ashore for breakfast, as they had now travelled for four hours without halt, except twice for about five minutes, to let the men light their pipes.
“Charley,” said Harry Somerville to his friend, who sat beside him, “it strikes me that we are to have no breakfast at all to-day. Here have I been holding my breath and tightening my belt, until I feel much more like a spider or a wasp than a—a—”
“Man, Harry; out with it at once, don’t be afraid,” said Charley.
“Well, no, I wasn’t going to have said that exactly, but I was going to have said a voyageur; only I recollected our doings this morning, and hesitated to take the name until I had won it.”
“It’s well that you entertain so modest an opinion of yourself,” said Mr Park, who still smoked his pipe as if he were impressed with the idea that to stop for a moment would produce instant death. “I may tell you for your comfort, youngsters, that we shan’t breakfast till we reach yonder point.”
The shores of Lake Winnipeg are flat and low, and the point indicated by Mr Park lay directly in the light of the sun, which now shone with such splendour in the cloudless sky, and flashed on the polished water, that it was with difficulty they could look towards the point of land.
“Where is it?” asked Charley, shading his eyes with his hand; “I cannot make out anything at all.”
“Try again, my boy; there’s nothing like practice.”
“Ah, yes! I make it out now; a faint shadow just under the sun. Is that it?”
“Ay, and we’ll break our fast there.”
“I would like very much to break your head here,” thought Charley, but he did not say it, as, besides being likely to produce unpleasant consequences, he felt that such a speech to an elderly gentleman would be highly improper; and Charley had some respect for grey hairs for their own sake, whether the owner of them was a good man or a goose.
“What shall we do, Harry? If I had only thought of keeping out a book.”
“I know what I shall do,” said Harry, with a resolute air:
“I’ll go and shoot!”
“Shoot!” cried Charley. “You don’t mean to say that you’re going to waste your powder and shot by firing at the clouds! for, unless you take them, I see nothing else here.”
“That’s because you don’t use your eyes,” retorted Harry. “Will you just look at yonder rock ahead of us, and tell me what you see.”
Charley looked earnestly at the rock, which to a cursory glance seemed as if composed of whiter stone on the top. “Gulls, I declare!” shouted Charley, at the same time jumping up in haste.
Just then one of the gulls, probably a scout sent out to watch the approaching enemy, wheeled in a circle overhead. The two youths dragged their guns from beneath the thwarts of the boat, and rummaged about in great anxiety for shot-belts and powder-horns. At last they were found; and having loaded, they sat on the edge of the boat, looking out for game with as much—ay, with more intense interest than a Blackfoot Indian would have watched for a fat buffalo cow.
“There he goes,” said Harry; “take the first shot, Charley.”
“Where? where is it?”
“Right ahead. Look out!”
As Harry spoke, a small white gull, with bright-red legs and beak, flew over the boat so close to them that, as the guide remarked, “he could see it wink!” Charley’s equanimity, already pretty well disturbed, was entirely upset at the suddenness of the bird’s appearance; for he had been gazing intently at the rock when his friend’s exclamation drew his attention in time to see the gull within about four feet of his head. With a sudden “Oh!” Charley threw forward his gun, took a short, wavering aim, and blew the cocktail feather out of Baptiste’s hat; while the gull sailed tranquilly away, as much as to say, “If that’s all you can do, there’s no need for me to hurry!”
“Confound the boy!” cried Mr Park. “You’ll be the death of some one yet; I’m convinced of that.”
“Parbleu! you may say that, c’est vrai,” remarked the voyageur, with a rueful gaze at his hat, which, besides having its ornamental feather shattered, was sadly cut up about the crown.
The poor lad’s face became much redder than the legs or beak of the gull as he sat down in confusion, which he sought to hide by busily reloading his gun; while the men indulged in a somewhat witty and sarcastic criticism of his powers of shooting, remarking, in flattering terms, on the precision of the shot that blew Baptiste’s feather into atoms, and declaring that if every shot he fired was as truly aimed he would certainly be the best in the country.
Baptiste also came in for a share of their repartee. “It serves you right,” said the guide, laughing, “for wearing such things on the voyage. You should put away such foppery till you return to the settlement, where there are girls to admire you.” (Baptiste had continued to wear the tall hat, ornamented with gold cords and tassels, with which he had left Red River.)
“Ah!” cried another, pulling vigorously at his oar, “I fear that Marie won’t look at you, now that all your beauty’s gone.”
“’Tis not quite gone,” said a third; “there’s all the brim and half a tassel left, besides the wreck of the remainder.”
“Oh, I can lend you a few fragments,” retorted Baptiste, endeavouring to parry some of the thrusts. “They would improve you vastly.”
“No, no, friend, gather them up and replace them; they will look more picturesque and becoming now. I believe if you had worn them much longer all the men in the boat would have fallen in love with you.”
“By St. Patrick,” said Mike Brady, an Irishman who sat at the oar immediately behind the unfortunate Canadian, “there’s more than enough o’ rubbish scattered over mysilf nor would do to stuff a fither-bed with.”
As Mike spoke, he collected the fragments of feathers and ribbons with which the unlucky shot had strewn him, and placed them slyly on the top of the dilapidated hat, which Baptiste, after clearing away the wreck, had replaced on his head.
“It’s very purty,” said Mike, as the action was received by the crew with a shout of merriment.
Baptiste was waxing wrathful under this fire, when the general attention was drawn again towards Charley and his friend, who, having now got close to the rock, had quite forgotten their mishap in the excitement of expectation.
This excitement in the shooting of such small game might perhaps surprise our readers, did we not acquaint them with the fact that neither of the boys had, up to that time, enjoyed much opportunity of shooting. It is true that Harry had once or twice borrowed the fowling-piece of the senior clerk, and had sallied forth with a beating heart to pursue the grouse which are found in the belt of woodland skirting the Assiniboine River near to Fort Garry. But these expeditions were of rare occurrence, and they had not sufficed to rub off much of the bounding excitement with which he loaded and fired at anything and everything that came within range of his gun. Charley, on the other hand, had never fired a shot before, except out of an old horse-pistol; having up to this period been busily engaged at school, except during the holidays, which
