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We ought now to be near the southern shore of the group." "We have been wedged off to sea by stranded ice, I should judge; for there, about fifteen miles to the northward, lies Amherst Island." "Yes, Regnar, we are now on the outer side of the pack, and the wind has shifted to the southward again. Look to the eastward, Regnie. Has not the pack broken up there?"
Regnar raised his hand: on one finger glittered the golden setting of the native talisman; on the table he laid the sheathed dagger. "Are you satisfied, George Randall?" said he. The wretch glared around as if he would have destroyed all who surrounded him; then he seemed to realize the futility of his rage, and catching his breath with a fierce sob, he asked, hoarsely,
Regnar, who had a breech-loader, got ready in time to kill a brace of Moniac duck out of a flock which swept past uttering their singularly desolate call of "Ouac-a-wee, ouac-a-wee!" and by the time these birds were retrieved, several faint reports to the eastward were heard, and a vast cloud of geese of both kinds rose just above the floating ice, and swept up towards the bar.
As they sat eating their rude meal, Regnar broke the silence; for it may well be believed that no great hilarity pervaded the little party. "As we not know how long we may be adrift, I think we better take 'count stock. See how much wood, provisions, powder, shot, everyting." "You are right, Regnie; we will set to work at once. I can tell how much food we have now.
Making a hot fire, he placed the spike therein, and sinking the edge of an axe in one of the decoys, got Regnar to strike for him. "Now no strike hard strike quick and heasy, right that place every time;" and taking the glowing iron from the fire, he laid it on the light anvil.
Gradually they appeared to draw nearer, to sound from all sides, to fill the air overhead, and even at last to ascend from the depths below. Strangely sweet, yet sadly plaintive, they at once charmed and terrified the poor boy, weak from his recent illness, and worn with the anxieties of his situation. At last Regnar awoke, and to him Waring applied for an explanation of the strange sounds.
By the middle of the next week, a narrow channel had opened up to the city; and Creamer and Davies, piling their decoys beside their deserted box, and leaving Lund to haul them to the shelter of his woods, took the first flood, and paddled briskly homeward, leaving Indian Peter and La Salle in the latter's stand; while Regnar, who had become a proficient with the small boat, struck out for the broken ice lying to the east.
"TO WHOEVER MAY FIND THIS: This morning the undersigned, with George Waring, Peter Mitchell, and Regnar Orloff, all well, were twelve miles north-east of Cape North, but a snow storm prevented an attempt to land.
At the same time Blake and Regnar seized him by the arms. "What is the meaning of all this?" asked Waring, trembling and appalled. "Dis no good, La Salle. No Injin hurt man in his wigwam, or strike when he give 'em food," shouted Peter, angry at what he considered a breach of hospitality; but both were unheeded.
Every barrel had been discharged, nine hooded seals had fallen, and the survivors had already reached the open water; but frightened by the unwonted sights and sounds, many of the smaller seals still remained at the upper end of the valley, or with awkward speed were climbing the sloping ice-hills which sheltered it. Drawing an axe from his belt, Regnar started forward in pursuit.
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