rt, they did very well at
cod-splitting, or, as it was termed, "flaking", and spreading the
fish to dry on the flakes, as the structures were called which had
been erected on a sunny headland, after the fashion of the
fish-flakes at St. John's, Newfoundland, whence the idea was taken.

Already Mr. Selincourt was in treaty for the purchase of land on
both sides of the river. He wanted to possess the river frontage
on each bank of the water, from the bay up to the first portage;
but the drawback to this was that 'Duke Radford owned nearly three
quarters of a mile of frontage close to the store, so it was not
likely that the owner of the fishing fleet would get all the ground
into his own hands.

Mary had a fancy for geology, and when her father had no need of
her help in forwarding his schemes she spent long days in tramping
about the woods and the shore, armed with a hammer and a specimen
bag, and accompanied by one or two of the big dogs from the store.
True to her resolve, she had lost no time in making friends with
the great, fierce creatures, which roamed as they pleased in
summer, as a sort of holiday compensation for the hard work they
had to do in winter, when stores had to be transported by sledges.
She had done her work so thoroughly that the dogs became, not
merely her friends, but her abject slaves, and were ready at any
time to swim the river at her call.

The coast of the bay to the northward was flat and swampy, but
southward from Seal Cove it stretched in bold headlands and
precipitous rocks for mile on mile, until the mouth of the next
river spread acres of swamp 'twixt land and sea. Beyond the
headland on which Mr. Selincourt had erected his fish-flakes there
extended miles of broken ground, with split rocks and riven cliffs
which might have been the result of volcanic upheaval, but were
probably only the product of the intense frost of centuries. This
was Mary's happy hunting ground, a place full of scientific
surprises, and full of dangers too. For the rocks were slippery,
the heights tremendous, and a fall in many places must have meant
certain death.

Jervis Ferrars had been in his boat one morning along the coast to
a certain bay or inlet much beloved of the black-headed gulls.
These birds were valuable either for their plucked feathers, or for
their skins with the feathers left on. They frequented the inlet
in their tens of thousands, and it had occurred to him that it
might be good bus