All of that day and the next, which was Thursday, they hunted with great success, and when Thursday night came more than half a hundred fat seals, among which were three great bearded seals—­“square flippers,” they called them—­lay upon the ice as their reward.  They were well pleased.  Indeed, they could scarcely have done better had Abel Zachariah been with them.

“Tomorrow will be Friday, and we had better haul our seals to Itigailit Island to the cache,” Skipper Ed suggested that evening as they sat snug in the igloo, eating their supper.  “We have all we can care for.”

“I hate to leave with all these seals about, but I suppose we’ll have to go some time,” said Bobby regretfully.

“Yes, and I’m wondering what I’ll find in my traps when we get home,” said Jimmy.

“You may have a silver fox, Partner,” laughed Skipper Ed.

“I’ve been looking for one every round I’ve made this winter,” Jimmy grinned.

“That’s the way with every hunter,” said Skipper Ed.  “He’s always looking for a silver, and it makes him the keener for the work, and drives away monotony.  He’s always expecting a silver, though year in and year out he gets nothing but reds and whites, with now and again a cross, to make him think that his silver is prowling around somewhere close by.”

“I’d feel rich if I ever caught a silver!” broke in Bobby.  “And wouldn’t I get some things for Father and Mother, though!  A new rifle and shotgun and traps, and—­loads of things!”

“So you’re looking for a silver, too,” said Skipper Ed, all of them laughing heartily.  “That’s the way it goes—­everyone is looking for a silver fox, and that keeps everyone always hopeful and gives vim for labor.  When they don’t have silvers or don’t hunt and trap, they’re looking for something else that takes the place of a silver—­some great success.  It’s ambition to catch silvers, and the hope of catching them, that makes the world go round.”

“Well, I never got one yet,” said Bobby, “and there’s one due me by this time.  Every one gets a silver some time in his life.”

“Not every one,” corrected Skipper Ed.  “Well, shall we haul the seals over in the morning, and then go home to see if we’ve got any silvers in the traps?”

“I suppose so,” agreed Bobby, regretfully.  “It’s hard to leave this fine hunting, but I suppose there’ll be good hunting till the ice goes out, and anyway we’ve got all we can use.”

So with break of day on Friday they loaded their sledges, and all that day hauled seals to their cache, and when night came and they returned in the dark to the sena igloo, some seals still remained to be hauled on Saturday.

But the sun did not show himself on Saturday morning, for the sky was heavily overcast, and before they reached Itigailit Island with the first load of seals snow was falling and the wind was rising.  They hurried with all their might, for it was evident a storm was about to break with the fury of the North, and out on the open ice field, where the wind rides unobstructed and unbridled, these storms reach terrible proportions.