OUR ISLAND STORY 103

an elderly gentleman named Joseph Weirs, and two medical stud- ents, returning from Harvard ‘University, Richard Johnson and James Henry Haszard, respectively, left the board ice at Cape Tormentine. The boat contained the mails and the passengers’ baggage There was, at t7 a start, a light westerly breeze and the sun shone out. But within an hour the party was overtaken by a shower of snow. Then the pace of the boatmen was slackened, so that if the storm continued there would be the shorter distance to return to Cape Tormentine. Soon, however, the cloud passed over, the sun again appeared, and the prospect of a fine day bright- ened. In good spirits the party pressed on. The passage proved, however, to be an unusually hard one, owing to the depth of snow and

clumpets of ice.‘ When the boat was yet in the midst of the strait

there was a sudden and unexpected change of the wind to the N orth~ east and there were indications of a coming March storm. But hoping that they ”would reach the shore of this Island before‘the storm de- veloped, the 'crew with their passengers pressed on. They reached the edge of the moving ice, about a mile and a half from Carleton ~Point, at five o’clock. The land was clearly seen by them. But the lolly between the running. ice and the board ice was so deep that they could not force the boat through it. Meantime the storm grew furious. After repeated attempts, all unavailing, they were compell- ed to draw. the boat back upon the running ice. Then, darkness, intervening, they turned the boat up on her 'side to the; windWard and took the shelter it afforded. Thus they passed the night—wet, cold, fatigued and miserable. The small field of ice on which they were stranded was kept constantly in motion by the heaving of the sea; and they durst not sleep, lest it might break up.

On Sunday morning, it was discoveredthat they had drifted ‘

about a mile further from the Island shore and further towards the east. The small stock of provisions the men had brought with-them having. been exhausted on the previous day,‘ Mr. Johnson shared with all in the party a pound of flax seed which Mr. Haszard happened to have in his trunk. Each took his share and partook of it in the course'of the day. Another abortive attempt to reach the Island shore was then made. No sooner had the boat been forced through the field of lolly and the open water been reached than the wind sud-

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