A raw wind was blowing, but a fair wind, and in a little while the boat, bowling before the breeze with all sail set, was lost to view.  Then, disconsolately, Bobby turned back to the cabin, but Mrs. Abel took good care that he was kept so busy that he soon forgot his disappointment in work.

And that day he and Mrs. Abel had a jolly dinner of boiled goose, and tea, and that evening they sat a full hour beyond their bedtime while she recounted to him in her own quaint way the story of his coming from the place where mists and storms are born, and told him how he was sent by God to be their son, and how little he was, and how ill he was when Abel first placed him in her arms, and how she had hugged him to her, and had nursed away his fever, and how glad she and Abel had always been that God had sent them a son.

The days passed thus until they lengthened into a week.  Though Bobby was content enough, it was but natural that he should be a bit lonesome now and again, and eagerly wish the fortnight gone that yet must pass before the return of the seal hunters.

The wild geese and ducks were still in flight, coming in great flocks from the lakes of the vast unknown interior and from the farther north, on their way to milder southern climes.  There were several marshes near Abel’s Bay where the migrating flocks tarried for a time to rest and feed, and of mornings they would pass with a great roar of wings and loud honking from the bay to these marshes, and at night they would return.

It was Bobby’s custom morning and night to lie in wait for them with his shotgun, and he always returned to the cabin with as many birds as he could carry.  These were hung in the entrance shed of the cabin, where they would freeze and remain fresh and good until needed for the table.  And thus he too was doing his part in providing for the long winter which was at hand.

The goose-hunting season was always one of great sport for Bobby, but this year he found it lonesome enough without Jimmy’s company.  It was this loneliness, no doubt, that prompted him, one morning in the beginning of the second week after the departure of the seal hunters, to take Abel Zachariah’s old skiff and pull far down the bay in the hope that he might kill a seal on his own account.  It was a gray day, with leaden clouds hanging low.  Patches of snow lay upon the ground.  The bay, throbbing with a gentle swell, was somber and dark.

Bobby rowed the old skiff down the bay and past the bird islands near which he and Jimmy had their adventure on the cliff, but no seals were to be seen, and presently he turned his attention to the numerous sea pigeons which were swimming here and there.  The young birds were quite full-grown now, and it was great fun shooting at them and watching them dive and rise again unharmed, though sometimes one would be just a fraction of a second too slow and the shot would find it, and then its downy body would float upon the water, and Bobby would pick it up and drop it into the boat and turn his attention to another, which might escape, or might be added to Bobby’s bag.