“When the hunters started to return to the river, they were astonished to find no sign of a river, or the course of one, anywhere in the landscape. Mike at once concluded that they were lost, but Ben was not troubled. He had the sun to steer by, and was amply satisfied.
“Indeed, he felt much at home on the barrens, where, as he said, ‘there was plenty of sea-room, and a chap could breathe free.’ He shaped his course confidently for the camp, and ‘fetched’ the river as unerringly as if it had been a port on the South Shore.
“The barrens, which cover so large a portion of the interior of Newfoundland, vary somewhat in character in different parts of the island.
“Where Ben and Mike were investigating them, they were covered with wide patches of a sturdy, stunted shrub called, locally, ‘skronnick.’
“This skronnick played a most important part in the experiences which presently befell the hunters. It grows about shoulder-high at its highest, and spreads out like a miniature banyan-tree. Its twisted stems are bare to a height of from two to three feet, and its top so densely matted as almost to shut out the light. The shrub is an evergreen, a remote cousin to the juniper, and its stems are wide enough apart for one to freely crawl about between them. When one is caught in a storm on the barrens, the skronnick patches make no mean shelter.
“Scattered thinly amid the skronnick stood bald, white-granite bowlders from two or three to ten or twelve feet high; and here and there lay deep pools,—cup-shaped hollows—filled to the brim with transparent, icy water.
“‘Arrah,’ said Mike, as they climbed down the ravine to the camp, ‘but it’s a quare counthry!’
“To Ben, however, all dry land was queer. So he hardly comprehended Mike’s remark.
“On the following day before they set out for the hunt a council of war was held. Said Ben,—
“‘You see, the critters won’t let us git nigh enough to fire at ’em afore they clear out; an’ then where are we?’