BRANT SHOOTING. 287 



not look promising for the next few days' shooting. 

 The wind had pulled in to the northeast, and a heavy- 

 scud was driving across the moon. So, paying out 

 more chain, we turned in, to be lulled to sleep by rat- 

 tling blocks and the dull boom of the surf on the 

 beach. 



The alarm clock got us out at 4 o'clock next morn- 

 ing, and after breakfast we went on deck to look about. 

 It was still dark, and the wind was northeast, blowing 

 hard, almost a gale. This meant too much sea on the 

 flats for a battery. I resigned myself to a day of read- 

 ing in my bunk. But by seven o'clock the ebb tide 

 began to make and the captain announced his inten- 

 tion of taking the sharpie, and going ashore to collect 

 driftwood for the stove. He had been gone about a 

 half hour, and I was dozing over my book, when I 

 heard the scraping of the sharpie alongside, followed 

 a minute later by the captain's head being thrust in the 

 cabin door. 



"The quicker we get a move on us the better," he 

 said. "There is a good seaweed bunk in shore to the 

 east of us, and any quantity of brant are going in to 

 the beach." 



That was enough for me. I was out of the bunk in 

 a minute and on deck with the glasses. I could make 

 out one hundred brant or more on the flat, about a 

 quarter of a mile to the east of us, and several bunches 

 were swinging around to the windward of the sloop 

 and heading in shore. We wasted no time. The stops 

 were thrown off the head fender of the battery, and 



