ingerbread Cove. You could see un with the naked eye
from Lack-a-Day Head. A hundred thousand black specks swarming over
the ice three miles and more to sea! "Swiles! Swiles!" And Gingerbread
Cove went mad for slaughter. 'Twas a fair time for off-shore sealing,
too--a blue, still day, with the look and feel of settled weather. The
ice had come in from the current with a northeasterly gale, a
wonderful mixture of Arctic bergs and Labrador pans, all blinding
white in the spring sun; and 'twas a field so vast, and jammed so
tight against the coast, that there wasn't much more than a lane or
two and a Dutchman's breeches of open water within sight from the
heads. Nobody looked for a gale of off-shore wind to blow that ice
afore dawn of the next day.

"A fine, soft time, lads!" says Pinch-a-Penny. "I 'low I'll go out
with the Gingerbread crew."

"Skipper Peter," says Tom Lane, "you're too old a man t' be on the
ice."

"Ay," says Peter, "but I wants t' bludgeon another swile afore I
dies."

"But you creaks, man!"

"Ah, well," says Peter, "I'll show the lads I'm able t' haul a swile
ashore."

"Small hope for such as you on a movin' floe!"

"Last time, Tom," says Peter.

"Last time, true enough," says Tom, "if that ice starts t' sea with a
breeze o' wind behind."

"Oh, well, Tom," says Peter, "I'll take my chances. If the wind comes
up I'll be as spry as I'm able."

It come on to blow in the afternoon. But 'twas short warning of
off-shore weather. A puff of gray wind come down; a saucier gust went
by; and then a swirl of galish wind jumped over the pans. At the first
sign of wind, Pinch-a-Penny Peter took for home, loping over the ice
as fast as his lungs and old legs would take un when pushed, and
nobody worried about he any more. He was in such mad haste that the
lads laughed behind un as he passed. Most of the Gingerbread crew
followed, dragging their swiles; and them that started early come safe
to harbor with the fat. But there's nothing will master a man's
caution like the lust of slaughter: give a Newfoundlander a club, and
show un a swile-pack, and he'll venture far from safety. 'Twas not
until a flurry of snow come along of a sudden that the last of the
crew dropped what they was at and begun to jump for shore like a pack
of jack-rabbits.

With snow in the wind, 'twas every man for himself. And that means no
mercy and less help.

By this time the ice had begun to feel the wind. 'Twas restless. And a