Just before dark a slight wind sprang up, and a few flocks, flying low about the harbor, came in among the decoys, and for a time the fire was quite heavy, and the sport most exciting. Taken all round, this day was the best of the season. Ben and Creamer received fifteen, La Salle and Kennedy twelve, and Davies and Risk eighteen birds--in all, forty-five geese. On arriving home they found a hearty supper awaiting their attention, after a due observance had been paid to the rites of the toilet. This observance seemed to demand much more time than ever before, to the great amusement of Lund, who had anticipated as much all day.
"Are all you folks going sparkin', that you are so careful of your complexions? Goodness! why, you've more pomatums, oils, and soaps than any court beauty!"
There was some truth in this latter charge, for Ben and Creamer, after washing and a very gingerly use of the towel, anointed their flaming visages with almond oil. Kennedy, in his turn, approached the only mirror the house afforded, and applied to his blistered nose and excoriated cheeks the major part of a box of Holloway's Ointment; and even La Salle's dark face seemed to have acquired its share of burning from the ice-reflected rays of the sun. Davies and Risk, when called to supper, smelled strongly of rose-scented cold-cream; and Lund was unsparing in sarcastic remarks on the extreme floridness of complexion of the entire party.
"Ben, don't have any powder lying round loose to-morrow, with such a face as that. As for Creamer, he can't have any cotton sheets to-night, for fear of a conflagration. I don't think I ever saw anybody burn as bad as Kennedy has; and this is only the first day, too. A few days more like this would peel him down to an 'atomy. As to La Salle, he's too black to take any more color, but Risk and Davies won't dare to go home for a good two weeks at least."
In truth, the whole party had received a notable tanning, for the winter's sun, weak as it is compared with its summer fervor, has never such an effect upon the exposed skin, as when its rays are reflected from the millions of tiny specula of the glistening ice-field. The free use of soothing and cooling ointments will prevent the blistering and tan, to a great extent; but many on their "first hunt" lose the cuticle from the entire face; and many a seal has been lost on the floes, owing to the rapid decomposition produced by the sun's feeble rays thus intensified.