ix, in the spring of 186-, took up their quarters with
Captain Lund, a pilot, who held the larger portion of the arable land of
the little Island of St. Pierre, which lies three miles south of the
mouth of the harbor of C., and ends in two long and dangerous shoals,
known as the East and West Bars.

The party was composed of Messrs. Risk, Davies (younger and older),
Kennedy, Creamer, and La Salle. Mr. Henry Risk was an English gentleman,
of about fifty-five years of age, handsome, portly, and genial, a keen
sportsman, and sure shot with the long, single, English ducking-gun, to
which he stuck, despite of the jeers and remonstrances of the owners of
muzzle and breech-loading double barrels.

Davies the elder, an old friend of the foregoing, had for many years
been accustomed to leave his store and landed property to the care of
his partners and family, while, in company with Risk, he found in the
half-savage life and keen air of the ice-fields a bracing tonic, which
prepared them for the enervating cares of the rest of the year. The two
had little in common--Risk being a stanch Episcopalian, and Davies an
uncompromising Methodist. Risk, rather conservative, and his comrade a
ready liberal; but they both possessed the too rare quality of respect
for the opinions of others, and their occasional disputations never
degenerated into quarrels.

Ben Davies, a nephew of the foregoing, and also a merchant, was an
athletic young fellow, of about five feet eight, just entering upon his
twenty-second year. A proficient in all manly exercises, and a keen
sportsman, he entered into this new sport with all the enthusiasm of
youth, and his preparations for the spring campaign were on the most
liberal scale of design and expenditure. In these matters he relied
chiefly on the skill, experience, and judgment of his right-hand man and
shooting companion, Hughie Creamer.

Hughie was of Irish descent, and middle size, but compact, lithe, and
muscular, with a not unkindly face, which, however, showed but too
plainly the marks of habitual dissipation. A rigger by occupation, a
sailor and pilot at need, a skilful fisherman, and ready shot, with a
roving experience, which had given him a smattering of half a score of
the more common handicrafts, Hughie was an invaluable comrade on such a
quest, and as such had been hired by his young employer. It may be
added, that a more plausible liar never mixed the really interesting
facts of a changeable