Eli lifted the hand, and gazed at Bobby, grinning, the while, with delight. It was a jack-knife—a stout knife, three-bladed, horn-handled, big, serviceable; just the knife for a fisher lad. Bobby picked it up, but said never a word, for his delight overcame him.
"You're wonderful good t' me, Eli," he said, at last looking up with glistening eyes. "You're wonderful good t' me!"
Eli put his arm around the boy. "You're a good partner, lad," he said. "You're a wonderful good partner!"
Bobby was proud of that.
They put the salmon net out in the spring. The ice was still lingering offshore. The west wind carried it out; the east wind swept it in: variable winds kept pans and bergs drifting hither and thither, and no man could tell where next the ice would go. Now, the sea was clear, from the shore to the jagged, glistening white line, off near the horizon; next day—the day after—and the pack was grinding against the coast rocks. Men had to keep watch to save the nets from destruction.
The partners' net was moored off Break-heart Point. It was a good berth, but a rough one; when the wind was in the northeast, the waters off the point were choppy and covered with sheets of foam from the breakers.
"'Tis too rough t' haul the salmon net," said Eli, one day. "I'll be goin' over the hills for a sack o' flour. An' you'll be a good b'y 'til I gets back?"
"Oh, ay, sir!" said Bobby Lot.
It was a rough day: the wind was blowing from the north, a freshening, gusty breeze, cold and misty; off to sea, the sky was leaden, threatening, and overhead dark clouds were driving low and swift with the wind; the water was choppy—rippling black under the squalls. The ice was drifting alongshore, well out from the coast; there was a berg and the wreck of a berg of Arctic ice and many a pan from the bays and harbours of the coast.