he many subterranean
springs of the islet, a half-dozen tiny ouac-a-wees, or Moniac ducks,
swam and dove in conscious security.

"I can't see any open water yet," said Creamer, "although it looks to me
a little like a water-belt, alongshore, inside Point Prime."

"There's no more water-belt there," said Lund, "than there was music in
your great-uncle's jewsharp; but there's a spot off to the sou'-west
that looks to me a little like blue water."

"Blue water, indeed!" retorted Creamer; "who ever saw blue water on
soundings! I'll lay a plug of navy tobacco there isn't open water enough
there away to float La Salle's gunning-float comfortably."

"Well, Hughie," slowly replied the practiced pilot, who was really
little disposed to vaunt his knowledge of coast and weather, "the tide
will soon decide whether you or I, or both of us, are right. It is just
full flood now, and the ice is pressed in so against the land, that I
know there can be no openings along the Point, and but very small ones
where I think it looks like one. It seems to me that a water-vapor is
rising out there, by yonder high pinnacle just in range of the pool
below the ice-foot; but the tide will soon let us know if there are any
large leads open within a dozen miles."

"There's a sign in your favor," cried La Salle, pointing in the
direction of the supposed 'lead.' "There's a flock of Brent geese, and
they can't live away from open water. See, Ben, they are heading right
in for the East Bar, and if we were only there we might depend upon a
shot."

La Salle was right; the flock of birds, identified plainly by their
smaller size, their tumultuous order of flying, and especially by their
harsh, rolling call, like a pack of hounds in cry, swept in from sea,
wheeled around one of the resting flocks of Canada geese, alighted near
them, took flight again, and, sweeping in an irregular course over and
among the higher points of the icy labyrinth, disappeared behind the
eastern promontory, as if in search of the open water, which winter had
so securely locked up in icy bonds.

As the sun sank behind the neighboring firs, his reddening light fell on
a bright blue streak, which seemed to glow like a stream of quicksilver
between two heavy bodies of "piled ice." With the ebb, the narrow,
glittering canal began to widen, piercing nearer to the islet, until,
heading towards the westward, it lay little more than four miles from
the interested spectators. The shad