thing but
terror and death.

"There they are, Kennedy! Throw your everlasting paper down, and get
your gun ready. Put your ammunition where you can get at it quick; if
you want to reload. Ah, here comes the wind in good earnest!"

A gust of wind out of the north-east whistled across the floes, and the
next moment a thick snow-squall shut out the distant shores, the
lowering icebergs, the decoys of their friends, in fact, everything a
hundred yards away.

"Where are the geese?" asked Kennedy, as, with their backs to the wind,
the two peered eagerly into the impenetrable _pouderie_ to leeward.

"They were about two miles away, in line of that hummock, when the
squall set in. I'll try a call, and see if we can get an answer."

"Huk! huk!" There was a long silence, unbroken save by the whistle of
the blasts and the metallic rattle of the sleety snow:

"Ah-huk! ah-huk! ah--"

"There they are to windward. Down, close; keep cool, and fire at the
head of the flock, when I say fire!" said La Salle, hurriedly, for
scarce sixty yards to windward, with outstretched necks and widespread
pinions, headed by their huge and wary leader, the weary birds, eager to
alight, but apprehensive of unseen danger, swung round to the
south-west, and then, setting their wings, with confused cries, "scaled"
slowly up against the storm to the hindmost decoy.

"Hu-uk! hu-uk!" called La Salle, slowly and more softly.

"Huk! hu-uk!" answered the huge leader, not a score of yards away, and
scarce ten feet from the ice.

"Let them come until you see their eyes. Keep cool! aim at the leader!
Ready!--fire!"

Bang! bang! roared the heavy double-barrel, as the white snow-cloud was
lit up for an instant with the crimson tongues of levin-fire, and the
huge leader, with a broken wing, fell on the limp body of his dead mate.
Bang! growled the ponderous boat-gun, as it poured a sheet of deadly
flame into the very eyes of the startled rearguard.

A mingled and confused clamor followed, as the demoralized flock
disappeared in the direction of the next ice-house, from which, a few
seconds later, a double volley told that Davies and Creamer had been
passed, at close range, by the scattered and frightened birds.

La Salle reloaded, and then leaped upon the ice, and gave chase to the
gander, which he soon despatched, and returning, picked up Kennedy's
other bird, with three which lay where "the Baby" had hurled her four
ounces of "treble B's." Composing