"That means that we shall hear a noise and have cannon-shot whistling about our ears, I suppose." "Shouldn't wonder," said Kit.
"Have to work to hurt us much, I reckon," remarked the captain.

"The distance across the ice-island here can't be much under two miles and a half." "Still, if they've got a rifled Whitworth or an Armstrong, they may send some shots pretty near us," said Wade.
"The English used to kindly send you Southern fellows a few Armstrongs occasionally, I have heard," said Raed.
"Yes, they did,--just by way of testing Lincoln's blockade.

Very good guns they were too.

We ought to have had more of them.

I tell you, if they have a good twenty-four-pound Armstrong rifle, and a gunner that knows anything, they may give us a job of carpenterwork--to stop the holes." "We might increase the distance another quarter of a mile," remarked Kit, "by standing off from the ice and making the circle a little larger." "We'll do so," said the captain.