. At the same moment he took a
rapid aim and fired. For a few yards the goose continued its forward
flight as if unhurt; then it wavered once or twice, and fell heavily to
the ground.

"Bravo, boy!" cried Stanley. "There, don't look nettled; I only jested
with you, knowing your weakness on the score of rifle-shooting. Now,
pick up your bird, and throw it into the canoe, for I must away."

Frank finished reloading his piece as his friend spoke, and went to pick
up the goose; while the other walked down to the edge of the rivulet,
and disengaged a light birch-bark canoe from the long grass and sedges
that almost hid it from view.

"Make haste, Frank!" he shouted; "there's the ice coming up with the
flood-tide, and bearing down on the creek here."

At a short distance from the spot where the sportsmen stood, the
streamlet already alluded to mingled its waters with a broad river,
which, a few miles farther down, flows into James's Bay. As every one
knows, this bay lies to the south of Hudson's Bay, in North America.
Here the river is about two miles wide; and the shores on either side
being low, it has all the appearance of an extensive lake. In spring,
after the disruption of the ice, its waters are loaded with large floes
and fields of ice; and later in the season, after it has become quite
free from this wintry encumbrance, numerous detached masses come up with
every flood-tide. It was the approach of one of these floes that called
forth Stanley's remark.

The young man replied to it by springing towards the canoe, in which his
companion was already seated. Throwing the dead bird into it, he
stooped, and gave the light bark a powerful shove into the stream,
exclaiming, as he did so, "There, strike out, you've no time to lose,
and I'll go round by the woods."

There was indeed no time to lose. The huge mass of ice was closing
rapidly into the mouth of the creek, and narrowing the only passage
through which the canoe could escape into the open water of the river
beyond. Stanley might, indeed, drag his canoe up the bank, if so
disposed, and reach home by a circuitous walk through the woods; but by
doing so he would lose much time, and be under the necessity of carrying
his gun, blanket, tin kettle, and the goose, on his back. His broad
shoulders were admirably adapted for such a burden, but he preferred the
canoe to the woods on the present occasion. Besides, the only risk he
ran was that of getting his c