THE AMERICAN EIDER 375 
trappings jar discordantly on the silence as 
they are tumbled into the boat. At last we are 
off and are soon right willing to stand our trick 
at the oars, pulling away with a good will, for 
the air is pitilessly cold, and the black-looking 
mass where we hope for our morning’s sport 
rises out of the sea a good four miles away. 
After a long pull with oar blades made heavy 
with their coating of ice, we find ourselves on the 
barren, wave-washed ledge. The decoys are 
quickly set and are soon floating in a life-like 
bunch before a natural blind in the rocks. You 
have come a long distance in the chill air of the 
night and though half frozen with the winter’s 
breath are yet ready to brave rheumatism or 
risk pneumonia in the pursuit of your game. 
If so you are made of the stuff that succeeds 
and deserve success. 
On every hand strange and fantastic shapes 
loom up like ghosts,—the work of dashing spray 
and the north wind. The rocks are clad in icy 
armor and every salt stream trickling down 
from the pools above marks its course with sil- 
ver tracery. Long icicles hang pendant from 
the beetling cliffs which overtop the waves, and 
over all the moon throws a weird and fairy 
