They landed on many parts of its banks, but remembering McBain’s words, they did not venture too far into the forest, but nevertheless they found track of deer, and trace, too, of heavier and wilder game. They did not make much of a bag, only a few birds and a hare or two (probably the Lepus Americanus, or Jack Rabbit), but they were quite satisfied with their four hours on shore, and were off to time, much to McBain’s joy and satisfaction.
In the saloon that day, while the Snowbird lay quietly at anchor in-shore, there was a dinner-party, at which were present not only the two mates belonging to the yacht, but the mate of the unfortunate Trefoil.
“Farther to the west,” McBain observed, “the land gets much more wild and hilly, and with the glass I can from the crow’s-nest see rugged mountains covered with snow. To the west, then, I purpose going; but I have not forgotten,”—this to the mate of the Trefoil—“that you, Mr Hill, and your men, are passengers. I would fain send you home, but how can I do so?”
“You can’t, that is evident,” said Mr Hill, “and both myself and my men have made up our minds to stop in your ship as long as you’ll let us—all the voyage, indeed, and return with you to England.”
“Well, I’m glad of that,” McBain said, “it relieves me of all anxiety.”
So it was arranged that both Mr Hill and the rest of the shipwrecked mariners should sign articles, and become part and parcel of the crew of the Snowbird. It must be remembered that she was a roomy yacht, and that the addition of twelve or thirteen new hands could hardly crowd her.
Ralph’s father was right when he advised our heroes to seek for adventures in the far west before journeying onwards to the more desolate and mysterious regions of the far north. He was a man of experience, and as such knew well that the sportsman, unlike the poet, is not born but made. But the wild land in which the travellers found themselves a day or two after their little dinner-party in the saloon, was just the place to brace the nerves and steel the muscles, for here was game of every kind, and it only wanted a certain amount of daring to bring it to bag.
The Snowbird was brought to anchor in a land-locked arm of the sea, a natural harbour large enough for the combined fleets of the whole world to ride with safety in. As there would be barely three months before the onset of the severe Arctic winter, McBain lost no time in preparing for the rigours they would doubtless have to encounter, before spring would once more return and release them from their self-chosen imprisonment. The vessel was anchored as close to the shore as was compatible with her safety. Here she could ride and here she could swing, until King Frost descended from the distant mountains and locked her in his icy embrace.