A FOOLHARDY SHOT

Though the days were long now, for this was July, when dawn comes in this land before two o’clock in the morning, it was scarce daylight when Skipper Ed and Jimmy in their big trap boat, and with a skiff in tow in which were stowed his seven sledge dogs, hoisted sail and bore down the bay before a westerly breeze.

And as they passed beyond the point which separated the cove in which Abel’s cabin stood from the cove where their own cabin stood, they discovered Abel’s boat almost abreast of them, and within hailing distance.  Bobby and Jimmy exchanged vociferous greetings, and Skipper Ed and Abel converged their courses until the boats were so close as to permit of conversation.

It was a glorious morning.  The air was crisp and fragrant with whiffs of forest perfumes borne down to them from the near-by shore.  Banks of brilliant red and orange in the eastern sky foretold the coming of the sun.  The sea sparkled.  Gulls and other wild fowl soared overhead or rode lightly upon the swell.  A school of shining caplin shimmered on the surface of the water.  Here and there a seal lifted its curious head for a moment, and then disappeared.  At intervals a grampus, with a startling, roaring blow, raised its great black back above the surface, and then sank again from view.

On barren hillsides patches of snow, remnants of mighty drifts, lay against the dark moist rocks like great white sheets, and here and there miniature ice pans rose and fell upon the swell, reminders of the long cold winter, for winter in this far northern clime is ever reluctant to relinquish its grasp upon the earth.

The glow in the east disappeared at length, and then the sun rose to caress them with his warmth.  Presently mirages appeared.  Islands seemed to sit upon the tops of other islands, or to hang suspended in the air, and every distant shore became distorted in the brilliant July sunlight.

“That’s the way a good many of us look at things in this life,” said Skipper Ed.  “We see the mirage, and not the thing itself.  Hopes loom up and look real, when they’re just false.  It’s a great thing to be able to tell the differences between what is real and what is just a mirage.”

The wind fell away to a dead calm before noon, and though Abel and Skipper Ed worked at their heavy sculling oars, and Bobby and Jimmy and Mrs. Abel at the other oars, the boats, laden as they were, and retarded by the skiffs in tow, made such slow progress that at length they stopped at a convenient island to boil the kettle and cook their dinner and wait for a returning breeze.

Dinner was a jolly feast, simple as it was, for in this land folk live upon simple food and are satisfied with little variety, for their appetites and desires are not glutted, as ours so often are.  And many things that you and I deem necessary they do not miss, because they have never had them, and more often than not have never so much as heard of them.  And perhaps it is just as well, and their happiness is just as complete.