say die; or, if you must die,--why, die game. That's the
doctrine you are always preaching, Kit. Isn't it, now? Tell me!"

"But to be frozen or starved to death among these desolate ledges!"
muttered Kit.

"Is not a cheery prospect, I'll admit," Raed finished for him. "Rather
trying to a fellow's philosophy, isn't it?"

_Bang!_

"She isn't hit yet," remarked Donovan, who had taken Raed's glass.
"She slides on gay as a cricket. I can see the cap'n throwing water
with the skeet against the sails to make 'em draw better."

"How, for Heaven's sake, did that ship come to get up so near before
they saw her?" Kit exclaimed suddenly.

We looked off to the west. The dozen straggling islets beyond us
extended off in irregular order toward the north-west.

"I think," said Raed, "that the ship must have come up a little to the
south of those outer islands. Our folks could not have seen her, then,
till she came past."

"I don't call that the same ship that fired on us a week ago,"
Weymouth remarked.

"Oh, no!" said Kit. "That ship, 'The Rosamond,' can't more than have
reached the nearest of the Company's trading-posts by this time."

"She probably spoke this ship coming out, and told them to be on the
lookout for us," said Raed.

"Old Red-face doubtless charged them to give us particular fits," Kit
replied.

"And they've got us in a tight place, no mistake," Wade remarked
gloomily. "We're rusticated up here among the icebergs; sequestered in
a cool spot."

_Bang!_

"Gracious! I believe that one hit 'The Curlew'!" Donovan exclaimed.
"The captain and old Trull--I believe it's Trull--ran aft, and are
looking over the taffrail!"

Kit pulled out his glass and looked. I had not taken mine, nor had
Wade. The schooner was now three or four miles down the straits, and
the ship was a good way past us.

"No great harm done, I guess," Kit said at length. "The captain ran
down into the cabin, but came up a few moments after; and they are
standing about the deck as before."

"As long as they miss the standing rigging, and don't hit the sails,
there's no danger," Raed observed.

"That ship is a mighty fast sailer," Weymouth said.

"Ought to be, I should think," Donovan replied. "Look at the sail
she's got on! They've been getting out studding-sails too. This strong
gale drives her along like thunder!"

"I don't see that she gains," Raed remarked. "We shall see 'The
Curlew' back here for us yet."

"Not very soon, I'm