Page:Adrift in the Pacific, Sampson Low, 1889.djvu/122

 The month of February was passed in various ways. Wilcox had found the salmon swimming up the river to the fresh waters of Family Lake, and many were caught in nets stretched from bank to bank. To preserve them required a large quantity of salt, and to get this a great many journeys were needed to Schooner Bay, where Baxter and Briant had established a small salt- marsh — a square pool in which the sea-water was evaporated by the sun and deposited the salt.

In the first fortnight of March three or four of the young colonists went off to explore a part of the marshy district of South Moors which lay across Zealand River. This expedition was Donagan' s idea, and at his suggestion Baxter made several pairs of stilts out of the light spars. As the marsh was in places covered with a shallow sheet of water, these stilts allowed their wearers to stride along dry footed.

In the morning of April 17th, Donagan, Webb, and Wilcox crossed the river and landed on the left bank. They carried their guns slung over their shoulders, and Donagan had a duck-gun with him, from the arsenal of French Den, which he thought he would have a favourable opportunity to use.

As soon as the three reached the bank they put on their stilts and set out for the higher part of the marsh, which was dry even at high tide. Fan accompanied them. She did not want stilts, as she did not mind wetting her feet in crossing the pools.

Donagan, Wilcox, and Webb went about a mile in a south-esterly direction before they reached the dry ground, and they then took off their stilts, so as to be at their ease in pursuit of the game which swarmed over the wide extent of moor: — snipe, pintail, wild duck, rail, plover, teal, and thousands of scoters, worth more for their down than their flesh, but very fine eating when properly cooked. Donagan and his comrades could shoot at hundreds of these birds without wasting a single shot; and they were not unreasonable, and contented themselves with a few dozen birds which Fan retrieved in fine style from the pools of the marsh.