But no! Captain Gancy, quickly sighting through his binocular, declares them different—at least, in their array. They are not all men, more than half being women and children, while no warlike insignia can be discerned—neither white feathers nor chalked faces.
Seagriff, in turn taking the glass, further makes out that the men have fish-spears in their hands, and an implement he recognises as a fizgig, while the heads of dogs appear over the gunwales of the canoes, nearly a dozen in each.
“It’s a fishin’ party,” he pronounces. “For all thet, we’d best make a hide of it; thar’s no trustin’ ’em, anyway, so long as they think they hev the upper hand. A good thing our fire has gone out, else they’d ’a’ spied it afore this. An’ lucky the bushes be in front, or they’d see us now. Mebbe they’ll pass on along the arm, an’— No! they’re turnin’ in toward the cove!”
This can be told by the apparent shortening of the canoes, as they are brought head around toward the inlet.
Following the old sealer’s advice, earnestly urged, all slip back among the trees, the low-hanging branches of which afford a screen for concealment like a closed curtain. The bundles are taken away, and the camp-ground is cleared of everything likely to betray its having been lately occupied by white people. All this they are enabled to do without being seen by the savages, a fringe of evergreens between the camp-ground and the water effectually masking their movements.
“But shouldn’t we go farther up?” says the skipper, interrogating Seagriff. “Why not keep on over the hill?”
“No, Captin’; we mustn’t move from hyar. We couldn’t, ’ithout makin’ sech a racket ez they’d be sure to hear. Besides, thar’s bare spots above, whar they mout sight us from out on the water; an’ ef they did, distance wouldn’t sarve us a bit. The Feweegins kin climb up the steepest places, like squir’ls up a tree. Once seen by ’em, we’d stan’ no chance with ’em in a run. Ther’fore, we’d better abide quietly hyar. Mebbe, arter all, they mayn’t come ashore. ’Tain’t one o’ thar landin’-places or we’d ’a’ foun’ traces of ’em. The trees would ’a’ been barked all about. Oh, I see what they’re up to now. A fish-hunt—surround wi’ thar dogs. Thet’s thar bizness in the cove.”
By this, the four canoes have arrived at the entrance to the inlet, and are forming in line across it at equal distances from one another, as if to bar the way against anything that may attempt to pass outward. Just such is their design, the fish being what they purpose enfilading.
At sight of them and the columns of ascending smoke, the pelicans and other fishing-birds take flight in a chorus of screams, some to remain soaring overhead, others flying altogether out of sight. The water is left without a ripple, and so clear that the spectators on shore, from their elevated point of view, can see to its bottom, all around the shore where it is shallow. They now observe fish of several sorts swimming affrightedly to and fro, and see them as plainly as through the glass walls of an aquarium.
Soon the fish-hunters, having completed their “cordon,” and dropped the dogs overboard, come on up the cove, the women plying the paddles, the men with javelins upraised, ready for darting. The little foxy dogs swim abreast of and between the canoes, driving the fish before them, as sheep-dogs drive sheep, one or another diving under at intervals to intercept such as attempt to escape outward. For in the translucent water they can see the fish far ahead, and, trained to the work, they keep guard against a break from these through the enclosing line. Soon the fish are forced up to the inner end of the cove, where it is shoalest, and then the work of slaughter commences. The dusky fishermen, standing in the canoes and bending over, now to this side, now that, plunge down their spears and fizgigs,