FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 29 



ion that we tore across a field towards the cliffs, 

 apparently with certain death before us, whirled 

 under a steep bank, and found ourselves on the 

 ocean's edge, in front of a long, unpainted build- 

 ing, before which, standing or sitting upon the 

 loaded fish flakes, were a dozen or more men. 

 Half an hour later, the telegraph operator at 

 the goverment office, a mile up the road, ticked 

 to Baddeck the following message given by our 

 Jehu : " Them Yanks, the man and woman, are 

 at Sandy McDonald's this night." 



" Them Yanks," stiff, stunned, sore, hungry, 

 cold, and petrified with astonishment, stood on 

 Sandy McDonald's doorstep and silently gazed 

 up and down upon land and sea. Truly they 

 had been cast upon as unique a shelter as this 

 world had ever yet offered them. The long, 

 low house clung upon the edge of the bluff, with 

 only the width of the fish flakes between it and 

 a sharp descent to the ocean. Behind it rolling 

 grass land cut off the west. Southward a line 

 of bold rocky cliffs overhung a narrow beach, 

 upon which the waves broke and cast foam from 

 many fragments of ledge which dotted the shore. 

 Through a similar line of bluffs on the north 

 French River had cut its way, but instead of 

 reaching the ocean directly it was turned aside 

 by a huge cobblestone barrier raised by storms, 

 and so was compelled to flow nearly parallel to 



