The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries
by Francis Rolt-Wheeler · English · Gutenberg #21008 · 469,162 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries
Author: Francis Rolt-Wheeler
Release date: April 8, 2007 [eBook #21008]
Most recently updated: January 2, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES ***
Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
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[Illustration: STRIPPING COD AT SEA ON A WINTER MORNING.
Fisheries Bureau Spawn-taker aboard a trawler. Note the snow on the rail,
the frozen spray on the mast, and the ice on the rigging.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
U. S. SERVICE SERIES.
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES
BY
FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
With Fifty-one Illustrations, principally from
Bureaus of the United States Government
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Published, November, 1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
_All rights reserved_
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES
Norwood Press
BERWICK AND SMITH CO.
Norwood, Mass.
U. S. A.
To My Son Roger's Friend
COLIN McLACHLIN
PREFACE
Treasure-ships, bearing richer cargoes than any galleons that crossed
the Spanish Main, still sail over the ocean to-day, but we call them
fishing smacks; heroism equal to that of any of the pioneer navigators
of old still is found beneath oilskins and a sou'wester, but the heroes
give their lives to gain food for the world instead of knowledge; and
the thrilling quest of piercing the mysteries of life has no greater
fascination than when it seeks to probe the unfathomed depths of that
great mistress of mysteries--the Ocean. Just as to save life is greater
than to destroy it, so is the true savior of the seas the Fisheries
craft, not the battleship; so is the hatchery mightier than the
fortress, the net or the microscope a more powerful weapon for good than
the torpedo or the Nordenfeldt.
The Bureau of Fisheries for the United States Government, Mr. Chas.
Frederick Holder and his associates for the anglers of America, and the
sturdy and honorable class of commercial fishermen are raising to the
utmost of dignity and value one of the oldest and greatest of all
industries. Not till the waste of waters is tamed as has been the
wilderness of land will their work be done, and the Fisheries Bureau
must ever remain in the forefront of such endeavor. To reveal the
incalculable riches of this vast domain of rivers, lakes, and seas; to
show the devotion of those whose lives are spent amid its elemental
perils and to point out a way where courage, skill, and youth may find a
road to serve America and all the world beside, is the aim and purpose
of
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
MAROONED BY A WHALE 1
CHAPTER II
THE FIGHT OF THE OLD BULL SEALS 39
CHAPTER III
ATTACKED BY JAPANESE POACHERS 75
CHAPTER IV
CATCHING THE SEA SERPENT 112
CHAPTER V
CLUTCHED BY A HORROR OF THE DEEP 152
CHAPTER VI
DEFEATED BY A SPOTTED MORAY 195
CHAPTER VII
HARPOONING A GIANT SEA VAMPIRE 234
CHAPTER VIII
FINDING A FORTUNE IN A PEARL 278
CHAPTER IX
A TUSSLE WITH THE MONARCH OF THE SEA 314
CHAPTER X
RUN DOWN DURING A SQUALL 359
ILLUSTRATIONS
Stripping Cod at Sea on a Winter Morning _Frontispiece_
Whale Harpoon Gun Loaded } FACING PAGE
Finback Whale Being Struck } 14
Finback Whale Sounding }
Lancing Finback } 28
Pumping Carcass with Air }
Dead Finback Set Adrift }
Spearing Seals at Sea 46
Holluschickie Hauling Up } 64
Old Bull Seals Fighting }
Bull Fur Seal Charging } 78
Snapshotting an Old Beachmaster }
Haul of Herring at Gastineau Channel, Alaska 90
Typical Seal Rookery Half Abandoned 102
Native Salmon Trap } 116
Modern Salmon Trap }
Trout Fry. "Millions of These Hatched Yearly" 128
Hatcheries for Landlocked Salmon 138
Atlantic Salmon Leaping } 146
Pacific Salmon Leaping }
Sea-Serpent Caught by Colin } 154
Sea-Serpent Stranded }
Where the Big Tuna was Caught } 170
The Largest Sunfish }
Octopus Caught at Santa Catalina } 190
Squid Caught at Santa Catalina }
Headquarters of Fisheries Bureau } 202
Largest Seine in World }
The Pool Where the Dog Was Devoured 224
Early Bird Passing the Aquarium 238
The Gorgeous Submarine World } 250
The Gardens of the Sea }
Young Sponge on Cement Disk } 264
Sheepswool Sponge }
Manta or Giant Sea-Devil 276
Winter on the Great Lakes } 284
Winter Work on Inland Streams }
Clamming on the Mississippi } 296
Barge-loads of Mussels }
Landing the Paddle-fish 306
Climbing up the Wheel } 318
Biggest Fresh-water Fish in America }
The Blue Wing at the Fish Trap 328
Hatchery, Woods Hole } 336
Residence, Woods Hole }
"What Shall We Get this Time?" } 346
"Here's a New One, Boys!" }
Catching Swordfish with Rod and Reel 356
Clammer Raking for Quahaugs } 370
Oysterman Tonging }
Testing the Ocean's Crop 378
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES
CHAPTER I
MAROONED BY A WHALE
"There she blows!"
Colin Dare, who was sitting beside the broken whale-gun and who had been
promised that he might go in the boat that would be put out from the
ship if a whale were sighted, jumped to his feet at the cry from the
'barrel' at the masthead.
"Where?" he shouted eagerly, rushing to the rail and staring as hard as
he could at the heaving gray waters of the Behring Sea.
"There she blo-o-ows!" again cried the lookout, in the long echoing call
of the old-time whaler, and stretching out his hand, he pointed to a
spot in the ocean about three points off the starboard bow. Colin's
glance followed the direction, and almost immediately he saw the faint
cloud of vapor which showed that a whale had just spouted.
"Do you suppose that's a whalebone whale, Hank?" asked the boy, turning
to a lithe Yankee sea-dog with a scraggy gray beard who had been busily
working over the mechanism of the whale-gun.
"No sayin'," was the cautious reply, "we're too fur off to be able to
tell yet a while. How fur away do you reckon we be?"
"A mile or two, I suppose," Colin said, "but we ought to catch up with
the whale pretty soon, oughtn't we?"
"That depends," the gunner answered, "on whether the whale's willin' or
not. He ain't goin' to stay, right there."
"But you usually do catch up?"
"If it's a 'right' whale we generally try to, an' havin' steam to help
us out makes a pile o' difference. Now, in the ol' days, I've seen a
dozen whales to wind'ard an' we couldn't get to 'em at all. By the time
we'd beaten 'round to where they'd been sighted, they were gone."
"Well, I hope this is a 'right' whale," Colin said with emphatic
earnestness.
"Why this one 'specially?" the old sailor asked.
"I heard Captain Murchison say that if we came up with a whale while the
gun was out of order, rather than lose a chance, he would send a boat
out in the old-fashioned way."
"An' you want to see how it's done, eh?"
"I got permission to go in the boat!" the boy answered triumphantly,
"and I just can't wait."
"It's the skipper's business, I suppose, but I don't hold with takin'
any chances you don't have to," was the gruff comment, "an' if you'll
take the advice of an old hand at the game you'll keep away."
"But I want to go so much, Hank," came the reply.
"What for?"
"I'm trying to get Father's permission to join the Bureau of Fisheries,"
explained the boy, "and when Captain Murchison started on this trip, I
begged him to let me come. The captain is an old friend of his."
"I'd rather you went in somebody else's boat than mine, then," was the
ungracious response.
"Why, Hank!" exclaimed Colin in surprise, "what a thing to say!"
The old sailor nodded sagely.
"The skipper don't know much more about boat-whalin' than you do," he
said, "that was all done away before his time. He's willin' to tackle
anythin' that comes along, all right, but a whalin' boat is just about
the riskiest thing that floats on water."
"How's that, Hank?" asked the boy. "I always thought they were supposed
to be so seaworthy."
"They may be seaworthy," was the grim reply, "but I never yet saw a
shipwright who'd guarantee to make a boat that'd be whaleworthy."
"But I'm sure I've read somewhere that whales never attacked boats,"
persisted Colin.
"Mebbe," rejoined the gunner, "but I don't believe that any man what
writes about whalin' bein' easy, has ever tried it in a small boat."
"Well," said the boy, "isn't it true that the only time a whale-boat is
smashed up is when the monster threshes around in the death-flurry and
happens to hit the boat with his tail?"
"Not always."
"You mean a whale does sometimes go for a boat, in spite of what the
books say?"
"I never heard that whales cared much about literatoor," the sailor
answered with an attempt at rough humor, "an' anyway, most o' them books
you've been readin', lad, are written about whalin' off Greenland an' in
the Atlantic."
"What difference does that make?" queried Colin. "Isn't a whale the same
sort of animal all the world over?"
"There's all kinds of whales," the gunner said, as though pitying the
boy for his lack of knowledge, "some big an' some little, some good an'
some bad. Now, a 'right' whale, f'r instance, couldn't harm a baby, but
the killers are just pure vicious."
"You mean the orcas?" the boy queried. "Only just the other day Captain
Murchison was talking about them. He called them the wolves of the sea,
and said they were the most daring hunters among all things that swim."
"Sea-tigers, some calls 'em," the other agreed, "an' they're fiercer
than any wolves I've ever heard about, but I never saw any of 'em
attackin' a boat. I have seen as many as twenty tearin' savagely at a
whale that was lyin' alongside a ship an' was bein' cut up by the crew.
The California gray whale--the devil-whale is what he really is--looks a
lot worse to me than a killer. He's as ugly-tempered as a spearfish, as
vicious as a man-eatin' shark, as tricky as a moray, an' about as
relentless as a closin' ice-floe."
"There she blo-o-ows!" came the cry again from the crow's-nest.
Hank, looking over the side, caught sight of the spout and, with a twist
of the shoulder, walked aft to the first boat.
"I'm going, too," Colin reminded him.
The old whaler looked at him thoughtfully and disapprovingly.
"Orders is orders," he said at last, "an' if the skipper said you could
go, why, I reckon that ends it. An' if you're goin' anyway, you're safer
in the big boat than in the 'prams.' Tumble in."
Colin clambered into the double-ended boat with its high prow and stern
and settled himself down excitedly.
"I never really believed I'd get the chance to see any whale-spearing,"
he said. "Whaling with a cannon is only a make-believe. Now, this is
something like!"
"Foolishness I calls it," put in one of the younger sailors. "Why don't
the skipper put in somewhere an' get the gun put to rights? An' Hank is
just as likely to fix that gun so as he'll blow some of us up with it
when he does get it goin'."
"Always croakin', Gloomy," said the old gunner. "Blowin' you up would be
no great loss. You'd ought to be glad to see what whalin' was like when
your betters was at it."
"I'm glad," said Colin, as he pulled steadily at his long oar, "that we
did wrench the gun-frame when that heavy sea came aboard."
"I don't see it," said the gunner; "mebbe you'll think presently that
you'd ha' done better to be satisfied with readin' about whalin' in
those books of yours."
"Well, it got me the chance to see the fun!" responded Colin.
"That wouldn't have been enough to start this business a-goin' if it
hadn't been that the _Gull_ was an old whalin'-ship before they put
steam into her. The little bits of whalin'-steamers they build now only
carry a little pram or two, nothin' like this boat you're in now. The
_Gull's_ one of the old-timers."
"She hails from New Bedford, doesn't she?"
"She took the Indian Ocean whalin' in the sixties an' came round the
Horn every season in the seventies," Hank replied; "an' there's not
many of her build left. Easy with that oar, Gloomy," he added, speaking
to the melancholy sailor, who was splashing a good deal in his stroke,
"an' avast talkin', all."
Swiftly, but with oars dipping almost noiselessly, the boat slipped up
to where the two whales were floating whose spouts had been seen from
the ship. The sea was tinged with pink from the masses of shrimp-food
which had attracted the whales, and the great creatures were feeding
quietly. The surface was not rough, but there was a long, slow roll
which tossed the boat about like a cork. Presently Hank, who was in the
stern, held up one hand.
"Hold your starboard oars," he said quietly; "we'll back up to this
largest one."
This near approach to the whales was too much for Gloomy's nerves.
Instead of merely holding his long sweep steady in the water so that the
stroke of the port oars would bring the boat around, he tried to make a
long backward drive. As he reached back, the boat mounted sidewise on a
swell, leaving Gloomy clawing at the air with his oar; then, the boat as
suddenly swooped down with a rush, burying the oar almost to the
row-locks; it caught Gloomy under the chin and all but knocked him
overboard. The splash and the shout distracted Hank's attention for a
second, and when he looked round a swirl of water was all that remained
to show where the whales had been.
"I told you what it would be!" said Gloomy, picking himself up and
speaking in an injured tone, as though he blamed everybody else for his
own carelessness.
His protests, however, were silenced by a steady stream of descriptive
epithet from Hank. The old gunner, without even raising his voice,
withered any possible reply on the part of the clumsy sailor, whose
inexpertness had caused their failure to get the whale.
"They were only humpbacks, however," added Hank, after Gloomy had been
reduced to silence. Indeed, so shamefaced was the luckless sailor, that
when he saw a spout a minute or two later he only pointed with his
finger, without saying a word.
Noticing the gesture, Colin turned and saw with amazement a tall jet of
vapor that had spouted from a whale close by. He looked at Hank
expectantly, hoping to hear him spur the crew to a new venture, but the
old whaler looked grave.
"Finback?" the boy queried.
"Gray whale, I reckon," answered the gunner.
"Devil-whale? Oh, Hank!" the boy cried, his eyes shining with
excitement. "I hope it is!"
"That shows how little you know," the other replied.
"Are you going to harpoon him?"
Hank looked at the boy, smiling slightly at his utter fearlessness.
"I wish you were aboard the ship," he said, "an' I would. But I reckon
it's wiser to keep out of trouble."
"But I don't want to be on the _Gull_," Colin protested; "at least not
when there's anything going on out here. And," he added craftily, "I
didn't think you were really afraid!"
"Wa'al," the old whaler said, his jaw setting firmly, "I don't want
anybody to think I'm backin' down, just because I'm in a boat again. But
I tell you straight, I don't like it. Gloomy," he continued, "an' the
rest of you, stand by your oars. That's a gray whale an' I'm goin' after
him."
"How do you know it's a California whale, Hank?" asked the boy, as they
waited for the creature to reappear.
"By the spout," was the prompt reply. "It's not as high an' thin as a
finback's, it's not large enough for the low, bushy spout of a humpback,
an' it goes straight up instead of at a forward angle so it can't be a
sperm. Must be a gray whale, can't be anythin' else."
For a few minutes the men rested on their oars, and Colin grew restless.
"Why doesn't he come up again?" he said impatiently. "First thing we
know he'll be out of sight!"
The old whaler smiled again at the lad's eagerness.
"While the gray is the fastest swimmer of all the whales," he said, "you
needn't be afraid that we'll lose sight of him. Most whales swim very
slow, not much faster than a man can walk."
"There he is," called another of the sailors, pointing to a spout three
or four hundred yards away.
"All right, boys," Hank said, "he's makin' towards the shore."
The long oars bit into the water again and Colin was glad to feel the
boat moving, for it rolled fearfully on the long heaving swell. But with
six good oars and plenty of muscle behind them, the little craft was
not long in reaching the place where the 'slick' on the water showed
that the whale had come up to breathe and then dived again. Acting under
the gunner's orders the crew rested on their oars a short distance
beyond the place where the whale had sounded. Presently, a couple of
hundred yards from the boat, on the starboard side, the whale came up to
spout, evidently having turned from the direction in which it had been
slowly traveling, and the rowers made for the new objective. This time
there was another long wait.
"How long do they stay down, Hank?" asked the boy.
"No reg'lar rule about it," the whaler answered; "sometimes for quite a
while, but I reckon ten to fifteen minutes is about the usual. Some of
'em can stay down a long while sulkin' when they've got a harpoon or two
in 'em, but I reckon three-quarters of an hour would be about the
limit."
Again the boat sped onward, this time without any order from Hank, for
all hands had seen the whale not more than fifty yards away, and Hank
grasped the shoulder harpoon-gun. But before the boat could reach the
whale and turn stern on so as to give the gunner a good chance for a
shot, the whale had 'sounded' or dived.
"Next time," said Hank quietly, and told Scotty, one of the sailors, to
clear away the first few coils of the rope in the barrel and make sure
that it was free from tangles.
Colin noticed that the three places where the whale had spouted formed a
slight arc and that Hank was directing the boat along a projection of
this curve, so he was quite ready when a command came to stop rowing.
Then, at the whaler's orders, the boat was swung round and the men held
their oars ready to back-water.
The place could not have been picked out with greater accuracy if the
whaler had known the exact spot where the big cetacean was going to
appear. Within thirty feet of the boat the water began to swirl and
boil.
"He's right there!" said Colin with a thrill of expectation not wholly
devoid of fear.
In obedience to a wave of the old whaler's hand, the boat went astern
slowly and fifteen seconds later the great back appeared near the
surface and the monster 'blew,' his pent-up breath escaping suddenly
when he was still a foot below the surface, and driving up a column of
mixed water and air, the roar sounding like steam from a pipe of large
size.
"Stand by the line, Scotty!" shouted Hank, as he raised the clumsy
harpoon-gun to his shoulder.
The sailor who had been standing near the barrel nodded, as he drew his
sheath-knife from its sheath, holding it between his teeth, ready to cut
the line should a tangle occur, but keeping his hands free to attend to
the coils of rope. To Colin the seconds were as years while the old
whaler held the gun raised and did not fire. It seemed to the boy as if
he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the
exact moment, and just as the whale was about to 'sound' the back heaved
up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining
that it was a devil-whale in truth; at that instant Hank fired.
With the sudden pang of the harpoon the whale gave an upward leap for a
dive and plunged, throwing the flukes of the tail and almost a third of
his body out of water, and sounded to the bottom, taking down line at a
tremendous speed. The line ran clear, Scotty watching every coil, and
though the heavy rope was soaking wet, it began to smoke with the
friction as it ran over the bow.
[Illustration: WHALE HARPOON GUN LOADED AND BEING TURNED SO AS TO POINT
AT THE WHALE.
_Photograph by permission of Mr. Roy C. Andrews._]
[Illustration: FINBACK WHALE BEING STRUCK WITH THE HARPOON; THE INSTANT
OF DISCHARGE.
A remarkable photograph, scores of plates having been used in the effort
to catch the exact moment. Note the wadding in the air, the smoke, the
head of the harpoon, and the slick on the water as the whale sounded.
_Photograph by permission of Mr. Roy C. Andrews._]
"Fifty fathom!" cried Scotty, as the line flew out.
"Sixty!" he called a moment later, and then, immediately after,
"Seventy--and holding!"
As the pressure of the brake on the line tightened, the boat began to
tear through the water, still requiring the paying out of the rope. For
an instant it slackened and the winch reeled in a little line. There was
a sudden jerk and then the line fell slack. Working like demons, the men
made the winch handles fairly fly as the line came in, and within
another minute the whale spouted, blowing strongly and sounding again.
He sulked at the bottom for over twenty minutes, coming up suddenly
quite near the boat. Scotty had lost no time, and not more than
thirty-five fathom of line was out when the monster rose.
"He's a big un, Hank!" called Scotty. "Want the other line?"
"Got it!" was the brief reply, and Colin saw that the harpoon-gun had
been reloaded.
"Sounding again!" called Scotty as the rope fell slack.
"No!" yelled Hank. "Stand by, all!"
Then suddenly:
"Back oars! Back, you lubbers! Hard as you know how!"
The oars bent like yew-staves.
"Back starboard! Hard!"
With the blood rushing to his brain, Colin, who was on the starboard
side of the boat, threw his whole energy into the back stroke, and the
boat spun round like a top into what seemed to be the seething center of
a submarine volcano, for, with a roar that made the timbers of the boat
vibrate, the gray whale spouted not six feet from where the boy was
sitting. Dimly he saw the harpoon hurtle through the spray and the sharp
crack of the explosion sounded in his ear.
Catching his breath chokingly, Colin was only conscious of the fact that
he was expected to pull and he leapt into the stroke as the six oars
shot the boat ahead.
Not soon enough, though! For, as the boat plunged from the crest of a
wave the whale swirled, making a suction like a whirlpool into which the
craft lurched drunkenly. Then the great creature, turning with a speed
that seemed incredible, brought down the flukes of his tail in the
direction of the boat, snapping off the stroke oar like a pipe-stem.
Avidsen, the oarsman, a burly Norwegian, though his wrist was sharply
and painfully wrenched by the blow, made no complaint, but reached out
for one of the spare oars the boat always carried.
Colin was not so calm. Despite his courage, the shock of that tremendous
tail striking the water within arm's-length of the boat had shaken his
nerve, and the sudden drenching with the icy waters of Behring Sea had
taken his breath away. But he was game and stuck to his oar. Looking at
Hank, he saw that the old fighter of the seas had dropped the
harpoon-gun and was holding poised the long lance.
This was hunting whales with a vengeance!
The monster had not sounded but was only gathering fury, and in a few
seconds he came to the surface with a rush, charging straight for the
boat.
"Stand by to pull," said Hank quietly.
The two forward oars, watching, dipped lightly and moved the boat a yard
or two, then waited, their oars in the water and arms extended for the
stroke. Colin would have given millions, if he had possessed them, to
pull his oar, to do something to get away from the leviathan charging
like an avenging fury for the little boat. But Hank stood motionless.
Another second and Colin could almost feel the devil-whale plunging
through the frail craft, when Scotty suddenly yelled,
"Pull!"
As Scotty yelled, Colin vaguely--for everything seemed reeling about
him--saw Hank lunge with the long steel lance. The suction half whirled
the boat round, but the whale sounded a little, coming up to the surface
forty feet away and spouting hollowly. Even to the boy's untrained ear
there was a difference, and when he noticed that blood was mixed with
the vapor thrown out from the blowhole, his hope revived. The second
rush of the whale was easily avoided, and Hank thrust in the lance
again. Then, for the first time, the old whaler permitted himself to
smile, a long, slow smile.
"That's the way it used to be done in the old days!" he said, with just
a shade of triumph in his voice. "Pull away a little, boys, to be clear
of the flurry. Have you a buoy ready, Scotty?"
The sailor nodded.
"There won't be much of a flurry, Hank," he said; "you got the lungs
with the lance both times."
The old whaler looked at Colin, who was a little white about the lips.
"Scared you, I reckon?" he said. "You don't need to feel bad over that.
Any one's got a right to be scared when a whale's chargin' the boat.
I've been whalin' for nigh on forty-five years an' that's only the
second devil-whale I've ever killed with a hand-lance. He pretty near
caught us with his flukes that first time, too!"
"Guess that's the end of him," said Scotty, as the big animal beat the
air with his tail, the slap of the huge flukes throwing up a fountain of
spray.
"That's the end," agreed Hank.
Almost with the word the great gray whale turned, one fin looming above
the water as he did so, and sank heavily to the bottom, the buoy which
had been attached to the harpoon-line by Scotty showing where he sank,
so that the ship could pick up the carcass later.
"How big do you suppose that whale was?" queried the boy as they started
to pull back to the ship.
"'Bout forty-five foot, I reckon," was the reply, "an' we ought to get
about twenty barrels of oil out of him."
"That ought to help some," said Colin, "and you see my coming didn't
hurt anything. Just think if I had missed all that fun!"
"It turned out all right," the old whaler said, "but I tell you it was a
narrow squeak. They'll have been worryin' on board, though, if any one
has been able to see that we were hitched up to a gray whale."
"Isn't there any danger with other whales?"
"Wa'al, you've got to know how to get at 'em, of course. But all you've
got to do is to keep out o' the way. There's no whale except the
California whale that'll charge a boat. I did know one chap that was
killed by a humpback, but that was because the whale come up suddenly
right under the boat and upset it--they often do that--an' when one of
the chaps was in the water the whale happened to give a slap with his
tail an' the poor fellow was right under it."
Colin was anxious to start the old whaler on some yarns of the early
days, but as the boat was nearing the ship he decided to wait for an
opportunity when there would be more time and the raconteur would have
full leeway for his stories.
"Forty-five-footer, sir," called Hank, as they came up to the ship.
"Gray devil, sir."
The captain lifted his eyebrows in surprise, for he had not thought of a
California whale so far north, but he answered in an offhand way:
"More sport than profit in that. Did you have a run for your money,
Colin?"
"I certainly did, Captain Murchison," the boy answered.
"All right, tell me about it some time. Hank, you're on board just in
the nick of time. I found out what the trouble was with the carriage of
the gun and repaired it while you were amusing yourselves out there. Get
in lively, now, there's work to do."
The men scrambled on board rapidly, and the boat was up in the davits in
less than a minute, while the yards were braced round, and under sail
and steam the _Gull_ headed north.
"There's four whales in sight, Hank," said the captain; "humpbacks, I
think, and two of them big ones."
"If they'll bunch up like that, sir," the gunner said, "we may make a
good trip out of it yet."
"I hope so," the skipper answered, and turning on his heel, he went to
the poop. Thither Colin followed him and told him all the story of the
whale. The captain, who was an old friend of Colin's father when they
both lived in a lumbering town in northern Michigan, was greatly taken
aback when he found how dangerous the boat-trip had been, but he did not
want to spoil the boy's vivid memories of the excitement.
"I suppose," he said, "that you want to go out as gunner next time."
Colin shook his head.
"I'm generally willing to try anything, Captain Murchison," he replied,
"but I'm content to let Hank look after that end."
"Hank's an unusual man," the captain said quietly. "I rather doubt if
any other man on the Pacific Coast could have won out with a gray whale.
I'd rather have him aboard than a lot of mates I know, and as a gunner,
of course, he's a sort of petty officer."
The canvas began to shake as the boat turned on its course after the
whales, catching the skipper's eye, and he roared out orders to shorten
sail.
"Clew up fore and main to'gans'ls," he shouted; "take in the tops'ls.
Colin, you go and furl the fore to'gans'l, and if the men are still busy
on the tops'l yards, pass the gaskets round the main to'gans'l as well."
"Aye, aye, sir," the boy answered readily, for he enjoyed being aloft,
and he clambered up the shrouds to the fore-topgallant yard and furled
the sail, taking a pride in having it lie smooth and round on the top of
the yard.
"What's the difference between a 'finback' and a 'humpback,' Hank?"
asked the boy, after the canvas had been stowed, the vessel under
auxiliary steam having speed enough to keep up with the cetaceans, "are
they 'right' whales?"
"Neither of 'em," the gunner replied: "there's two kinds of right whale,
the bowhead and the black, and both have fine whalebone, an' that, as
you know, is a sort of strainer in the mouth that takes the place of
teeth. Humpbacks an' finbacks are taken for oil, an' they look quite
different. A humpback is more in bulk an' has only a short fin on the
back, it's a clumsy beast an' throws the flukes of the tail out of the
water in soundin'. Now, a finback is built more for speed an' has a big
fin on the back--that's where it gets its name. The big sulphurbottom is
a kind of finback, an' is the largest animal livin'. I've seen one
eighty-five feet long!"
"Where does the sperm whale come in?" asked Colin.
"It's got teeth, like the gray whale," was the reply, "but you never
find it in cold water. Sperm whalin' is comin' into favor again. But
those two over there--the ones we're after, are finbacks. You can tell
by the spout, by the fin, by not seein' the flukes of the tail, an' by
the way they play around, slappin' each other in fun."
Three hours were spent in the fruitless chase after this little group of
whales. Then Hank, who had been standing in the bow beside the gun,
watching every move of the cetacean during the afternoon, suddenly
signaled with his hand for "full speed astern," by this maneuver
stopping the ship squarely, as a whale--a medium-sized finback--came up
right under the vessel's bow. The reversed screws took the craft astern
so as to show the broad back about twenty-five feet away, and Hank
fired.
The crashing roar of the harpoon-gun was followed by a swirl as the
whale sounded for a long dive, but a moment later there came a dull,
muffled report from the water, the explosive head of the harpoon, known
as the 'bomb,' having burst. For a minute or two there was no sound but
the swish of the line and the clank of the big winch as it ran out,
while the animal sank to the bottom. There was a moment's wait, and
then Hank, seeing the line tauten and hang down straight, called back:
"We can haul in, sir; I got him just right."
Compared to the excitement of the chase in the open boat this seemed
very tame to Colin, and he said so to the captain, when he went aft,
while the steam-winch gradually drew up the finback whose end had come
so suddenly.
"My boy," was the reply, "I'm not whaling for my health. Other people
have a share in this, besides myself and the crew, and what they're
after is whales--not sport. The business isn't what it was; in the old
days whale-oil was worth a great deal and whaling was a good business.
Then came the discovery of petroleum and the Standard Oil Company soon
found out ways of refining the crude product so that it took the place
of whale-oil in every way and at a cheaper price."
"But I thought whalebone was what you were after!" said Colin in
surprise.
"It was for a time," the captain answered, "after the oil business gave
out. But within the last ten years there have been so many substitutes
for whalebone that its value has gone down. There's a lot of whalebone
stored in New Bedford warehouses that can't be sold except at a loss."
"Well, if the oil is replaced and whalebone has no value, what is to be
got out of whaling now, then?" the boy queried.
"Oil again," was the reply; "for fine lubricating work there's nothing
as good. It's queer, though, how things have changed around. Fifty years
ago, New Bedford was the greatest whaling port in the world, ten years
ago there wasn't a ship there, they had all gone to San Francisco. Now
'Frisco is deserted by whalers, and the few in the business have gone
back to the old port."
In the meantime, while Colin had been telling the story of the adventure
with the gray whale, and the captain had been bemoaning the decay of the
whaling industry, the work of bringing the dead whale to the surface had
been under way. Letting out more slack on the rope attached to the
harpoon a bight of it was passed through a sheave-block at the masthead,
thus giving a greater purchase for the lifting of the heavy body. The
winch was run by a small donkey-engine, and for about ten minutes the
line was hauled in, fathom after fathom being coiled on the deck.
Presently, as Colin looked over the rail, the dark body of the whale
was seen coming to the surface, and as he was hauled alongside a chain
was thrown around his flukes, and the body was made fast to the vessel,
tail foremost.
Just as soon as the whale was secured a sailor jumped on the body,
carrying with him a long steel tube, pierced with a number of holes for
several inches from the bottom. To this he attached a long rubber tube,
while the other end was connected with a small air-pump. The ever-handy
donkey-engine was used to work the pump, and the body of the whale was
slowly filled with air in the same way that a bicycle tire is inflated.
"What's that for?" asked Colin, who had been watching the process with
much curiosity.
"So that he will float," the captain answered. "You can't tow a whale
that's lying on the bottom!"
"But I thought you were going to cut him up!"
"And boil down the blubber on board?"
"Yes."
"That's very seldom done now," the captain explained. "In the old days,
when whaling-ships went on three and four year voyages they 'fleshed'
the blubber at sea and boiled it down or 'tried it out,' as they called
it, into oil. They always carried a cooper along, too, and made their
own barrels, so that after a long voyage a ship would come back with her
hold full of barrels of whale-oil."
"What's the method now, Captain Murchison?" asked Colin.
"Nearly all whaling is done by steamers and not very far from the coast,
say within a day's steaming. We catch the whales, blow them out in the
way you see the men doing now, and tow them to the nearest 'trying out'
factory. These places have conveniences that would be impossible on
shipboard, they get a better quality of oil, and they use up all the
animal, getting oil out of the meat as well as the blubber. Then the
flesh is dried and sold for fertilizer just as the bones are. The fins
and tail are shipped to Japan for table delicacies. Even the water in
which the blubber has been tried out makes good glue. So, you see, it
pays to tow a whale to the factory. And besides, the smell of trying out
on one of the old whalers was horrible beyond description."
During this explanation the huge carcass of the whale had been distended
to almost twice its natural size, and now it floated high out of the
water. The steel tube was pulled out and a buoy with a flag was
attached to the whale, which was then set adrift to be picked up and
towed to the factory later.
[Illustration: FINBACK WHALE SOUNDING.]
[Illustration: LANCING FINBACK: GIVING THE DEATH-BLOW.]
[Illustration: PUMPING CARCASS WITH AIR SO THAT IT WILL FLOAT.]
[Illustration: DEAD FINBACK SET ADRIFT WITH BUOY AND FLAG.
_All Photos by permission of Mr. Roy C. Andrews._]
Almost immediately the "tink-tink" of the bell of the signaler to the
engine-room told that the ship was headed after another whale. The sea
was rising and the wind was beginning to whistle through the rigging.
Colin felt well satisfied that the canvas was stowed and that he would
not have to go aloft during the night. The evening light, however, was
still good enough for a shot, and Hank, at the bow, was swinging the
heavy gun from side to side on its stand to assure himself that it was
in good condition.
Owing to the approaching darkness, there was no time to wait for an
exact shot, and Hank fired at the big finback on the first opportunity.
The ship was rolling and pitching, however, and the harpoon, instead of
striking the big whale, went clear over her and into the water beyond,
crashing into the side of a little calf whale not more than sixteen feet
long, the weapon going almost through him.
Apparently unconscious of what had happened to her baby, the mother
whale sounded and sounded deep, not coming up for nearly twenty
minutes. When she rose, she was at least a quarter of a mile away, and
Colin, who was standing by Hank in the bow, wondered why the ship did
not go in pursuit.
"Why don't we chase her up?" he asked.
"She'll come lookin' for her calf," the old whaler answered, "an' as
long as we stay near that she'll come up to us. Lots of whalers shoot
the calves a-purpose, makin' it easier to get the old whales, but I
don't hold with that. I've never done it. Shootin' this one was just an
accident, but as long as the little chap is dead anyhow, we might as
well make use of him."
Just as the old whaler had predicted, in less than five minutes the
mother whale spouted, coming in the direction of the vessel. In less
than five minutes more she spouted again, just a little distance from
the calf. Not understanding what had happened, she swam around as though
to persuade the little one to follow her, and as she circled round the
calf she came within range of the harpoon-gun. It was far too dark to
see clearly, but Hank chanced a shot. The sudden roar startled Colin.
"Did you get her?" he asked anxiously.
"I hit her, all right," the gunner answered with a dissatisfied air,
"but not just where I wanted."
The boy thought it wonderful that he should have been able to hit the
monster at all, so small a portion of the body was exposed and so
heavily was the _Gull_ pitching. The whale, instead of sounding
directly, dived at a sharp angle and the line ran out like lightning.
"What's that, Hank?" asked Colin in a startled voice, pointing over to
the water just below the little calf, which had been hauled in by hand
alongside the ship.
"Killers, by all that's holy!" ejaculated the whaler. "They'll get every
blessed whale we've landed to-day. Did you ever see such luck!"
"What are they after?" asked Colin, "the calf whale?"
"Yes, or any other of 'em. See, the mother has smelt 'em and knows they
mean harm for the baby."
It was growing dark and Colin leaned over the rail to see. Suddenly up
from the deep, with a rush as of a pack of maddened hounds, ten or a
dozen ferocious creatures, from fifteen to twenty feet in length,
snatched and bit and tore at the body of the baby whale. A big white
spot behind each eye looked like a fearful organ of vision, their white
and yellowish undersides and black backs flashed and gleamed and the big
fins cut the water like swords. The huge curved teeth gleamed in the
reddened water as the 'tigers of the sea' lashed round, infuriated with
lust for blood.
Then with a violent gesture of reminder, as though he had forgotten that
which was of prime importance, Hank took a few quick steps to the rope
that held fast the baby whale to the ship and cut it with his
sheath-knife.
"What's that for?" said Colin.
"Let's get away from here," Hank replied, and signaled to go ahead.
As he did so, the mother whale caught sight of the remains of the body
of the little one sinking through the water and dashed for it. Colin
could have shouted with triumph in the hope that vengeance would be
served out upon the orcas, but he was not prepared for the next turn in
the tragedy. Like a pack of ravening wolves the killers hurled
themselves at the mother whale, three of them at one time fastening
themselves with a rending grip upon the soft lower lip, others striking
viciously with their rows of sharp teeth at her eyes. The issue was not
in doubt for a minute. No creature could endure such savage ferocity and
such united attack. The immense whale threshed from side to side, always
round the vessel, which seemed still to carry to her the scent of the
baby whale.
"Has she any chance?" the boy asked, full of pity for the victim of such
rapacity.
"Not the ghost of a chance," the whaler answered.
For a minute or two the whale seemed to have thrown off her demon foes
and turned away, but scarcely a moment was she left alone, for up in
front of her again charged five or six killers, rending and tearing at
her head, and the whale, blinded, gashed in a thousand places and
maddened by fear and pain, fled in the opposite direction.
Colin heard the captain give a wild cry from the poop and felt the
engines stop and reverse beneath him. He cast one glance over the rail
and like every man on board was struck motionless and silent. In the
phosphorescent gleams of the waves churned up by the incredible muscular
power of the killers, the old whale--sixty feet in length at least, and
weighing hundreds of tons--was rushing at a maddened spurt of fifteen
or even twenty miles an hour straight for the vessel's side, where a
blind instinct made her believe her calf still was to be found. There
was a death-like pause and then--a shock.
Almost every man aboard was thrown to the deck, and the vessel heeled
over to starboard until it seemed she must turn turtle. But she righted
herself, heavily and with a sick lurch that spoke of disaster. The
ship's carpenter ran to the pumps and sounded the well.
"Four inches, sir!" he called.
A moment later he dropped the rod again.
"Five and a half inches, sir," he cried, "an' comin' in fast."
It hardly needed the carpenter to tell the story, for the ship had a
heavy list to starboard. In a minute or two the stokers came up from
below and close upon their heels, the engineer.
"The water is close to the fire-boxes, Captain Murchison," he said.
"I know, Mr. Macdonald," the captain answered. "Boat stations!" he
cried.
"I'm thinkin'," the engineer said quietly, looking at the windy sky and
stormy sea, the last streaks of twilight disappearing in the west, "I'm
thinkin' it may be a wee bit cold. Are we far from land, Captain?"
"We're none too close," the skipper said shortly. "Cook," he called,
"are the boats provisioned?"
"Yes, sir," was the reply.
"Water-casks in and filled?"
Every boat reported casks in good condition.
"Sound the well, carpenter."
The sounding-rod was dropped and the wet portion measured.
"Nine inches, sir."
"You've got time to get what you want from below, boys," said the
captain, as soon as the boats were all swung out on the davits; "she
won't go down all of a hurry. Slide into warm clothes, all of you, and
get a move on. Stand by to clear."
He waited a minute or two, then noticed one of the sailors busy on deck.
"What are you doing there, Scotty?" he called out.
"Putting a buoy on the line, sir; she's our whale."
"Looks to me more as though the whale had us, than we had the whale,"
the captain said grimly. "Are you all ready?" he added as the men came
up from the fo'c'sle in oilskins and mittens. "No, there's only fifteen
of you!"
"I'm here, Captain Murchison," spoke up Colin, emerging from the
companion hatch with a heavy pilot coat. "I thought you'd need something
for the boats, too."
The captain nodded his thanks.
"Lower away the whale-boat first," the captain said. "Never mind me,
I'll come along presently. Look alive there! That's the idea, Hank! All
right? Cast off. Lower away the big pram! All right. Get busy on that
small pram, there. Here you, Gloomy, if I have to come down there----!
All ready? Lower away. If you don't manage any better than that you'll
never see land, I can tell you. Cast off."
The _Gull_ was rolling heavily with an uneven drunken stagger that told
how fast she was filling, and the starboard rail was close to the
water's edge. The captain ran his eye over the boats and counted the men
to see that all had embarked safely.
"Don't bring her too close, Hank!" he cried warningly, as he saw the old
whaler edge the boat toward him, and stepping on the poop-rail, he
jumped into the sea. But the gunner, judging accurately the swell of the
waves, brought the boat to the very spot where the captain had struck
the water and hoisted him on board. Without a word he made his way to
the stern and took the tiller.
The boat pulled away a score of strokes or so and then the men rested on
their oars. The sunset colors had faded utterly but a dim after-glow
remained, and overhead a young moon shone wanly through black wisps of
scudding cloud. The _Gull_ sank slowly by the bow.
"She's one of the last of the old-timers," said the captain sadly. "This
was her seventieth whaling season and that's old age for ship as well as
man. I wish, though----"
"What is it, Captain Murchison?" asked Colin.
"Ah, it's nothing, boy," was the reply. "Only we're foolish over things
we love, and the _Gull_ was all that I had left. It's a dark and lonely
death she's having there. I wish----"
"Yes, sir?" the boy whispered.
"I wish she'd had her lights," the captain said, and his hands were
trembling on the tiller, "it's hard to die in the dark."
For a moment Colin had a wild idea of leaping into the sea and swimming
to the sinking craft, and blamed himself bitterly for not having looked
after the port and starboard lights at sundown, as he often did when the
watch on deck was too busy to see to them. He would have given anything
to have done it, rather than to have to sit beside the captain with his
eyes fixed on the desolate unlighted ship! Boy though he was, he nearly
broke down.
"Good-by, _Gull_, good-by," he heard the captain whisper under his
breath.
Then, as if the ache in the boy's heart had been a flame to cross the
sea, it seemed that a tiny spark kindled upon the sinking ship, and the
captain, speechless for the moment, pointed at it.
"Is that a light, boy?" he said hoarsely, "or am I going mad?"
Like a flash, Colin remembered.
"It's the binnacle, sir," he cried; "I lighted it for the man at the
wheel myself."
Solemnly the captain took off his hat.
"It's where the light should be," he said at last, "to shine upon her
course to the very end."
CHAPTER II
THE FIGHT OF THE OLD BULL SEALS
The quick, uneasy pitching of the boat and a sudden dash of ice-cold
spray roused the captain from the fit of abstraction into which the
sinking of his ship had plunged him.
"Step the mast, men," he said; "we've got to make for the nearest land.
It's going to be a dirty night, too."
"Did you want us to put a reef in, sir?" asked the old whaler.
"When I want a sail reefed," the captain answered shortly, "I'll tell
you."
As the mast fell into place and the sail was hoisted, the whale-boat
heeled sharply over and began to cut her way through the water at a good
speed, leaving the two prams far in the rear. The captain, who was
steering mechanically, paid no heed to them, staring moodily ahead into
the darkness. Hank looked around uneasily from time to time, then in a
few moments he spoke.
"The mate's signaling, I think, sir," he said.
Colin looked round but could only just see the outline of the larger of
the two boats, and knew it was too dark to distinguish any motions on
board her. He looked inquiringly at Hank, but the old gunner was
watching the captain.
"What does he want?" questioned the captain angrily.
"Orders, sir, I suppose," the whaler answered.
The captain felt the implied rebuke and looked at him sharply, but
although he was a strict disciplinarian, he knew Hank's worth as a
seaman of experience and kept back the sharp reply which was upon his
lips. Then turning in his seat he realized how rapidly they had sped
away from the boats they were escorting, and said:
"I'll bring her up."
He put the tiller over and brought the whale-boat up into the wind, and
in a few minutes the mate's boat and the smaller pram came alongside.
"Don't you want us to keep together, sir?" cried the mate as soon as he
was within hearing.
"Of course," the captain answered. "You can't keep up, eh?"
"Not in a breeze like this, sir," the mate declared.
"All right, then," was the response; "we'll reef." He nodded to the
gunner and the reef points were quickly tied, thus enabling the three
boats to keep together.
As the night wore on the wind increased until quite a gale was blowing,
and the whale-boat began to plunge into the seas, throwing spray every
time her nose went into it. The oilskins shone yellow and dripping in
the feeble light of a lantern and although it was nearly the end of June
a cold wind whipped the icy spume-drift from the breaking whitecaps.
"Doesn't feel much like summer, Hank!" said Colin, shivering from cold
and fatigue, also partly from reaction following his exciting adventure
with the gray whale.
"Behring Sea hasn't got much summer to boast of," the old whaler
replied; "leastwise not often. You may get one or two hot days, but when
the sun goes down the Polar current gets in its work an' it's cold."
"Where do you suppose we're going, Hank?" the boy asked, with a firm
belief that the old whaler knew everything. "I don't like to bother
Captain Murchison."
"Nor I," the gunner answered, looking toward the stern of the boat;
"let him fight his troubles out alone. As for where we're goin', I don't
know. I can't even see the stars, so I don't know which way we're
headin'."
"Do you suppose we'll strike Alaska?" Colin queried. "Or perhaps the
north of Japan? Say, it would be great if we fetched up at Kamchatka or
somewhere that nobody had ever been before!"
The lad's delight in the thought of landing at some inhospitable
northern island off the coast of Asia was so boyish that in spite of the
discomfort of their present position, the old whaler almost laughed
outright.
"Japan's a long ways south of here," he said. "We'd strike the Aleutian
or the Kuril Islands before we got near there. I reckon we ought to try
for some place on the Alaska coast, but as I remember, the wind was dead
east when we left the _Gull_ an' I don't think it's changed much."
Colin gave a long yawn and then shivered.
"I wouldn't mind being in my berth on the _Gull_!" he said longingly;
"I'm nearly dead with sleep."
"Why don't you drop off?" Hank advised. "There's nothin' you can do to
help. Here, change places with me an' you won't get so much spray."
"But you'll get it then!" the boy protested.
"If I had a dollar for every time I've got wet in a boat," the old
whaler answered, "I wouldn't have to go to sea any more."
He got up and made Colin change places.
"Are you warmer now?" he asked a minute or two later.
"Lots," the boy murmured drowsily, and in a few seconds he was fast
asleep. The old whaler gently drew the boy towards him, so that he would
be sheltered from the wind and spray, and held him safe against the
rolling and pitching of the little boat. The long hours passed slowly,
and Colin stirred and muttered in his dreams, but still he slept on
through all the wild tumult of the night, his head pillowed against Hank
and the old whaler's arm around him.
He wakened suddenly, with a whistling, roaring sound ringing in his
ears. Dawn had broken, though the sun was not yet up, and Colin shivered
with the wakening and the cold, his teeth chattering like castanets. A
damp, penetrating fog enwrapped them. Four of the sailors were rowing
slowly, and the sail had been lowered and furled while he was asleep.
Every few minutes a shout could be heard in the distance, which was
answered by one of the sailors in the whale-boat.
"Where's the mate's boat, Hank?" asked the boy, realizing he had heard
only one shout.
"She got out of hailin' distance, a little while before breakfast," the
other answered, "but that doesn't matter so much, because she can't very
well get lost now."
"But why is the sail down?"
The old whaler held up his hand.
"Do you hear that noise?" he asked.
"Of course I hear it," the boy answered; "that's what woke me up. But
what is it?" he continued, as the roar swelled upon the wind.
"What does it sound like?" the gunner asked him.
The boy listened carefully for a minute or two and then shook his head.
"Hard to say," he answered. "It sounds like a cross between Niagara and
a circus."
Scotty, who had overheard this, looked round.
"That's not bad," he said; "that's just about what it does sound like."
"But what is the cause of it, Hank?" the boy queried again. "I never
heard such a row!"
"Fur seals!" was the brief reply.
"Seals?" said Colin, jumping up eagerly. "Oh, where?"
"Sit down, boy," interrupted the captain sternly; "you'll see enough of
seals before you get home."
"All right, Captain Murchison," Colin answered; "I'm in no hurry to be
home."
In spite of his recent loss the captain could not help a grim smile
stealing over his face at the boy's readiness for adventure, no matter
where it might lead. But he had been a rover in his boyhood himself, and
so he said no more.
"Why, there must be millions of seals to make as much noise as that!"
Colin objected.
"There aren't; at least, not now," was Hank's reply. "There were tens of
millions of fur seals in these waters when I made my first trip out here
in 1860, but they've been killed off right an' left, same as the
buffalo. The government has to protect 'em now, an' there's no pelagic
sealin' allowed at all."
"What's pelagic sealing?" asked Colin.
"Killing seals at sea," the whaler answered. "That's wrong, because you
can't always tell a young male from a female seal in the water, an' the
females ought never to be killed. But you'll learn all about it. Beg
pardon, sir," Hank continued, speaking to the captain, "but by the noise
of the seals those must be either the Pribilof or the Commander
Islands?"
"Pribilof, by my reckoning," the captain answered. "Do you hear anything
of the third boat?"
"No, sir," answered the old whaler, after shouting a loud "Ahoy!" to
which but one answer was returned, "but we'll see her, likely, when the
fog lifts."
"Doesn't lift much here," the captain said. "But with this offshore
wind, they ought to hear the seals three or four miles away."
In the meantime the whale-boat was forging through the water slowly and
the noise of the seals grew louder every minute. The sun was rising, but
the fog was so dense that it was barely possible to tell which was the
east.
"Funny kind of fog," said Colin; "seems to me it's about as wet as the
water!"
"Reg'lar seal fog," Hank replied. "If it wasn't always foggy the seals
wouldn't haul out here, an' anyway, there's always a lot of fog around
a rookery. Must be the breath of so many thousands o' seals, I reckon."
[Illustration: SPEARING SEALS AT SEA.
Pelagic sealing by Aleut natives now forbidden by the governments of the
United States, Great Britain, Russia, and Japan.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
"Pretty things, seals," said the boy.
"Where did you ever see any?" his friend queried.
"Oh, lots of places," Colin answered, "circuses and aquariums and places
like that. I even saw a troupe of them on the stage once, playing ball.
They put up a good game, too."
"Those weren't the real fur seals," Hank replied; "what you saw were the
common hair seals, an' they're not the same at all. You can't keep fur
seals alive in a tank!"
"There are two fur seals in the aquarium of the Fisheries Building at
Washington," interposed the captain, "but those are the only two."
"There!" cried the boy, pointing at the water; "there's one now!"
"You'll see them by hundreds in a few minutes, boy," the captain said.
"I think I make out land."
As he spoke, an eddy of wind blew aside part of the fog, revealing
through the rift a low-lying island. Within a minute the fog had closed
down again, but the glimpse had been enough to give the captain his
bearings. The noise from the seal-rookery had grown deafening, so that
the men had to shout to one another in the boat and presently--and quite
unexpectedly--the boat was in the midst of dozens upon dozens of seals,
throwing themselves out of the water, standing on their hind flippers,
turning somersaults, and performing all manner of antics.
"Why don't we land?" asked Colin, as he noticed that the boat was
running parallel with the shore instead of heading directly for it.
"Land on a seal-rookery?" said Hank. "Haven't you had trouble enough
with whales so far?"
"Would seals attack a boat?" asked Colin in surprise.
"No, you couldn't make 'em," was the instant reply, "but I never heard
of a boat landin' at a rookery. The row would begin when you got
ashore."
Gradually the boat drew closer to the land, as close, indeed, as was
possible along the rocky shore, and then the land receded, forming a
shallow bay flanked by two low hills on one side and one sharper hill on
the other. The captain rolled up his chart and headed straight for the
shore.
"St. Paul, I reckon," said Hank, as the outlines of the land showed
clearly, "but I don't jus' seem to remember it."
"Yes, that's St. Paul," the captain agreed. "It has changed since your
time, Hank. There has been a lot of building since the government took
hold."
"Why, it looks quite civilized!" exclaimed Colin in surprise, as he saw
the well-built, comfortable frame houses and a stone church-spire which
stood out boldly from the hill above the wharf.
"When I first saw St. Paul," said the old whaler, "it looked just about
the way it was when the Russians left it--huts and shacks o' the worst
kind an' the natives were kep' just about half starved."
"It's different nowadays," said the captain as they drew near the wharf,
putting under his arm the tin box that held the ship's papers. "The
Aleuts are regular government employees now and they have schools and
good homes and fair wages. Everything is done to make them comfortable.
I was here last year and could hardly believe it was the same settlement
I saw fifteen years ago."
It was still early morning when the boat was made fast to the wharf, and
Colin was glad to stretch his legs after having slept in a cramped
position all night. The damp fog lay heavily over everything, but the
villagers had been aroused and the group of sailors was soon surrounded
by a crowd, curious to know what had happened. Hank, who could speak a
'pigeon' language of mixed Russian and Aleut, was the center of a group
composed of some of the older men, while Colin graphically described to
all those who knew English (the larger proportion) the fight with the
gray whale, and told of the sinking of the _Gull_ by the big finback,
maddened by the attack of the killers. He had just finished a stirring
recital of the adventures when the other two boats from the _Gull_
loomed up out of the fog and made fast to the wharf.
Hearing that the only breakfast the shipwrecked men had been able to get
was some cold and water-soaked provender from the boat, two or three of
the residents hurried to their homes on hospitable errands bent, and in
a few minutes most of the men were thawing out and allaying the pangs of
hunger with steaming mugs of hot coffee and a solid meal. So, when the
captain came looking for Colin that he might take him to the Fisheries
agent's house, he found the lad--who was thoroughly democratic in his
ways--breakfasting happily with the sailors and recounting for the
second time the thrills and perils of the preceding day.
Rejoining the captain an hour or so later at the house to which he had
been directed, Colin was effusively greeted by the assistant to the
agent, a young fellow full of enthusiasm over the work the Bureau of
Fisheries was doing with regard to fur seals. A natural delicacy had
kept him from troubling Captain Murchison, but as soon as he discovered
that Colin was interested in the question and anxious to find out all he
could about seals, he hailed the opportunity with delight.
"I've just been aching for a chance to blow off steam," he said. "It's
an old story to the people here. Obviously! I don't think they half
realize how worth while it all is. I'm glad to have you here," he
continued, "not only so that we can help you after all your dangers, but
so that I can show you what we do."
"I'm still more glad to be here," Colin replied, after thanking him.
"I've been trying to persuade Father to let me join the Bureau, but this
is such an out-of-the-way place that I never expected to be able to see
it for myself."
"It is a little out of the way," the official replied. "But in some
ways, I think it's the most important place in the entire world so far
as fisheries are concerned. It's the one strategic point for a great
industry. Of course!"
"Why is it so important, Mr. Nagge?" Colin queried. "Just because of the
seals, or are there other fisheries here?"
"Just seals," was the reply, in the jerky speech characteristic of the
man. "Greatest breeding-place in the world. You'll see. Nothing like it
anywhere else. And, what's more, it's almost the last. This is the only
fort left to prevent the destruction not of a tribe--but of an entire
species in the world of life. Certainly!"
"Calling it a fort seems strange," Colin remarked.
"Well, isn't it? It's the heroic post, the forlorn hope, the last stand
of the battle-line," the Fisheries enthusiast replied. "All the nations
of the world were deliberately allowing all the fur seals to be killed
off. Uncle Sam stopped it. It's not too late yet. The Japanese
seal-pirates must be exterminated absolutely! Could you run a ranch if
every time a steer or cow got more than three miles away from the corral
anybody could come along and shoot it? Of course not. Obviously!"
"But this isn't a ranch!"
"Why not? Same principle," the assistant agent answered. "Ranchers breed
cattle in hundreds or thousands. We breed seals in hundreds of
thousands; yes, in millions. And a fur seal is worth more than a steer.
Oh, yes!"
"Do seals breed as largely still?" Colin asked in surprise.
"Would if they had the chance," was the indignant answer. "Undoubtedly
millions and millions have been killed in the last fifty years. Takes
time to build up, too! Only one baby seal is born at a time. A run-down
herd can't increase so very fast. But we're getting there. Certainly!"
"Our gunner was telling me," Colin said, "that killing seals at sea was
the cause of all the trouble."
"Yes. Lately. Before that, rookery after rookery had been visited and
every seal butchered. Old and young alike. No mercy. Worst kind of
cruelty."
"But hasn't the sea trouble been stopped?" queried the boy. "I thought
it had, but you said something just now about seal-pirates."
"Stopped officially," his informant said. "Can't kill a seal in the
ocean, not under any consideration. That is, by law. Not in American
waters. Nor in Russian waters. Nor in Japanese waters. Nor in the open
sea. International agreement determines that. Of course. But lots of
people break laws. Obviously! Big profit in it. There's a lot of killing
going on still. Stop it? When we can!"
"But how about killing them on land?" Colin asked. "You do that, I know,
because I've read that the Bureau of Fisheries even looks after the
selling of the skins. While it may be all right, it looks to me as
though you were killing them off, anyhow. What's the good of saving them
in the water if you wipe them out when they get ashore."
"You don't understand!" his friend said. "Got anything to do right now?"
"Not so far as I know," Colin answered.
"You've had breakfast?"
"Yes, thanks," the boy answered, "and I tell you it tasted good after a
night in the boat."
"Come over to the rookery," the assistant agent said. "I'm going. I
count the seals every day. That is, as nearly as I can. Tell you all
about it. If you like, we'll go on to the killing grounds afterwards.
Yes? Put on your hat."
Colin realized that his host seldom had a listener, and as he was really
anxious to learn all that he could about the fur seals, these creatures
that kept up the deafening roar that sounded like Niagara, he followed
interestedly.
"Looks a little as if it might clear," he suggested, as they left the
house. "We could stand some sunshine after this fog."
The other shook his head.
"Don't want sunshine," he said. "Fog's much better."
"What for?" asked Colin in surprise. "Why should any one want fog rather
than sunshine?"
"Fur seals do," was the emphatic response. "No seals on any other groups
of islands in the North Pacific. Just here and Commander Islands. Why?"
"Because they are foggier than others?" hazarded Colin at a guess.
"Exactly. Fur seals live in the water nearly all year. Water is colder
than air. Seals are warm-blooded animals, too--not like fish. They've
got to keep out the cold."
"Is that why they have such fine fur?"
"Obviously. And," the Fisheries official continued, "under that close
warm fur they have blubber. Lots of it."
"Blubber like whales?"
"Just the same. Fur and blubber keeps 'em warm in the cold water. Too
much covering for the air. Like wearing North Pole clothing at the
Equator. If the sun comes out they just about faint. On bright days the
young seals make for the water. Those that have to stay on the rookery
lie flat on their back and fan themselves. Certainly! Use their flippers
just the way a woman uses a regular fan. See 'em any time."
Colin looked incredulously at his companion.
"I'm not making it up," the other said. "They fan themselves with their
hind flippers, too. Just as easy."
"I think they must be the noisiest things alive," said Colin, putting
his fingers in his ears as they rounded the point and the full force of
the rookery tumult reached them.
"The row never stops," the assistant agent admitted. "Just as much at
night as daytime. Seals are used to swimming under water where light is
dimmer. Darkness makes little difference. Seemingly! Don't notice it
after a while."
"The queer part of it is," the boy said, listening intently, "that there
seem to be all sorts of different noises. It's just as I said coming
into the bay, it sounds like a menagerie. I'm sure I can hear sheep!"
"Can't tell the cry of a cow fur seal from the bleating of an old
sheep," was the reply. "The pup seal 'baa-s' just like a lamb, too.
Funny, sometimes. On one of the smaller islands one year we had a flock
of sheep. Caused us all sorts of trouble. The sheep would come running
into the seal nurseries looking for their lambs when they heard a pup
seal crying. The lambs would mistake the cry of the cow seal for the
bleating of their mothers."
"Why do you call the mother seal a cow seal?" asked the boy.
"Usual name," was the reply.
"Then why is a baby seal a pup?" asked Colin bewildered. "I should think
it ought to be called a calf!"
The Fisheries official laughed.
"Seal language is the most mixed-up lingo I know," he said. "Mother
seal is called a 'cow,' yet the baby is called a 'pup.' The cow seals
are kept in a 'harem,' which usually means a group of wives. The whole
gathering is called a 'rookery,' though there are no rooks or other
birds around. The big 'bull' seals are sometimes called 'Sea-Catches' or
'Beachmasters.' The two-year-olds and three-year-olds are called
'Bachelors.' The 'pups,' too, have their 'nurseries' to play in."
But Colin still looked puzzled.
"Our gunner was talking about 'holluschickie'?" he said. "Are those a
different kind of seal?"
"No," was the reply, "that's the old Russian-native name for bachelors.
There are a lot of native words for seals, but we only use that one and
'kotickie' for the pups."
"If the cow seals bleat," said Colin, "and the pups 'baa' like a lamb,
what is the cry of the beachmaster?"
"He makes the most noise," the agent said. "Never stops. Can you hear a
long hoarse roar? Sounds like a lion!"
"Of course I can hear it," the boy answered; "I thought that must be a
sea-lion."
"A sea-lion's cry is deeper and not so loud," his friend replied. "No.
That roar is the bull seal's challenge. You're near enough to hear a
sort of gurgling growl?"
"Yes," said Colin, "I can catch it quite clearly."
"That's a bull talking to himself. Then there's a whistle when a fight
is going on. When they're fighting, too, they have a spitting cough.
Sounds like a locomotive starting on a heavy grade. Precisely!"
"Do they fight much?" the boy asked.
"Ever so often!" his informant replied. "Can't you hear the puffing?
That shows there's a fight going on. I've seldom seen a rookery without
a mix-up in progress. That is, during the early part of the season after
the cows have started to haul up. There's not nearly as much of it now,
though, as there used to be."
"Could I see a fight?" the boy asked eagerly.
"Hardly help seeing one," was the reply. "Watch now. We're just at the
rookery. Immediately!"
Turning sharply to the left, the older man led the way between two piles
of stones heaped up so as to form a sort of wall, and shut off at the
sea end.
"What's this for?" asked Colin.
"Path through the rookery. Want to count the seals every once in a
while," the agent said. "Must have some sort of gangway. Obviously!
Couldn't get near enough, otherwise."
"Why not?" queried Colin. "Would the beachmasters attack you?"
"They won't start it," was the reply. "Sea-catch keeps quiet unless he
thinks you're going to attack his harem. About two weeks ago, I only
just escaped. Narrow squeeze. Wanted to get a photograph of one of the
biggest sea-catches I had ever seen. Took a heavy camera. The sea-catch
didn't seem excited. Not particularly. So, I came up quite close to
him."
"How close, Mr. Nagge?"
"Ten or twelve feet. Just about. I got under the cloth. Focused him all
right. Then slipped in my plate. Just going to press the bulb when he
charged. Straight for me. No warning. I squeezed the bulb, anyhow;
grabbed the camera and ran. Promptly!"
"Did he chase you far?"
"A few yards. I knew there was no real danger. Best of it was that the
plate caught the bull right in the act of charging! I've got a print up
at the house. Show you when we get home!"
"I'd like to see it, ever so much," the boy answered.
As they came to a gap in the wall, the agent halted.
"There!" he said. "That's a rookery."
In spite of all that he had heard before of the numbers of seals, and
although the deafening noise was in a sense a preparation, Colin was
dazed at his first sight of a big seal rookery. For a moment he could
not take it in. He seemed to be overlooking a wonderful beach of rounded
boulders, smooth and glistening like polished steel; here and there
pieces of gaunt gray rock projected above and at intervals of about
every fifteen to forty feet towered a huge figure like a walrus with a
mane of grizzled over-hair on the shoulders and long bristly
yellowish-white whiskers. For a moment the boy stood bewildered, then
suddenly it flashed upon him that this wonderful carpet of seeming
boulders, this gleaming, moving pageantry of gray, was composed of
living seals.
"Why, there are millions of them!" he cried.
Right from the water's edge back halfway to the cliffs, and as far as
the eye could see into the white sea-mist, every inch of the ground was
covered. Looking at those closest to him, Colin noticed that they lay in
any and every possible attitude, head up or down, on their backs or
sides, or curled up in a ball; wedged in between sharp rocks or on a
level stretch--position seemed to make no difference. Nor were any of
them still for a minute, for even those which were asleep twitched
violently and wakened every few minutes. And over the thousands of
silver-gray cow seals, the sea-catches, the lords of the harem, three or
four times the size of their mates, stood watch and ward unceasingly.
"Why do you herd them so close together?" asked Colin. "I should have
thought there was lots of room on the beaches of the island."
"They herd themselves," the agent said. "Don't go anywhere unless it is
crowded. The more a place is jammed, the more anxious they are to get
there. Newcomers won't go to empty harems. Unhappy with only one or two
other cows. Try and find room in a crowded bunch where one sea-catch is
looking after thirty females."
"But," said Colin, looking at the group which was nearest to him, "there
are a lot of little baby seals in there! They'll get trodden on!"
"They are trodden on. Often," said the agent. "Can't be helped. Only a
few pups right in the harems and they are all small. Obviously! Go away
when they are a week old. Wander from the harem to find playfellows.
Make up 'pods' or nurseries. Sometimes four or five hundred in one
nursery. Stay until the end of the season. There's a pod of pups," he
continued, pointing up the beach; "about sixty of them, I should judge.
Happy-looking? Clearly!"
"They look like big black kittens," said Colin, as he watched them
tumbling about on the pebbly beach, "and just as full of fun. Can they
swim as soon as they are born, Mr. Nagge?"
"Seals have to learn to swim. Same as boys," he answered. "They teach
themselves, apparently! Young seal, thrown into deep water, will drown.
Queer. Become wonderful swimmers, too."
"About how long does it take them to learn?" Colin asked.
"Don't begin until they are three weeks old," was the reply. "Practise
several hours a day. Swim well in about a month."
"Why don't the father or the mother seals teach them?" queried the boy.
"A sea-catch doesn't see anything outside the harem. As long as a pup is
within twelve feet of him, he will fight on the instant if the baby is
in danger. Once it is in the nursery the bull seal forgets the little
one's existence. He couldn't leave, anyway. Some other sea-catch would
seize the harem."
"You mean that the old seal can't get away at all?"
"Not at all," was the reply.
"Then what does he get to eat?" asked Colin in surprise, "do the cow
seals bring him food?"
"Not a bite. No. He doesn't eat at all. Not all summer."
"Never gets a bite of anything? I should think he'd starve to death,"
cried the lad.
"Fasts for nearly four months. From the time a sea-catch hauls up in May
and preempts the spot he has chosen for his harem he doesn't leave that
spot eight to sixteen feet square until late in August. Stays right
there. He's active enough in some ways. No matter how much he flounders
around, he keeps right on his own harem ground. He could hardly get
away from it if he tried."
[Illustration: HOLLUSCHICKIE HAULING UP FROM THE SEA.
Rare sketch, taken before ever a camera was seen on the Pribilof
Islands. This beach, with many others, is now deserted by the depletion
of the seal herd.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
[Illustration: OLD BULL-SEALS FIGHTING.
Rare sketch, taken on the Gorbatch Rookery, St. Paul's Island, forty
years ago. These combats are growing rarer as the seal herd grows
smaller and the rivalry between the beach-masters is less intense. The
date on the sketch shows it to have been made before the cow-seals
hauled up.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
"Why not?"
"He couldn't leave his own harem without getting into the next one.
Obviously!" the agent promptly replied. "And he'd have to fight that
beachmaster. Evidently! And so on every few feet he went. Besides, the
very moment his back was turned a neighboring bull would steal some of
his cows. Certainly! Or, an idle bull would try and beat him out."
"Which are the idle bulls?" asked Colin.
"Those fellows at the back who came late or were beaten in the fight for
places. They would charge down and take the harem, if he left it."
"Well, then, how does he sleep?"
"Doesn't sleep much," was the reply; "just little catnaps. Five or ten
minutes at a time, perhaps. Light sleepers, too. If a cow tries to leave
or an intruder comes near he wakes right up. Immediately! He's on the
alert, night and day." The agent laughed. "Eternal vigilance is the bull
seal's motto, all right!"
"But how can they stand it without food and without sleep?" Colin asked.
"That's over three months of fasting. And it isn't like an animal
that's asleep all winter. It seems to be their busiest time, fighting
and watching and all that sort of thing!"
"They live on their blubber," the agent explained. "In the spring they
haul up heavy and fat. Can hardly move around they're so fleshy. It's
the end of June now. You see! Many bulls are loaded with fat still. By
the end of next month, though, they'll be getting thin. Some of 'em are
like skeletons when they leave the rookeries in August. They'll fight to
the end, though."
"But if they leave each other's harems alone," Colin objected, "I don't
see any cause for a fight."
"The cows don't all come at the same time. Perhaps for six weeks there
are cows coming all the time. Those beachmasters who have harems nearest
the water want their family first and there's fighting all along the
water's edge, then. Other cows have to make their way inshore; any of
the sea-catches may grab them. Wait a minute and watch. You'll see the
scramble going on somewhere. There are two bulls fighting there," he
added, pointing to a combat in progress some distance off, "and there's
another--and another."
"Is that one of the new cows just coming in from the water?" asked
Colin, pointing to the shore, where a female seal, quietly and without
attracting attention, had landed near one of the large harems.
"Yes," the agent said. "Just watch her a while. You'll see how the
fighting begins."
Moving quietly and slowly and making just as little disturbance as
possible, the incoming seal made her way through and over the recumbent
seals, keeping as far as she could from the beachmasters. Those huge
monarchs of the waterside eyed her closely, but the harems were full to
the last inch of ground and they let her pass, the cow seal remaining
quiet as long as the beachmaster was watching, then creeping on a yard
or two.
"She'll get caught by the next one," said Colin. "See, there's just
about room enough in his harem for one more."
But the cow managed to make her way past, the old bull being engrossed
in watching a neighboring sea-catch whom he suspected of designs upon
his home. She had only succeeded in reaching a point about six harems
inland, however, when a bull with a small group of only about twelve
cows, suddenly reached out with his strong neck, grabbed her by the
back with his sharp teeth and threw her on the rocks with the rest of
his company. As the sea-catch weighed over four hundred pounds and the
cow not more than eighty--the poor creature was flung down most cruelly.
"The brute!" cried Colin.
But for some reason the cow was dissatisfied with her new master and
tried to escape. The old sea-catch made a lunge forward and caught her
by the back of the neck, biting viciously as he did so, in such wise
that the teeth tore away the skin and flesh, making two raw and ugly
wounds.
Colin's indignation was without bounds.
"I'd like to smash that old beast!" he said, and if the agent had not
been there to stop him the boy would have jumped over the low wall and
gone to the assistance of the cow seal.
"That's going on all the time," the agent said. "You can't settle the
affairs of ten thousand families. Not offhand that way. You'd be kept
busy if you tried to fight the battles of every female that hauls up on
St. Paul rookery."
"But see," cried Colin, "he's going after her again!"
This time the sea-catch was evidently angry, for he shook the cow as a
dog does a rat and tossed her back into the very center of the harem,
standing over her and growling angrily. The agent looked on tranquilly.
"There's going to be trouble," he said. "See that idle bull coming?"
He pointed to the back of the rookery, and Colin saw a sea-catch of good
size, though not as large as the bull whose savage attack on the cow had
excited Colin's resentment, come plunging down through the rookery with
the clumsy lope of the excited seal. The cow squirmed from under the
threatening fangs of her captor, but just as he was about to punish her
still more severely, he caught sight of the intruder, and, with a
vicious snap, he whirled round to the defense. The newcomer, though
powerful, showed the dark-brown rather than the grizzled over-hair of
the older bull, but while he had youth on his side, he was not the
veteran of hundreds of battles.
Both stood upright for a moment, watching each other keenly, but with
their heads averted, then the younger bull, with a forward movement so
rapid that it could hardly be followed, struck downward with his long
teeth to the point where the front flipper joins the body. It was a
clever stroke, but the old bull knew all the tricks of warfare and
turned the flipper in so that the teeth of his opponent only gashed the
skin, and at the same time the old bull jerked his head up and sidewise,
and sank his teeth deep into the side of the neck of the younger bull.
"He's got him, what a shame!" cried Colin, whose sympathies were all
with the younger fighter.
The old sea-catch, paying no attention to the roaring and whistling of
his wounded rival, kept his teeth fast-clenched in a bulldog-like grip
and braced himself against the repeated lunges the other made to get
free. There could be but one result to this and, with an agonized
wrench, the younger bull pulled himself free--tearing out several inches
of skin and leaving a gaping wound from which the blood streamed down.
But he was not defeated yet!
Facing his more powerful enemy, roaring unceasingly and with the shrill
piping whistle of battle, the younger bull fairly swelled with exertion
and rage until he seemed almost the size of his big foe, his head darted
from side to side quick as a flash, and the revengeful, passionate
eyes--so different from the limpid, gentle glance of the cow
seals--flashed furiously as the blood poured down and reddened the
rocks around him.
Again it was the younger bull who took the aggressive and, after a
couple of feints, he reared and struck high for the face, just grazing
the cheek of the older bull and pulling out several of the stiff
bristles on which his teeth happened to close, springing back in time to
escape the double sickle-stroke of the sea-catch. The old bull roared
loudly and sprang forward, getting a firm hold of the younger by the
skin behind the muscles of the shoulders. But he was a second too late,
for as he closed his grip, the smaller fighter shifted and struck down,
a hard clean blow, reaching the coveted point and half-tearing the
flipper from the body.
Undeterred by the injury, though the pain must have been intense, the
old bull threw his weight upon the younger, bending him far over as
though to break the spine. Seals cannot move backward, and the smaller
fighter was almost overbalanced. Then, seizing his chance, the old
beachmaster let go his hold upon the other's back and got in a crashing
blow at the same point where he had torn open the neck before, this time
sinking his teeth so far in that the muscle of the shoulder showed
plainly, and an instant later, although there seemed scarcely time to
strike a second blow, he swept down the body with his long, sharp teeth,
catching the younger at the flipper-joint, and inflicting a wound almost
exactly similar to that which he had received.
Quick as a flash, the younger combatant gave up the fight. But as he
turned, instead of merely crawling away defeated, he made a sudden
convulsive sprawl which the older bull was not expecting, and dug his
teeth into the cow who had given rise to all the trouble, and lifted her
bodily. The old beachmaster, his mane bristling with rage, made after
him, but the younger bull, although he was forced to move on the stump
of his wounded flipper, held fast to his prize, even when the victor
inflicted a fourth fearful wound.
But before the old sea-catch could turn the plucky youngster, he saw two
other bulls sidling towards his harem, intending to steal his cows while
he was off guard, and he lumbered back to repel the new intruders. In
the meantime, the young bull was attacked on his way to his own station
by three other bulls near whose harems he had to pass, but he made no
resistance and, though bleeding from a dozen wounds, he struggled on,
leaving a gory trail in his wake, but gripping with grim determination
the cow he had almost given his life to secure. When at last he reached
his own station, he was a mass of blood from head to foot, his flesh was
hanging from him in strips and one of his fore-flippers was dangling
uselessly.
"He put up a plucky fight, anyway," said Colin, "even if he did get
licked."
But it was for the poor cow seal that Colin felt the most sympathy. She
lay upon the rocks where her second captor had thrown her, absolutely
unconscious and seemingly almost dead, wounded in several places and
covered with blood and sand, a wretched contrast to the pretty, gentle
animal which the boy had seen emerge from the water not fifteen minutes
before.
"It's a shame," Colin said, speaking a little chokingly. "I didn't know
any animals could be so brutal."
The agent glanced at him quickly.
"The beachmasters are brutes," he said, "but mostly among themselves.
Notice. The bull isn't even licking his wounds. He's pretty well used
up, too. They're always too proud to show that they feel their hurts.
Evidently! Even when they have been almost torn to pieces."
"Then you think he won't die?"
"Not a bit of it," the agent said cheerfully. "He'll be ready for
another fight to-morrow."
"But how about the poor cow? She looks about dead now," said Colin.
"Not as bad as it looks! She's all right," his friend replied. "Those
wounds don't go down into vital parts. They usually just reach the
blubber. There isn't a sea-catch on the rookery that hasn't had from ten
to twenty fights already this year. Most of 'em have been at it for
several seasons. Yet you can hardly notice a scar on them. As for the
mother seal, she will probably have a baby seal to-morrow. In a week the
wounds will all have healed over. Cat may have nine lives, but a seal
has ninety!"
CHAPTER III
ATTACKED BY JAPANESE POACHERS
"That's life on a rookery," the agent said. "Fight! Capture! More fight!
But the holluschickie are different. Let's go to the hauling-grounds."
"Is that where the killing goes on?" the boy asked.
"Not quite," was the reply. "The road to the killing-grounds begins
there, though. Naturally! We don't take any seals from a rookery."
"Why not?"
"No use! They are all either old bulls, females, or pups," was the
answer. "The fur of the old sea-catches is coarse. Couldn't sell it.
Never kill a cow seal under any circumstances. That's what all the
trouble in killing seals at sea is about. You can't tell a holluschickie
from a cow seal in the water. Cruel, too. When a cow seal is on her way
to the rookery, she will have a baby seal in a few days."
"The holluschickie, then," said Colin, "don't come on the rookery at
all?"
"Never! Absolutely! The bachelors, which are young male seals five years
old and under, leave the rookery alone. The old sea-catches look after
that. Certainly! It is mutilation or death for a holluschickie to put so
much as a flipper on a rookery. They seldom try. Therefore, the
hauling-grounds are at a distance. Obviously! Sometimes, though, it is
impossible for the holluschickie to get to the sea without having to
cross the rough, rocky ground which is suitable for a rookery."
"How can they work it, then?"
"The sea-catches leave a road eight feet wide, no more, no less. This
path through the rookery gives just room for two holluschickie to pass.
The beachmasters whose harems are on either side of this road watch
them. They keep their lookout from a station right beside the road. If
one of the holluschickie touches a cow on either side of this clear
road-space, he will be attacked savagely."
"But I should think he could get away easily enough," Colin objected,
"because the sea-catch can't leave his harem."
"Can't! Old bulls are all the way along," the agent answered. "Every one
will attack a holluschickie who has once been attacked. No chance to
escape. But the bachelors know that. They pass up and down such a
causeway by thousands, night and day. They 'don't turn to de right,
don't turn to de lef', but keep in de middle ob de road,'" quoted the
agent, laughing.
"And you say that all the furs, then, are taken from among the
holluschickie?" queried the boy.
"Every one of them."
"But how do you hunt the bachelor seals?"
The agent stared at him in surprise, and then burst into a short peal of
laughter.
"Hunt? How do you hunt pet puppies?" he queried, in reply. "The
holluschickie are the tamest, gentlest creatures in the world. Here are
the hauling-grounds now. Let's go down. You'll see how tame they are."
"But it's like a dancing-floor or a parade-ground for soldiers!" cried
Colin as, reaching the top of the hill, he looked across a stretch of
upland plain at least half a mile across. There was not a blade of
grass, not a twig of shrubbery of any kind, all had been beaten down and
the bare ground was as smooth as though it had been leveled off and
rolled. Upon this bare plain, thousands of the holluschickie were
playing, the most characteristic game seeming to be a voluntary march or
dance, when the bachelors would roughly gather into lines or groups and
lope along at exactly the same speed together for about fifty feet,
stopping simultaneously for a few moments, and then going on again, as
though obeying the commands of a drill-sergeant.
"They don't seem to play with each other much," commented Colin as the
two walked among the holluschickie, who showed neither fear nor
excitement, merely shuffling aside a foot or two to let them pass.
"They do in the water," the agent said. "Play 'King of the Castle' on a
flat-topped rock for hours together. One seal pushes the other off the
coveted post, only to be dislodged himself a minute after. And I have
never once seen any sign of ill-humor. They never bite. They never
injure one another. They never even growl angrily. It's hard to believe
that their tempers can change so quickly when they reach the rookery."
"They seem to be of all ages and sizes," said Colin.
[Illustration: BULL FUR-SEAL CHARGING THE CAMERA.
_Courtesy of the National Geographic Magazine._]
[Illustration: SNAPSHOTTING AN OLD BEACH-MASTER.
This plate was recovered, although the photographer was drowned on the
treacherous shores of the Pribilof Islands the very day the picture was
taken.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
"Yearlings of both sexes and males from two years old to five," the
agent answered.
"Do they fast all summer, too, like the sea-catches?"
"No," was the reply. "No need for it. They go to sea every few days. If
the sun is out they stay in the sea. They make long journeys, too, just
as the mother seals have to do, because a seal needs at least thirty
pounds of fish a day to keep in good condition. All the nearby
fishing-grounds have been exhausted."
"I suppose the different colors show the different ages?" the boy
suggested.
"Exactly," the agent answered. "That's important, too. By law we are
only allowed to sell skins weighing between five and eight and a half
pounds. That means only those of males two and three years old. The skin
of a yearling weighs just about four pounds and that of a four-year-old
male eleven or twelve."
"How about the two-year-old cow seals? You said that only the yearlings
among the females were here."
"The cow seals never come twice to the hauling grounds," was the reply.
"They go for the first time to the rookeries in their second year."
"I should think it would be easy enough then to 'cut out' a herd," the
boy said. "I could pretty nearly do it myself."
"Obviously! Without any trouble!" was the reply. "But you've got to go
slow."
"Why?" the boy queried.
"If a seal is hurried he gets heated. You remember I told you how little
they can stand. If a seal is killed after being heated, fur comes off in
patches and the skin is of no value. Let's go on. I have to tally those
that are knocked down."
"I thought you were going to drive some!" said Colin in a disappointed
tone, as they turned away from the hauling-grounds along a well-beaten
road.
"The drive started three hours ago and more," was the reply. "Quarter of
a mile an hour is fast enough to make seals travel. You can drive as
fast as a mile an hour, but lots will be left on the road to die from
the exertion. Yet the same seals will swim hundreds of miles in a day."
"But what can you do, then, on a warm day? Do you drive during the
night?"
"No seals here on a warm day," was the immediate answer. "You saw all
those thousands of holluschickie on the hauling-grounds? If the sun
were to come out now, in half an hour there wouldn't be a seal on the
entire flat. All disappear into the sea. Absolutely!"
"What is that group over there?" asked Colin, pointing to a small
cluster a short distance ahead of them, near some rough frame buildings.
"That's the drive," the agent answered. "The killing-grounds are always
near the salt-houses. What's that? The smell? Worst smell in the world,
I thought, when I first came here. You can't kill seals in the same
place year after year and just leave the flesh to rot without having a
frightful odor. One gets used to it after a while."
"It seems to me that you're running the risk of starting up a plague or
something!"
"No," was the reply, "it has never caused any sickness here. Then the
drive is small now to what it used to be. Time was when three or four
thousand seals would be driven, where we only take a couple of hundred
now. Fallen off terribly! Fifty years ago, every available inch of all
the beach was rookery, settled as thick as in the rookery you saw just
now. The holluschickie were here in uncounted millions. These hills, now
overgrown with grass, show the soil matted with fine hair and fur where
the seals shed their coats for hundreds of years. Now a few scattered
rookeries are all that remain."
"Do you suppose the seal herd will ever be as big again?" the boy asked.
The agent shook his head.
"I'm afraid not. The governments interested won't keep up the
international agreement long enough," he said regretfully. "It would
take thirty or forty years. Yet it would be worth it. You see," he
continued, "this is absolutely the only place in the world where the
true Alaskan fur seal--the sea bear, as it used to be called, because it
isn't a seal at all--can be found. The fur seals on the Russian islands
are a different species. Those on the Japanese islands are different
from both."
"You say a fur seal isn't a seal at all?" asked Colin. "What's the
difference?"
"Not the same at all. Different, entirely. Don't even belong to the same
group of animal. They look differently. Their habits are unlike. Oh,
they're dissimilar in every way."
"Just how?" asked Colin curiously.
"In the first place, the sexes of the hair or common seal are the same
size, not like the fur seal, where the sea-catch is four or five times
bigger than the female. Then they don't breed in harems and the male
hair seal does not stay on shore. A fur seal swims with his fore
flippers, a true seal with his hind flippers. A fur seal stands upright
on his fore flippers, a hair seal lies supine. A fur seal has a neck, a
hair seal has practically none. A fur seal naturally has fur, the hair
seal has no undercoat whatever. A pup fur seal is black, a pup hair seal
is white. Different? Obviously! Pity the old name 'sea bear' died out.
It would have prevented confusion between fur seal and true seal."
With this beginning, the agent passed into a detailed description of the
anatomy of the two different kinds of seal, and wound up with an earnest
panegyric of his fur seal family. By the time the agent had completed
his earnest defense of the sea bear, lest it should be confused with the
more common seal, the two had reached the killing-grounds, where the
natives were awaiting the agent's word to begin their work. He stepped
up to the foreman of the gang and with him looked over the first 'pod'
of about fifty that had been selected for killing, noting one or two
that looked either too young or too old or with fur in bad condition,
and these points settled, he gave the word to begin.
The 'pod' of seals was surrounded by eight men, each armed with a club
about five and a half feet long, the thickness of a baseball bat at one
end and three inches in diameter at the other. Behind him, each of the
natives had laid his stabbing-knife, skinning-knife, and whetstone. At
the word the killing began. Each native brought down his club
simultaneously, the first blow invariably crushing the slight, thin
bones of the fur seal's skull and stretching it out unconscious. The six
or seven seals that fell to each man's share were clubbed in less than a
minute for the lot.
The Aleuts then dropped their clubs and dragged out the stunned seals so
that no one of them touched another, and taking their stabbing-knives,
drove them into the hearts of the seals between the fore flippers. In no
case did Colin see any evidence that the seal had felt a moment's
suffering.
"Now," said the agent, "watch this, if you like seeing skilful work.
Skinning has got to be done rapidly. Precisely! Else the seal will
'heat' and spoil the fur."
Watching the native nearest to him, Colin noticed that he rolled the
seal over, balancing it squarely on its back. Then he made half a dozen
sweeping strokes--all so expert and accurate that not a slip was made
with the knife, nor was any blubber left on the skin. In less than two
minutes, by the watch, he had skinned the seal, leaving on the carcass
nothing but a small patch of the upper lip where the stiff mustache
grows, the insignificant tail, and the coarse hide of the flippers.
The whole sight was a good deal like butchery, and Colin felt a little
uncomfortable. Moreover, he was not hardened to the odor arising from
the blubber of the seal. He beat a retreat.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Nagge," he called, holding his handkerchief to
his nose, "but that's too much for me."
The agent turned and noticed his departure. He called back to the boy:
"Do you see that low hill? To the right of that ruined hut?"
"Yes," Colin responded.
"Just below that are some sea-lions! Go and take a look at them. I'll
join you as soon as we are through here. Won't be long. But you'll have
to stalk them to the leeward if you want to get close," he added,
"they're shy. I'll meet you there and we'll go back to dinner. You
ought to be hungry by then."
"I will be, then," Colin responded cheerfully, adding under his breath,
as he glanced back over his shoulder at the killing-grounds, "but I'm
not now!"
A short walk through the long moss a-glitter with wild flowers, poppies,
harebells, monkshood, and a host of sub-Arctic species, brought the lad
to the top of the hill. There he paused a moment, to look over the
island, treeless save for dwarf willows six inches high and a
ground-dwelling form of crowberry. Below him, and some distance away,
were the sea-lions, but even from that coign of vantage they looked so
big and menacing that Colin wondered whether they might not stalk him,
instead of his stalking them.
After a little scrambling, however, he found himself at the bottom of
the cliff, and made his way as carefully as he could to the sea-lion
rookery. But when he did come near and rounded a large boulder in order
to get a fair view, he was inclined to think that shyness was the last
idea he would have gained from the looks of sea-lions. Near him, almost
erect on his fore flippers, was an old bull, a tremendous creature, well
over six feet in height and weighing not less than fifteen hundred
pounds.
Apart from size, he was a much more vicious-looking creature than the
sea-catch; the tawny chest and grizzled mane gave him a true lion-like
look, and an upturned muzzle showed the sharp teeth glistening white
against the almost black tongue, while a small wicked, bulldog eye
glittered at the intruder. The female sea-lion, near by, was almost as
large as a six-year-old bull seal.
Wanting to see something happen, and realizing from the build of the
sea-lion that he could not make much progress on land, Colin threw a
stone at a pup sea-lion who was asleep on a rock close by.
But the boy was utterly unprepared for the result, for no sooner did the
huge sea-lion realize his advance as he strode forward to throw the
stone, than it was smitten with panic. When, moreover, it heard the
'crack' of the pebble as it hit a rock behind him, the cowardly creature
went wild with fear, and made convulsive and clumsy efforts to reach the
water ten feet away, tumbling down twice in doing so, and finally
plunging into the ocean trembling as though with ague. At the alarm,
the entire rookery took flight, leaving the pups behind, sprawling on
the rocks. The parents ranged up in a line about fifty feet from shore
and remained at that safe distance as long as Colin was in sight. He
watched the pups for a little while, but they were not nearly as
interesting as seals, and he was quite ready to go when his friend
hailed him from the top of the hill.
"Sea-lions look sort of human in the water, don't they?" remarked Colin
as he rejoined his friend, and turned for a farewell glance at the
creatures with their upright heads and shoulders and inquisitive look.
"The Aleuts say they are," his friend replied. "They declare their
ancestors were sea-lions or seals. That's a general belief on the north
coast of Scotland and in the Hebrides, too."
"That men came from seals?"
"Certainly. What do you suppose started all the mermaid stories? Round
head, soft tender eyes, and a fish's tail? Seals! Obviously! And, if you
notice old pictures of mermaids the tail is drawn as if it were split in
two, just like the two long flippers of the seal."
"I never thought of that before," said the boy.
"You've heard of the Orforde merman, of course, haven't you?"
Colin admitted his ignorance.
"Queer yarn. Quite true, though," the agent said. "Documents show it. It
happened off the coast of Suffolk, England. About the end of the twelfth
century, I think. Some fishermen caught a creature which they described
as being like an old man with long gray hair, but which had a fish's
tail. It could live out of the water just as well as in it. They brought
it to the Earl of Orforde. In spite of all their efforts they could not
teach the merman to speak. Naturally! So the priest of the parish
suggested that perhaps the creature had something to do with the devil.
Characteristic of the time! So they took the 'merman' to church. But it
showed no sign of adoration and didn't seem to understand the
ceremonies. So they were convinced that it was an evil thing, and put it
to the torture, hoping to extract a confession from--a seal!"
"But there are mermaids!" said Colin. "I've seen 'em. Not alive, of
course, but stuffed."
"So have I," the agent said, laughing; "that was a trick the Japanese
used and fooled a lot of people. Why, there was one in a museum in
Boston for years! It was a fake, of course. Obviously!"
"How did they do it?"
"Head and shoulders of a newly-born monkey fastened to a fish's body. I
forget now what fish. Then with incredible pains, they laid rows upon
rows of fish scales all over the monkey's shoulders and chest. Wonderful
work. Each scale was glued on separately, beginning from scales almost
microscopic and shading both in size and color exactly into those of the
fish hinder portion. The work was so exquisitely done that its
artificiality could not be detected. But live mermaids haven't been put
in any aquarium. Not yet!"
"I don't suppose there's even a water-baby left!" the boy said,
laughing.
"No," was the reply. "We couldn't give it any milk now, the sea-cows
have been all killed off."
"Sea-cows?"
"Big creatures, bigger even than walruses. Lots of them here some time.
We find their bones everywhere. Nearly all our sled-runners are made of
sea-cow bones. They grazed like cattle below water on the seaweeds of
the shore and the natives used to spear them at low tide."
[Illustration: CATCH OF HERRING ON BEACH AT GASTINEAU CHANNEL, ALASKA.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
"Are there walruses here, too?"
"I saw three a few years ago, but none since. About two hundred miles
north of here, however, on St. Matthew's Island, there used to be scores
of them. But I reckon hunters and polar bears, between them, have
destroyed most of them."
"Do polar bears come here in winter?"
The agent shook his head.
"The Pribilof Islands are not cold enough for a polar bear. Besides he
likes walrus meat better than seal. Bear eats a lot of fish, too."
"I thought they lived almost entirely on seals."
"They couldn't very well," was the reply. "Seal is a better swimmer than
a bear, although the polar bear is a marvel in the water for a land
animal and can overhaul a walrus. The big white fellows only catch seal
when basking on the ice. They get a good many that way. The hunters have
left nothing to the Pribilofs except the fur seal and the sea-lion, and
not many of those. And unless we can find a way to stop the
seal-pirates, those will soon be gone, too."
"Do you have much trouble with that sort of thing?" the boy asked.
"A lot nearly every year. We won't have so much of it now. Great
Britain, Japan, Russia, and the United States are united in the desire
to prevent pelagic sealing. Good thing, too. A treaty has been signed,
forbidding it for fifteen years. So you see, a seal poacher on the
rookeries finds everybody against him."
"Wasn't there a lot of trouble some years ago?" Colin asked. "I heard
that there was real fighting here."
"Indeed there was, and lots of it! No one, not even the United States
Government, ever knew how much. While the islands were leased to a
private company the beaches were patrolled by riflemen. Russian and
Japanese schooners frequently sent off boatloads of armed men during a
fog, to kill as many seals as possible, protecting their men by gunfire.
But that was before the Bureau of Fisheries took hold!"
"Has there been any of that lately?"
"Not recently. The last was in 1906, when seven men were killed. The two
schooners, the _Tokaw Maru_ and the _Bosco Maru_, were seized and
confiscated. Promptly! The men were taken to Valdez. They were convicted
and sent to prison."
"Well, that's desperate enough," the boy said, "but, after all, there's
something daring about it. It's the pelagic sealing that seems so mean
to me."
"It may be daring enough," the agent admitted. "The way I feel about it,
though, is that it seems worse to kill a cow fur seal than a human
being. There are lots of people in the world. The human race isn't going
to die out, but the small remnant of fur seals on the Pribilof Islands
is absolutely the last chance left of saving the entire species from
extinction. So," he concluded with a laugh, as they went into the
village, "don't let your enthusiasm for a piece of daring tempt you to
turn seal-pirate."
Colin laughed, as he nodded to his host, and went to see after one of
his new pets, a blue fox pup which had been given him that morning by
one of the natives.
Evening seemed to come early because of the dense fog, the damp mist
which had been present all day settling down heavily. Colin was
thoroughly tired, but not at all sleepy, and he wandered aimlessly
through the village for a while after supper.
"I wonder if there's a storm coming?" he said to the agent. "I have a
sort of feeling that something's going to happen."
"It may blow a little fresh," was the reply. "That's all. The barometer
doesn't seem disturbed."
"I must be wrong then," said Colin, suppressing a yawn, "but I have a
queer sort of excited feeling."
"Better take it out in sleep," was the advice given him. "We're all
going to turn in soon. Even if you did get a nap this afternoon, you
ought to be tired after last night."
The boy could see nothing to be gained by arguing the point, and there
was nothing special to do, so he waited a few minutes and then went up
to his room, though he had never felt less like sleeping. He got into
bed, however, but tossed about uneasily for hours, the distant roaring
of the seals on the rookery and other unaccustomed noises keeping him
awake. And ever, through it all, Colin was conscious of this
presentiment of some trouble on hand. Suddenly, this feeling rushed over
him like a flood and, impelled by some force he could not resist, he
sprang from bed and hurried to the window.
The fog had thinned considerably, but it was still so misty that he
could only just see the edge of the bleak shore where the little waves
rolled in idly, looking gray and greasy under the fog. He leaned his
arms on the sill, but aside from the seal-roar, everything seemed
peaceful and the lad was just about to turn away from the window in the
feeling of miserable anger that comes from being tired but not able to
sleep, when he saw a flash of light.
Startled, and with every nerve stimulated to alertness, he watched, and
again he saw the light. Straining his eyes Colin could just distinguish
the figure of a man with a gun on his shoulder and a lantern in his
hand, making his way to the coast end of the village.
"Some one who has been making a night of it!" the boy muttered to
himself with a short laugh, and got back into bed.
But the figure of the man with the gun and the lantern in his hand had
impressed itself on his mind, and though he tried to dismiss the idea
and go to sleep, every time he closed his eyes he seemed to see the man
go walking silently through the village. Presently he sat bolt upright
in bed.
"The native huts are all at the other end of the village!" he said half
aloud, with a surprised suspiciousness. "Why was he going that way?"
The boy rose and went back to the open window. It seemed to him that
there was more tumult from the rookery than when he had listened half an
hour before, but it occurred to him that this was probably the result of
the silence of the hour and his own restlessness. Then, not loudly, but
distinctly, in spite of its being muffled by the fog, the sound of a
rifle-shot came to his ears.
That settled it for Colin. If there was anything going on in the way of
sport he wanted a share in it, and as he was wide awake, he decided to
follow up and see what was going on. He slipped into his clothes as
quickly as possible and tiptoed his way down the rickety stairs. But
before he had gone many steps an unaccustomed thought of prudence struck
him, and he walked back to a house three or four doors from where he had
been staying, the home, indeed, of the villager who had given him the
pet fox, and in which Hank had taken up quarters. He knocked on the
window and immediately Hank appeared.
"What is it?" he queried. "Oh, it's you, Colin. Why aren't you in bed?"
"I was," the boy answered, and in a few words he told how he had seen
the native go by with a gun and a lantern and had heard the shot fired a
few minutes ago.
"Sounds like smugglin'," the old whaler said, after a minute's thought.
"Well, there's no great harm in that. That is, I don't think so, though
the gov'nment chaps might say different."
"Smuggling?" queried Colin; "poaching. Do you mean seal-poaching? Oh,
come along, Hank, and let's find out."
"What's the use of huntin' trouble?" said the old man. "Go back to bed."
"Not much," retorted the boy; "if you don't want to come, I'll go,
anyway."
"If you're goin' anyway," grumbled the old whaler, "I reckon it's no use
my sayin' anythin' to stop you. But I s'pose," he added, and he was
secretly as curious as the boy, "I'd better go along with you to see
that you don't get into any more mischief than you have to."
"You're coming, then?" asked Colin impatiently.
"I'll be right out," the other answered, and he had hardly disappeared
from the window when he appeared at the door. He slipped a revolver
into his pocket and handed another to Colin.
"I've got a gun," the boy said.
"All right," responded Hank, "I'll pack this one along, too," and he
slipped it into one of the pockets of his big reefer.
They walked in silence for a few minutes until they had passed the end
of the village, and then Hank put his hand on the boy's arm.
"You've got a right hunch," he said abruptly, in a low voice. "There's
somethin' in the wind."
"What makes you think so?" asked Colin.
The other pointed vaguely to sea.
"There's a ship out there," he said.
Colin did his utmost to pierce the gloom, but the fog had settled down
again, the night was dark, and the boy could scarcely see the waves
breaking on the shore not twenty feet away.
"I can't see anything," he said. "Whereabouts?"
"I don't know just where," the old sailor replied, "but I know she's
there. I feel it."
"Let's hurry!" said the boy.
"Better go slower," warned Hank, pulling him back gently; "we're not far
from the rookery."
"I don't see why we should be so careful, and I don't see why we should
whisper," Colin objected, whispering nevertheless; "the seals are making
noise enough to drown a brass band."
"Listen!" said Hank.
The boy put his hand to his ear, trying to distinguish sounds in the
continuous roar.
"Voices?" he queried with a puzzled look.
"I thought so," the whaler nodded. There was a pause, while both
listened, then the gunner said:
"It isn't English and it doesn't sound like Aleut or Russian."
"Japanese?" queried the boy at a guess.
The man grasped the boy's shoulder with a grip that nearly dislocated
it.
"Japanese raiders!" he said. "Can you run?"
"You bet," said Colin, growing excited; "I'm a crack runner."
"Get back to the agent's house as fast as you know how an' wake him up.
He'll know what to do."
"What are you after, Hank?" asked the boy, tightening his belt.
"Whatever comes along," was the terse reply.
Colin pitched off his heavy coat and started. It was over a half-mile
run, but the boy was in good condition and the path was smooth, so that
two minutes saw him at the agent's bedroom door.
"Eh? What's that? Japanese raiders! You've been dreaming, boy. Go back
to bed."
"Do I look as if I'd been dreaming?" Colin said indignantly. "How do you
suppose I could run myself out of breath in a dream? Hank was with me.
He heard them, too, and sent me back to tell you."
But the agent was already up and busy.
"Wake the village!" he said shortly.
Without waiting to find out how this should be done, Colin started off
at a run, and picking up a killing club that lay handy, he sped down the
village street, hitting a resounding 'whack' on every door as he passed.
As he came back, up the other side of the street, the natives were
streaming out of their houses and Colin told them all to go to the
agent, whereupon those who understood English started immediately, the
rest following. The agent was ready and had all his plans made, some of
the men were sent to the boats, and arms for others were laid out.
"They were right on Gorbatch rookery?" the agent asked.
"Yes, sir," Colin replied, "at the Reef Point end."
The party was swinging along at a fast half-run over the sands that lay
between the edge of the village and the beginning of the rookery, and
with the rising of the moon the fog seemed to thin.
"I had rather we were a little nearer before it gets too light," the
agent said, "but we'd better make the best use we can of our time."
On reaching the wall, the agent vaulted lightly over it, the rest
following suit, and to Colin's surprise the official led the way behind
the rookery, threading in and out between idle bulls, who made a display
of great ferocity but never actually attacked. The agent paid not the
slightest heed to any of them, merely keeping out of reach of their
teeth.
As they turned a corner, a cloud which had partly obscured the moon
passed and showed them an unexpected sight. Magnified into gigantic
forms by the fog were the figures of six men, apparently all armed,
facing Hank, the old whaler, who, with both revolvers, was keeping them
at bay. He was close to the shore, standing behind two old,
wicked-looking beachmasters, who, in the unnatural light, appeared to
be twice their natural size. Hank let out a hail as soon as he saw the
government party coming to his assistance, but he did not relax his
vigilance.
"I've got this bunch covered," he said, "an' they can't get to their
boat. One load did get off."
Hearing his shout the invaders turned quickly, but found themselves
overpowered, for a dozen rifles were leveled at them. They knew, too,
that natives who are trained to shoot fur seal in the water--as most of
those men had done before pelagic sealing was stopped--could be counted
on as good shots.
The agent, who spoke sufficient Japanese for simple needs, demanded the
surrender of the raiders and asked which was the officer of the party.
This question they refused to understand.
"I suppose he went off in the other boat," hazarded the agent. "That's a
pity. He stands a good chance of being shot!"
Colin looked up inquiringly.
"How do you expect to catch him now?" he asked.
"The fog is clearing away. Obviously!" the agent answered.
"Quite a lot," the boy admitted.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL SEAL ROOKERY, HALF ABANDONED.
Showing the massing of the harems, the watchful figures of the
beach-masters, and the idle bulls in the background.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
"Row-boat hasn't much chance against a launch, has it?"
"Oh, I see now," Colin said understandingly; "you covered the water with
another party."
"In a very swift gasoline launch we have. While you were waking the
village, I got a wireless to a revenue cutter. I caught her at less than
fifteen miles away, and she's headed here now."
He turned to the Japanese.
"What is your ship? Schooner or steamer?" he asked.
"Schooner," was the reply.
The agent rubbed his hands delightedly.
"It's a clean haul," he said. "Thanks to you, Hank. Principally. To the
boy, too! We've caught six men red-handed right on the rookery, with
dead seals, most of them females. The launch ought to intercept the
boat. There's not wind enough for a schooner to get far away by the time
the revenue cutter arrives. Besides, the schooner will be short-handed
since we have six of the crew here."
A sudden puff of wind lifted the fog still further and revealed the
schooner herself, lying not far from shore. A row-boat was about one
hundred and fifty feet from the vessel and the station launch was two
hundred feet away, approaching from a different angle, but outspeeding
the row-boat.
"A race!" cried Colin.
It was a closer race than at first appeared. Under the strange light of
the full moon shining grayly through the silvering mist upon the seals
in their countless thousands, the scene seemed most unreal. Before him
appeared the principals in this dramatic encounter, revolvers and rifles
in the hands of all parties, the Japs being still covered; while beyond,
at sea, the two boats cleaving the water, their objective point the
shadowy schooner, looking like a phantom ship, made a picture of weird
excitement in an unearthly setting. The seconds seemed like hours. The
row-boat was nearer the schooner and was traveling fast, but the launch
was speeding even more rapidly, throwing up a high wave at the bow. It
looked as though both boats would reach the schooner's side at the same
instant.
"She'll do it! She'll do it!" the boy exclaimed. "If only an oar would
smash!"
The Japanese, though not saying a word, were bending forward eagerly,
watching the race with every nerve on the strain.
Colin fairly danced with excitement, nearly bringing down on himself the
wrath of a neighboring sea-catch, who was roaring angrily at this
intrusion.
"If she only had another couple of horsepower----" he cried.
The Japanese smiled.
A port in the rail of the schooner opened and the muzzle of a small
swivel-gun projected, aimed full at the launch. Colin caught his breath.
A puff of smoke followed, and a couple of seconds later the sharp crack
of a small gun. A crash and a few sharp explosions were heard from the
launch, but, so far as could be seen from the shore, no one was injured.
The engine gave a 'chug-chug' or two--then stopped dead.
Colin dropped his arms limply by his side in despair.
The leader of the Japanese took a quick step forward and whispered a
word or two to the nearest man, who passed it down the line. The agent
strained his ears to hear what was said, but could not distinguish the
words.
"What's that you were saying?" he asked in Japanese.
The man replied calmly, and in English.
"We say nothing," he answered blandly, "only that you have made big
mistakes. That is not our ship!"
The agent stared at him, but the Japanese smiled affably.
"We are shipwreck on the island," he said. "We not know what place it
is, have no food, hungry, kill some seal for food, anybody do that."
At this impudent and barefaced falsehood, the agent was tongue-tied, but
he turned to Hank.
"These men say," he said, "that they are shipwrecked sailors and do not
belong to that ship. Let's get this thing right. Tell us what you know
about it."
Hank straightened up.
"After the boy left me," he said, "I saw it wouldn't do any good to
tackle 'em at once, there bein' no way of gettin' at 'em from the shore
side. If I let 'em know they were watched, they would be off, sure, an'
what I wanted was to find some way to head 'em off. I knew if you came
down the beach after 'em they'd have the start, an' you can't always
depend on shootin' straight at night in a fog."
"What did you do, then?" asked the agent.
"I just slipped into the water, down by the end o' the causeway," the
old whaler said, "an' there were scores o' seals around, so that it
didn't matter how much I splashed."
"You must be half a seal yourself," the agent said. "Swimming among
rocks in the dark is no joke."
"I had plenty of time, and I can swim a little," the old man modestly
admitted. "Wa'al, pretty soon I saw the boat an' I swam under water till
I came up right behind it. The Jap what was sittin' in it wasn't
expectin' any trouble an' as he was nid-noddin' and half asleep, I put
one hand on the stern o' the boat, bringin' it down in the water. With
the other hand I grabbed the back of a blouse-thing he was wearin' an'
yanked him overboard."
"You didn't drown him, did you, Hank?" asked Colin.
"Not altogether," the old whaler answered. "I held him under, though,
until he was good an' full o' water an' had stopped kickin', an' then I
climbed into the boat. Next time he came up I grabbed him an' took him
aboard. The fog was pretty thick an' none o' the rest of 'em saw what
was goin' on. In a minute or two I could see he was beginnin' to come
round an' I didn't quite know what to do. I didn't want to knock him on
the head, he hadn't done anythin' to hurt me, an' so I dropped the
row-locks overboard, tossed the oars ashore--there they are, lyin' among
the seals--an' got ashore myself. As soon as I was on solid ground I
untied the painter what held the boat an' set it adrift, givin' it a
push off with one o' the oars. The tide's goin' out, so I knew he
couldn't get ashore again. I'd hardly got the boat shoved off when he
yelled an' the rest of 'em heard it."
"What did they do?"
"Come rushin' for the boats. Most of 'em went over to the south'ard," he
pointed down the rookery, "where there was a boat I hadn't seen, but
these six tried to rush me. I just had time to shove the boat off, grab
my guns, an' face 'em."
"It was a bully hold-up," said Colin delightedly, "one against six."
"Had to," said the sailor, "or the six would have made mincemeat o' the
one. Besides, I had to give the tide a chance to get that boat out o'
the way. After I held 'em a few minutes I knew it was all right, because
they had no boat, their own bein' adrift without oars."
"Big lie," said the Japanese leader placidly, "we shipwreck sailors,
nothing to do with that ship at all. This man tell story about boat--we
not know anything of that boat. Our boat sunk on rocks, away over
there!"
He pointed to the other side of the island.
"But you were killing seals!" protested the agent.
"Yes," said the Japanese, "we think islands have not any person on. Need
food, we kill. Of course."
"Clever," said the agent, turning to Hank. "This isn't as simple as it
looks. We have no direct evidence that these men belonged to that
schooner."
"But we know they did!" said the whaler emphatically.
"Of course," agreed the agent. "But we can't prove it. Law demands
proof. If we only had that boat, with the schooner's name on, it would
serve."
Suddenly there came a hail from the crippled launch which was being
brought in under oars.
"Mr. Nagge there?"
"Yes, Svenson," was the reply, "what is it?"
"They smashed our engine all to bits," answered the engineer of the
boat, "but we've just picked up another boat, empty."
"That's the boat," said the agent with satisfaction in his voice. "Now
we've got them!"
A smile, a very faint smile, crossed the features of the Japanese
leader.
"What's the name on the stern of the boat?" the agent called.
There was a moment's pause, then came the answer in tones of deep
disgust:
"The name's been painted out!"
The agent looked round despairingly and caught Colin's look of sympathy.
"The slippery Oriental again!" the boy said.
"Not quite slippery enough this time, though," said Hank in a voice
which betrayed a discovery.
"What do you mean?" asked the agent.
"Uncle Sam's gettin' into the game," he answered, pointing out to sea.
"The revenue cutter?"
"Hm, hm," grunted the whaler in assent, "I reckon I can see her lights."
No one else could see anything in the fog and darkness, but a minute or
two later there came a flash, followed by a dull "boom."
Hank turned to the Japanese leader.
"Pity to spoil that yarn o' yours," he said, "but your ship can't run
away from quick-firin' guns without a wind."
CHAPTER IV
CATCHING THE SEA-SERPENT
There was great excitement in the village the next day when the revenue
cutter brought in the Japanese raiding schooner and her crew. The boat
that had successfully reached the ship had already begun to load her
quota of sealskins, and the men had not thrown them overboard, believing
that they could get away. Consequently, with the evidence of the raid
ashore and with the seals in the boat belonging to the schooner from
which witnesses had seen the crew go on board, the case was complete.
"What are you going to do with the prisoners?" asked Colin. "Are you
going to put them on trial here?"
"Not here," the agent replied. "The Federal Courts look after that."
"But I thought you were a judge," the boy protested. "Who administers
justice on the islands?"
"The chief agent," was the reply. "He is a magistrate. All the natives
are employees of the Fisheries Bureau. He has a lot of authority over
them. Obviously! But any really grave case is tried at Valdez, because
that's the nearest Federal court from here. Sealing questions, too, are
so confused with international issues that we don't undertake to decide
them."
"And what will happen to the schooner?"
"A prize crew will be put aboard. Take her to Unalaska. The revenue
cutter will pick them up afterwards. Probably start for Valdez without
delay. Captain Murchison said this morning that he wanted to go along."
"I wonder if I'll have to go?" said Colin. "I'm sure I don't want to, at
least, not yet. There's ever so much more that I want to find out about
seals, and I've hardly started. If I'm ever lucky enough to get into the
Bureau of Fisheries, I hope I shall have a chance to get something to do
on this fur seal service."
"Fur seal's very important. But only a small part of the Bureau of
Fisheries," the agent said, and outlined to Colin the general workings
of the Bureau, in which he showed the practical value of the work.
"I know. I want to join the Bureau," the boy persisted, "not only
because I think there's more fun in it than in anything else, but
because I like everything about it."
"What do your folks say about the plan?" the Fisheries agent queried.
"They know I want it," the lad replied, "but I never felt that I knew
enough about the Bureau to say that I didn't care to do anything else.
Father's always wanted me to take up lumbering or forestry or sawmills
or something to do with timber. He's quite a big lumberman, you know.
But, some way, that never appealed to me."
"Your father ought to know," the other said. "Obviously! And if he owns
timber lands, I think it's up to you to be a help. Lots of interesting
angles to the lumber business. And if the timber lands are going to
descend to you, you'll have to look after them, anyway."
"But they won't," objected Colin; "that's just it. In about ten years
that timber will be all cut off. I'm pretty sure Father will let me join
the Bureau," the boy continued, "because he's wild about fishing
himself. Why, just now, he's down at Santa Catalina, angling for big
game."
"Some difference between the Fisheries Bureau and angling for sport,"
the agent warned him. "I've been in the business all my life. But I've
never even learned to cast a fly! It's a serious business, and down in
Washington you'll find that the value of the work to the people of the
United States is the chief aim of the Bureau."
"It may be serious, but I should think that there is always something
new. And, anyway," Colin said enthusiastically, "fishes are ever so much
more interesting than animals. There are such heaps of different kinds,
too!"
"The interest in work depends on how you look at it," soberly responded
the agent. "Obviously! But don't think the Bureau is experimenting with
every kind of fish in the ocean. There are only a few food fishes or
forms with commercial value that are exploited at all."
"But you were describing to me, only yesterday, the way they handle
millions of baby fishes annually. I've just got to get into the Bureau."
"Go ahead, then. I don't doubt we'll be glad to have you. I've done my
best to show you what you'll have to face," the official declared, "and
if you're still eager for it, why, go in and win. There's always a place
somewhere for the chap who is really anxious to work."
At supper that day, the decision was announced that the revenue cutter
would start for Valdez next morning, and Colin had to scramble around in
a hurry to take a last look at the seals, to get a small crate made for
the blue fox pup, which he was going to send home for his younger
brother to look after, and to put into a small trunk he had got from one
of the villagers the few things he had saved from the wreck and had been
able to buy in the village.
The trip down to the Aleutian Islands and through its straits was a
delight to Colin, and he became quite excited when he learned that the
second lieutenant had for years been attached to a revenue cutter which
had a wharf at the Fisheries Bureau station at Woods Hole, Mass. This
officer, who had a brother in the Bureau, was only too glad to talk to
the boy about the service, and Colin monopolized his spare time on the
journey. And when, one day, his friend depicted the immensity of the
great salmon drives of the Alaskan rivers, the lad grew so excited that
the lieutenant laughingly told him he expected some fine morning to find
that he had jumped overboard and had started swimming for the Ugashik
River or some other of the famous salmon streams of Alaska.
[Illustration: NATIVE SALMON TRAP ON AN ALASKAN RIVER.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
[Illustration: MODERN SALMON TRAP ON AN ALASKAN RIVER.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
Shortly before they arrived at Valdez, the lieutenant of the cutter
called the boy aside.
"Colin," he said, "didn't you tell me the other day that you were going
down to Santa Catalina?"
"Yes, sir," the boy answered. "Father's down there now, and I want to
ask him if he won't let me go and join the Bureau of Fisheries."
"Well," the officer replied, "before you do that, I think you ought to
get some idea about the sort of work there is to do. It happens that one
of my brother's friends is on the Columbia River just now, making some
kind of experiment on salmon. He has a cottage not far from one of the
state hatcheries, and if you like, I'll give you a letter to him. If you
are really determined to enter the Bureau, you might stop on your way to
Santa Catalina and see the work from another point of view."
"I'd like to ever so much," said Colin, "but I couldn't very well go
uninvited."
"He'll be only too pleased to see you," was the reply; "he's a Westerner
like myself, and will enjoy putting you up for a day or two."
"It's right in my way, too," remarked Colin, yielding to his desire to
go.
"Quite a few of the steamers for 'Frisco stop at Astoria, at the mouth
of the Columbia River," the lieutenant suggested, "and the professor's
cottage is not more than half an hour from there, near the state
fish-hatching station at Chinook, Wash."
"Just across the river, then?"
"Exactly. The way I look at it, you're not at all likely to have
anything to do with fur seal if you go into the Bureau, certainly not
for a good many years. So you can't judge the Fisheries' scope from
that, and you ought to see the work that will probably fall to your
lot."
"Very well, sir," said the boy, "I'll go gladly, and thank you ever so
much."
"I'll drop a note to Professor Todd, then," the lieutenant said, nodding
as he turned away, "and as we may be delayed a few days in Valdez, the
letter will reach him before you will."
On their arrival at the Alaskan town, Colin learned that some time would
elapse before the trial of the Japanese prisoners, as the court would
not be in session until later in the summer, and he was told that when
his deposition had been taken, there would be no need to keep him as a
witness. Accordingly, after the boy had related the story of the
discovery and of his entire connection with the affair, he was told that
he might leave.
As the revenue officer had expected, within a week a steamer left Valdez
for San Francisco, calling at Astoria on the way, and Colin took passage
aboard. Aside from meeting on board an old shell collector, who taught
him a great deal about the principal valuable sea shells of the world,
the voyage was without incident, and he arrived in Astoria in time to
proceed the same afternoon to the cottage of the professor, where he was
to stay that night, having found a letter of welcome awaiting him in
Astoria.
Reaching the house he presented his letter of introduction, and was
cordially greeted. Finding that the boy was really interested, his host
took him to a tiny laboratory of his own, where he was experimenting on
the various diseases of the salmon and the trout.
This gave Colin an entirely new outlook on the Fisheries' activities.
"I never thought of fishes being sick before!" he exclaimed. "Are there
fish-doctors in the Bureau?"
"There's a large division of the service given to that very work," the
professor replied, "only there are so many millions of fish that we do
not try to cure the individual, but only endeavor to prevent the
disease. You know what the work of a veterinary is?"
"Of course," the boy responded.
"And you know that the United States Government has an inspector at
every place where cattle and sheep and pigs are slaughtered to see that
no diseased animals are sold?"
"Yes," the boy answered, "I have heard of that, too."
"Since there is almost as much fish eaten in this country as there is
meat," the professor continued, "Uncle Sam sees to it that no diseased
fish are sold for food."
"I don't quite see how," the boy responded; "there can't be an inspector
at every place where they catch fish."
"Certainly not, but as long as there is no disease among fish, there can
be no diseased fish. We try to prevent the diseases. Now here, for
example," he continued, "are a lot of fish that have a kind of malign
growth. It comes very frequently among the trout and salmon that are
artificially raised, and sometimes we find it among fish that have been
reared in a state of nature, and I have been working for some time on
this and I hope this year--or at all events by next season--to be able
to show the cause of the disease. That is really my problem, Colin, but
the details of it are too complicated to explain easily. But you have
come at a particularly good time," he continued, "because I have been
wanting to do an experiment which I thought might interest you, and I
waited until you came. If you like, we'll go out to-morrow."
"I should, ever so much," Colin exclaimed. "What's the experiment?"
"When the salmon come in from the sea," the professor began, "there is a
great deal of hesitation among them sometimes before they go up the
river to spawn, and we want to find out whether they go back to the sea
again, whether they swim directly up the stream, or whether they remain
in the brackish water at the mouth of the river."
"If you don't mind my saying so, what is the use of knowing?" asked
Colin. "I mean, what does it matter as long as the salmon spawns?"
"The salmon is one of the most important food fishes of the country,"
the professor said rebukingly, "and it is as important for us to know
all about its habits as it is to know about the way a grain of wheat
grows."
"I hadn't thought of that," Colin said, a little shamefacedly. "I
suppose everything really is important, no matter how small."
The professor smiled at him.
"If you have much to do with studying fish," he said, "or, indeed, with
any kind of science, you will find out it is always the little things
that tell the story. Take the grain of wheat again. If one kind of wheat
ripens two days earlier on an average than another kind, you might think
that so small a difference wouldn't be of great importance, but those
two days might--and often do--make the difference between a good crop
and one which is frost-bitten and spoiled."
"That's a lot easier to see," agreed the boy. "But, sir," he objected,
"you can pick out one little bit of a field and work on that, and it
will 'stay put.' Fishes wander all over the place."
"We want them to do so, my boy," was the reply.
"How can you work on separate fish? One looks so like another!"
"And for that very reason we're going to tag them."
"Tag them?"
"With a little aluminum button fastened to their tail, just as bad
youngsters fasten a tin can to a dog's tail. Every tag has a number, and
we use aluminum because it corrodes rapidly in salt water."
"Then I should think," said Colin, "that was the very reason why you
shouldn't use it."
"Why not?" asked the professor mildly. "We know that the salmon are not
going to stay in the salt water, because they are going up the river to
spawn. If, therefore, we catch a fish in the nets higher up stream, with
the tag bright and shining, we know that it hasn't been in salt water at
all; if dull and just a little worn away, that the fish with that tag
has been staying in the brackish water near the mouth of the river; but
if it is deeply corroded, that the fish returned to sea for a time. As
you see, a good deal of information is gathered that way. But in the
morning you will have a chance to see how it is done, and then the
results--when they are published--will seem more interesting."
"Have you been associated with the Bureau of Fisheries, Professor Podd?"
Colin asked.
"Not directly," the other replied. "I should have enjoyed it, and it
seems to me a work of the first importance, but every man is apt to
think that about his own work, or work that is like his own. But I can
tell you what decided me, nearly twenty years ago, to give all my spare
time to the fishery question."
"What was that?" asked Colin.
"It was a phrase in a lecture that Dr. Baird, the founder of fish
culture in America, was giving about the need of the work. He pointed
out that there was more actual life in a cubic foot of water than in a
cubic foot of land, and closed by saying, 'The work of conserving the
Fisheries of the United States will not be finished until every acre of
water is farmed as carefully as every acre or land.'"
"I never quite thought of it as farming," said the boy.
"Nor had I, before that time," the professor said. "But ever since then
I have seen that we of the present time are the great pioneers, the
discoverers, the explorers of this new world. Instead of blazing our
trail through a wilderness of trees we dredge our way through a
wilderness of waters; instead of a stockade around a blockhouse to
protect us against wild beasts and wilder Indian foes, we have but a
thin plank between us and destruction; instead of a few wolves and
mountain-lions to prey upon the few head of stock we might raise, we
have thousands of millions of fierce, finny pirates with which to do
battle, and we work against odds the old pioneers could not even have
estimated!"
"That's great!" cried Colin, his eyes shining.
"The surface of the sea," the professor continued, warming to his
subject, "reveals no more of its mystery than the smoke cloud above the
city tells the story of the wild race of life in its thronging streets,
or than the waving tips of a forest of mighty trees reveal the myriad
forms below. Each current of the ocean is an empire of its own with its
tribes endlessly at war; the serried hosts of voracious fish prey on
those about them, fishes of medium depth do perpetual war upon the
surface fish, and some of these are forced into the air to fly like
birds away from the Nemesis below."
"And much is still unknown, isn't it?"
"We are discovering a new world!" was the reply. "No one for a moment
can deny the greatness of the finding of America, and Columbus and the
other early navigators are sure of immortal fame, but even so, what was
the New World they found to the illimitable areas of unknown life, in
the bottom of the sea, that have been made known to man. Think of the
wonder that has been revealed by the _Challenger_ and other ships that
have explored the ocean beds!"
"There is still a great deal unknown, isn't there?"
"Still an unknown universe! Lurking in the utter darkness of the
scarce-fathomed deeps of the ocean, what Kraken may not lie, coil on
coil; what strange black, slimy, large-eyed forms do their stealthy
hunting in perpetual night by the light of phosphorescent lamps they
bear upon their bodies? Many of these there are, every year teaches of
new species. The land--oh! the land is all well known, even the Arctic
and Antarctic regions no longer hide their secrets, but the ocean is
inscrutable. Smiling or in anger, she baffles us and her inmost shrines
are still inviolate."
The professor checked himself suddenly, as though conscious of having
been carried away by enthusiasm.
"We'll try and get at some of the secrets to-morrow," he said, "but it
will mean early rising, as the trap is to be hauled at slack water."
Acting on the hint, Colin bade his host good-night, but his sleep was
fitful and restless. The sudden passionate speech of the grave scholar
had been a revelation to the boy, and whereas he had felt a desire for
the Fisheries Bureau before, he knew now that it had been largely with
the sense of novelty and adventure. But the professor's words had given
him a new light, and he saw what an ideal might be. He felt like a
knight of the olden time, who, watching his armor the vigil before the
conferring of knighthood, had been granted a vision of all his service
might mean. He knew that night that the question he was to ask his
father could have but the one answer, that the great decision of his
life was made, his work was cut out to do.
Shortly after daybreak the next morning, Colin was called and he dressed
hurriedly. After a hearty breakfast in which steel-head trout figured
largely, he went down to the pier on the water and was not sorry to have
the chance of showing his host that he was a good canoeist.
"How large is the work of the Bureau now, Professor?" asked Colin, as
the light craft shot down the magnificent stretches of the Columbia
River.
"Over three and a half billion eggs and small fish were distributed last
year, if I remember rightly," was the reply. "Of course, a large
proportion of these fish did not reach maturity, but perhaps half a
billion did so, and half a billion fish is an immense contribution to
the food supply of the world."
"But aren't there always lots of fish in the sea?" asked Colin. "When
you come to compare land with water it always looks as though there must
be so many that the number we catch wouldn't make any sort of impression
on them."
"Think a bit," said the professor. "You've just come down from the
Pribilof Islands. How did you find matters up there? Had the catching of
seals been harmful, or were there so many seals still in the sea that it
didn't matter what line of hunting went on?"
"Of course, pelagic sealing had nearly killed off the entire species,"
said Colin, "but, somehow, fish seem different. Oh, yes, I know why.
Seals only have one pup at a time and fishes have thousands of eggs."
"That's a very good reply," the professor agreed, "but why was it that
pelagic sealing was so bad? Was it done all the year round?"
[Illustration: MILLIONS OF THESE HATCHED YEARLY.
Brook Trout just hatching, showing fry with egg-sacs still attached.
_Courtesy of the National Geographic Magazine._]
"No," said Colin, "principally when the females were coming to the
spawning ground."
"And the Pribilof Islands are only a small place. Especially when
compared to the range of oceans the seal cover during the rest of the
year?"
"Very small."
"Then," said the other, "it is easy to see that the respective size of
land and water has very little to do with the general fishery question.
But if a seal or a fish must come to the land or to narrow rivers to
spawn, it follows that man possesses the power to determine whether
spawning shall continue or not, doesn't it?"
"Yes," agreed Colin, "I suppose it does."
"And if you protect the seals, the herd will increase."
"It ought to."
"Very good. That is just the work we are doing here. The salmon come
into fresh water to spawn--just like shad and a number of other species
of fish--and when you kill a salmon just about to ascend the river, you
destroy at the same time the thousands of eggs she bears."
"But I thought salmon were always caught running up a stream?" said
Colin in surprise.
"They are," was the quick response; "by far the larger number are caught
that way, and as long as a certain proportion go up the stream there's
no great harm done. But if every one of the salmon is caught, as happens
when nets are put all the way across a stream, there will be none to
spawn, and in a few years there will be no fish in that river."
"Do the fish always return, when grown up, to the river in which they
spawned?"
"That is disputed. But the large proportion of such fish do not travel
very far from the mouth of the river in which they were born and the
natural impulse for fresh water at spawning-time leads them naturally to
the nearest stream. So, it is imperative that some fish be allowed to go
up-stream, or in other words, that salmon-catchers allow a certain
proportion to escape their wheels and nets."
"They ought to be willing enough to do that, I should think," said
Colin; "it's for their own good in the long run."
"A lot of them want quick profits now, without any regard for the
future," his host said scornfully. "Of course, there are laws for
fishery regulation in many of the States, but inspectors have their
hands full in preventing violations. In Alaska, which is a territory
still, that supervision is done by the government through the Bureau of
Fisheries."
"It must be a little aggravating to the salmon men, just the same," said
Colin thoughtfully, "when they are trying to keep their canning
factories going full blast, to have to allow half the catch to go on up
the stream. But," he continued, "why don't they catch the salmon coming
down the stream again? I should think that would settle the whole
question."
"It would," said the professor, "if they came down! But they don't.
Every single salmon, male and female, that goes up the river in the
spawning season dies up there. None of them ever comes down alive."
"I don't think they did that way in Newfoundland!" ejaculated Colin in
surprise. "When I was staying with my uncle there I saw lots of salmon,
and it seemed to me that they went down the river again."
"They did," was the reply. "The Atlantic or true salmon does not die
after spawning, but not a single fish of any one of the five different
kinds of Pacific salmon ever spawns twice. Every yard of the shores of
the upper reaches of Pacific coast rivers is covered almost solidly with
dead salmon from September to December!"
"How awful!"
"It makes some places uninhabitable," the professor replied. "Where a
market is near enough, the dead fish are collected and sold for
fertilizer."
"Is it the fresh water that kills them?"
"No," was the reply; "that is one of the most curious features of the
life-history of the Pacific salmon. As soon as the fish are nearly ready
for spawning, all their digestive parts shrivel up, so that they can't
eat. In the male salmon, too, the end of the upper lip turns into a sort
of hook so that the fish can't even open his mouth wide enough to eat
anything. Then in the fresh water their scales turn slimy and, as they
often get injured trying to leap falls and rapids, all sorts of skin
diseases attack them. A salmon in the upper reaches of the Columbia
headwaters is a pitiful wreck of the magnificent fish that entered it to
spawn."
"Do they go far?"
"As much as a thousand miles," was the reply. "The quinnat and blue
back--or the spring and the sockeye, as they are generally known, take
the long journeys, but the silver or coho, and the humpback and dog
salmon keep to the small streams near the sea. The young fry cannot live
in salt water and the instinct of the salmon is to swim up-stream as far
as possible, no matter what obstacle is in the way. When they have gone
to the very limit, the salmon make pits and holes in the gravel and sand
at the bottom of the stream for nests, and drop the eggs in these. The
male salmon immediately afterwards floats over the nests and does his
share in making sure that the eggs will hatch out."
"How big are the salmon?" asked the boy.
"You'll have a chance to see," the professor answered, as he swung the
canoe in to the wharf, at the state hatchery station, "because we're
going to measure the ones we tag this morning."
The foreman and one of the men of the station were waiting for them in a
good-sized motor boat, towing behind which was a curious-looking affair
composed of two small barrels fastened together by long slats.
"Don't you know what that is?" queried the professor, noting Colin's
puzzled look.
"No, sir."
"That's a live car. The barrels at each end have enough water in them to
sink them to a certain depth. Then the slats, as you see, are nailed
two-thirds of the way around the barrels, leaving just enough space for
the water to flow in and out freely. They put the fish in that to tow
them home alive. The slats are better than netting because sometimes the
fishes catch their scales in the meshes and get hurt."
The run to the fish-trap was made in a few minutes, and the boat went
inside to the 'pound,' the net was partly hauled up, and the professor
took out his punch and the buttons. Colin had put on a pair of rubber
boots and oilskin trousers, as had all the rest of the party, and he was
ready for anything that came along.
"Do you want my slicker?" the professor asked him. "You're apt to get
splashed."
"I don't mind a bit, thanks," answered the boy, rolling up his sleeves;
"a little shower-bath will feel good on a hot day like this!"
"All right, then," the leader of the party declared, "we'll give you a
chance to make yourself useful. Here you are!"
Colin took the large flat-bottomed net and awaited further instructions.
"Catch one of the salmon," he was told; "never mind the rest of the
fish. And," he was warned, "don't bring the net clear out of the water."
"Very well, sir," the boy replied, then his curiosity getting the better
of him, he asked, "Why not?"
"Because if you do, the salmon will struggle against the meshes of the
net, bruise himself, and probably scrape off some scales. I told you how
easy it is for a fish to get diseased if he loses any of his scales. If
you keep the net about four inches below the water, the fish has the
resistance of the water to fight against, and it will tire him out
quickly without doing any harm."
"All right," Colin answered, and commenced scooping for the fish. In a
minute or two he had a large twenty-pounder in the net and he raised it
until the bottom was a little below the water, as he had been told.
"You're right about getting wet!" cried Colin, laughing, as the salmon
began to whirl and plunge and dance in the net, sending a shower of
water all over him and nearly blinding him by the force with which the
drops of water struck as they were splashed upwards by the powerful
strokes of the fish's tail.
The instant the salmon stopped struggling, the hatchery boatman seized
it by the tail with a strong grip, swung it clear out of the net and
over his left arm, laying it immediately on the measuring platform. This
consisted merely of a wide board with an upright at one end, a rule
giving both metrical and standard measures being nailed to the side of
the board. Instantly the measurer called out the length and the
professor noted it down, the hatchery foreman--famous for his expertness
in judging the weight of a fish--calling out the weight to be recorded.
Laying down his pencil, the professor then, with a small punch, made a
tiny hole in the tail-fin of the salmon, the fish having been thrown
over the captor's left arm again, slipped an aluminum button through the
hole, and riveted it securely. The entire process took less than a
minute and a half, and by the time the salmon had been released and
tossed into the water again, Colin was ready with another fish.
"I don't see why the fish don't die as soon as they come out of the
water!" exclaimed Colin.
"For nearly a minute, some fish breathe better out of the water than in
it," the professor answered, "but after that the gills stick together
and the fish strangles. Two or even three minutes will not injure
salmon, and some fish will recover if they are out of water for hours.
Indeed, there are some fish that live out of water most of the time."
"Live out of water?" the boy said in surprise.
"Certainly. Some kinds of fish, at least, can't stay in the water very
long, but remain perched up on the rocks."
"Perching like birds?" Colin said incredulously.
"I know that sounds a little improbable, but it's true, just the same,"
the professor said, smiling. "This is a Fisheries story, not a 'fish
story.' There's a difference. They come from Samoa and belong to the
skippy family. Most of them live on the rocks, and they jump from rock
to rock instead of swimming. Some of them even are vegetarians--which is
rare among fish--and their gills are smaller and stouter. Plenty of them
are only in the water for a little while at high tide, living in the
moist seaweed until the tide rises again."
Colin was silenced, and he went on vigorously dipping up salmon.
"How many fish are you going to tag?" the boy asked, when a couple of
hours had passed by.
"Sixty," the professor answered, "and we must be nearly through, for I
have only a few buttons left."
Secretly the boy was much relieved, for his back was tired from stooping
and netting heavy fish for two hours, but he would have worked to utter
exhaustion rather than complain. However, within another quarter of an
hour, the last fish was dropped over the side and the party was on its
return journey.
"Why don't you stop and see the hatchery?" suggested the professor, in
return to a host of questions put to him by the boy concerning salmon
culture.
"I'd like to, ever so much, if I might," was the answer, and Colin
looked up at the foreman.
"Come right along," was the latter's immediate response. "It isn't much
of a place to look at, but you can see whatever there is to see."
The hatchery itself was simple and bare, as the foreman had suggested,
consisting merely of a row of boxes arranged in such a way that water
flowed through them constantly, bringing a steady supply of fresh water
without carrying away the light eggs and tiny fry. Colin was thoroughly
interested, and followed the foreman from place to place, eagerly
watching the processes of hatching the fish and asking unending
questions.
[Illustration: HATCHERIES IN MAINE FOR LANDLOCKED SALMON.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
"Here," the man said, after he had answered a dozen or more queries.
"I'll show you just how it's done and you'll learn more from watching
than I could tell you in a week of talk."
He led the way to a large pond not far from the hatchery, which was
connected with a small stream, the water of which was almost entirely
fresh.
"It's a little early yet for the autumn run," the foreman said, "but
maybe there's some salmon ready for their eggs to be taken. We'll have a
look, anyway."
"Are there any chinook in there?" queried Colin, who was feeling a
little proud of the knowledge he had acquired that morning as to the way
of distinguishing the varieties of salmon.
"Don't want chinook," was the reply; "they have got to go away up the
river to spawn and wouldn't be in shape if we tried to use them here. We
only raise humpback and dog here, the hatcheries for chinook and silver
salmon are away up the river."
"Run by the State or the Government?" queried the boy.
"Both," was the reply, "and quite a few are managed by commercial fish
companies who are as anxious as any one to see that the annual salmon
run does not grow smaller. Their living depends upon it."
At his request one of the men commenced scooping up some of the salmon
in the pool to see if any of them were ripe, and meantime the
foreman--who was still wearing his oilskins--picked up a tin pail,
holding it between his knees. In a minute or two the man came in holding
a ripe female salmon.
"Now watch," the foreman said to Colin, "and you can see the whole
performance."
He seized the salmon by the tail, and all the eggs ran down toward the
head. Then, holding the fish head upward, he pressed it slightly, and
the eggs ran out from the vent rapidly, striking the bottom of the pan
with considerable force. The foreman had hardly got the eggs when his
assistant came in with a male salmon, and the same plan was repeated,
the milt falling upon the eggs. Both male and female salmon then were
returned to the pool. The eggs and milt were shaken violently from side
to side until thoroughly mixed, a little water being added to help the
mixture. Then he took the pail to the faucet.
"But you're washing the milt off again!" cried Colin, as the foreman
filled the pail with water.
"It's had plenty of time to work," was the answer, and the eggs were
poured into a flat pan and washed several times.
"Now we'll put just a little water in the pan," the foreman continued,
"and leave it here to swell."
"Why should it swell?" asked Colin.
"The egg isn't really full when it comes from the mother fish," the
foreman answered, "the yolk rattles around inside the shell, but after
it has been mixed with the milt, it begins to suck up water, and in
about half an hour it's full."
"What happens next?" queried Colin.
"That's about all. We put the eggs in frames so that the water has a
chance to circulate freely, and then we go over the frames once or twice
a week to pick out any eggs that may happen to die or not to grow just
right."
"How long does it take before a fish comes out?" Colin asked
interestedly. "About a couple of weeks?"
"Weeks!" was the surprised answer; "we look for hatching to begin in
about five months, and during all that time every tray of eggs is picked
over once or twice a week. That keeps dead eggs from infecting live
ones."
"You must keep them a long time, then?"
"Nearly a year altogether. Those in that trough right behind you are
just hatching, they're from the first batch of spawn in the early spring
run. Most of them are hatched out now, for you see only a few eggs in
the tray."
Colin looked in and saw, as the foreman said, only half a dozen eggs
left in the tray, while in the shallow water of the trough below were
hundreds of tiny fish, like transparent tadpoles still fastened to the
yolk of the egg. Some, which were just hatched, were less than
three-quarters of an inch long, and scarcely able to move about in the
water because of the great weight of the yolk about the center of their
bodies. A few had consumed a large part of the sac.
"It'll take them about six weeks to get rid of the yolk," the foreman
said, anticipating the boy's question, "and if they were in a natural
stream they would be able to look after themselves. We feed them tiny
grubs and worms and small pieces of liver. From that time on it is
merely a question of giving them the proper food and keeping the troughs
clean. When they are five or six months old we set them free."
"Do you do any work except salmon hatching here?" Colin asked, as, after
a morning spent in the station, they walked toward the pier.
"No," the foreman answered, "we distribute a million and a half young
fish every year and that keeps us busy enough."
"Well," said Colin, shaking hands, "I'm ever so much obliged, and I
really feel now as if I knew something about a hatchery. And I've had a
share in one experiment, anyway!"
On his return to the cottage he found the professor getting out
fishing-tackle.
"Going out again?" queried Colin.
"I thought you might like to try a little sport-fishing," was the
answer; "you said you were going down to Santa Catalina, and you might
as well get your hand in. You can stay over another day, can't you?"
"I suppose I could," Colin answered, "and I should like to catch a
really big salmon with a rod and line, not only for the fun of it, but
because I happen to know that Father's never caught one, and I'd like to
beat him out on something. It's pretty difficult, though, to get ahead
of Dad!"
The professor shook his head with mock gravity.
"That's not a particularly good motive," he said, "and I don't know that
I ought to increase any boy's stock of conceit. It is usually quite big
enough. But maybe you won't catch anything, and I'll chance it."
"Oh, but I will catch one," Colin declared confidently; "I'm going to
try and get one of the hundred-pounders that I've read about."
"You'll have a long sail, then," his host replied, "because fish of that
size don't come far south of Alaskan waters. Twenty-five or thirty
pounds is as big as you can look for, and even those will give you all
the sport you want."
"Very well," Colin responded, a little abashed, "I'll be satisfied."
"It's rather a pity," the professor said, when, after lunch, they had
started for the fishing-grounds in a small catboat, "that you haven't
had a chance to go up to The Dalles to see the salmon leaping up the
falls and the rapids. I think it's one of the most wonderful sights in
the world."
"I've seen the Atlantic salmon jump small falls," Colin said, "but I
don't think I ever saw one larger than ten or twelve pounds."
"I have seen hundreds of them fifty to eighty pounds in weight leaping
at falls in the smaller Alaskan rivers. I remember seeing twenty or
thirty in the air at a time while the water below the falls was boiling
with the thousands of fish threshing the water before their leap."
"How high can they jump?" asked Colin.
"About sixteen foot sheer stops even the best of them," the professor
said, "but there are not many direct falls like that. Nearly all rapids
and falls are in jumps of five or six feet, and salmon can take that
easily. Still, there is a fall nearly twenty feet high that some salmon
must have leaped, for a few have been found above it, and they must
either have leaped up or walked round--there's no other way."
"How do you suppose they did it?"
"In a very high wind, probably," the professor answered; "a gale blowing
up the canyon might just give the extra foot or two at the end of a high
leap."
As soon as they were about four miles out, the sail was taken in and,
following the professor's example, Colin dropped his line over the
stern. The shining copper and nickel spoon sank slowly, and the boy paid
out about a hundred feet of line. Taking up the oars and with the rod
ready to hand, Colin rowed slowly, parallel with the shore. Two or three
times the boy had a sensation that the boat was being followed by some
mysterious denizen of the sea, but though in the distance there seemed a
strange ripple on the water, nothing definite appeared, and he forgot it
for the moment as the professor got the first strike.
With the characteristic scream, the reel shrilled out, and the fish took
nearly a hundred feet of line, but the angler held the brake so hard
that the strain rapidly exhausted the fish, and when it turned toward
the boat, the professor's deft fingers reeled at such a speed that the
line wound in almost as rapidly as the rush of the fish. As soon as the
salmon saw the boat it tried to break away, but its captor had caught a
glimpse of the fish, and seeing that it was not too large for speedy
action, reeled in without loss of time, and gaffed him promptly.
[Illustration: THIRTY-POUND ATLANTIC SALMON LEAPING FALLS AND RAPIDS IN
A NEWFOUNDLAND RIVER.
_By permission of H. K. Burrison._]
[Illustration: EIGHTY-POUND PACIFIC SALMON LEAPING WATERFALL ON AN
ALASKA RIVER.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
"Small chinook," he said, as he tossed him into the boat.
He had hardly finished speaking before Colin made a grab for his rod,
and the catch was repeated in almost the same manner. This went on until
five fish had been caught, the last one, which fell to the professor,
putting up the most gamy fight of them all. But still it was too easy
for real sport.
The ripple which Colin had been watching had come nearer, and in the
catching of the last fish, the boat had been brought quite close to it.
Then, noiselessly, and like a strange vision, out from the undulating
ripples rose slowly a creature more fantastic than the boy's wildest
dreams. The head was green, with large unwinking, glittering eyes. In
slow contortions, the body, of a transparency that showed the light
through, writhed like a tremendous ribbon-snake, and a sharp row of
serrated fins surmounted all its length, from which, near the head,
scarlet streamers floated like a mane. A moment thus it held its head
erect, then sank below the surface. The boy sat with his eyes fixed upon
the spot where he had seen this weird appearance, unknown and
ghostly-seeming.
"Colin," said the professor, and his tone was so imperative that the boy
turned sharply, "what is the matter? What are you watching?"
"I don't know, sir," said the boy; "I don't know much about fish, and I
was waiting until it came nearer. I was going to say----"
He stopped suddenly.
"What?" asked the professor, a little impatiently.
"You'd laugh at me," the boy answered.
"You saw----"
"I saw a big green head with large eyes and spines on its back put its
head out of the water," Colin said doggedly, "and it had a bright red
mane. I couldn't think of anything but--but,"--he hesitated and then
gulped out,--"a sea-serpent."
He half feared to look at his companion, feeling that a pitying smile
would greet his news, but after a few seconds' silence, he glanced up
and saw that his fellow-fisherman was looking grave and thoughtful. At
that instant the boy felt a quick snap at his line and he struck, the
salmon whirling away instantly. It was a good fight, and the fish was
full of grit, sending a curious thrumming sensation up the line that set
every nerve aquiver. At last he got the fish stopped, and had just
started to reel the big salmon in, when the apparition thrust its head
out of the water not twenty feet from the boat. It distracted Colin's
attention, and a few seconds later his line snapped.
"The salmon's got away," said Colin disgustedly.
"What does that matter?" said the professor. "We've something else to
do."
"What?"
"Catch your sea-serpent," was the reply, as the older man pointed to the
green and scarlet gleam in the water.
"It must be thirty feet long," Colin said, then realizing that his tone
suggested that he was afraid, he added boldly, "but I'm game. What is
it, anyway?"
"You're not so far off in calling it a sea-serpent," his companion said;
"at least, it's more like the fabulous monster than any other fish that
we know."
"But how are you going to catch it?" the boy asked.
"By hand," the professor replied, slipping off his outer clothes.
"You mean you're going in after it?" queried the boy with amazement.
"Certainly," the other answered; "it's harmless enough."
"It doesn't look it," said Colin, but he was not to be outdone, and
prepared to follow his host into the water.
They ran the boat close to the creature, which swam but feebly despite
its immense length, and the professor plunged over the side, holding the
loop of a rope. A few strokes took him to the long, ribbon-like form,
which was not thicker than a man's body, and he threw his arms about it,
back of the head. The fish struggled weakly, but the professor did not
let go, and in a few seconds Colin had brought up the boat. He then took
the rope, which had been passed around the soft and flabby body. Then,
jumping overboard also, the boy helped the professor lift the fish from
below, for the flesh was so soft that a rope would cut right through it.
With great exertion, for the creature was heavy, they got it on board,
half swamping the boat in doing so. Despite its size, the strange
visitor from the deep seemed scarcely able to struggle and lay
motionless in the boat.
"What is it?" asked Colin, as he gazed on the snake-body and the
strange head which, with its brilliant crimson mane, was reminiscent of
some fiery horse of ancient legend.
"What can it be?" he repeated wonderingly.
"An oarfish," the professor answered.
"That isn't what I think it is," Colin replied. "I'm sure it's something
quite different."
"What?" asked the professor, smiling.
"I believe something has killed the sea-serpent at the bottom of the sea
and this is its ghost!"
CHAPTER V
CLUTCHED BY A HORROR OF THE DEEP
In order that the valuable specimen of the oarfish might be properly
preserved, for the creature was so soft-fleshed that it would quickly
shrivel in the hot sun, the professor accompanied Colin to Astoria the
following morning, and shortly after they landed, the city was buzzing
with news of the wonderful find. Before the boy left for Santa Catalina
that evening he found his name in all the afternoon papers as being one
of the men who had "caught the sea-serpent." As this was the first
specimen in perfect preservation that had reached any city of the United
States and, indeed, only the sixth ever reported from American shores, a
great deal of interest was excited, and Colin was compelled to give an
interview to a reporter, telling the story of the capture. He was sorry
that his brother--to whom he had sent the blue fox--was not with the
rest of the family in Santa Catalina, so that he could tell him all
about it, but the younger lad was at a boys' camp.
Making a stay of only a couple of hours in Los Angeles, the boy went
from there straight to San Pedro, where he took the steamer for Avalon,
the only large town on Santa Catalina, and the most famous place in the
entire world for taking big game fish with rod and reel.
The passage was only of two hours' duration, and the weather ideal. The
water of the channel was like a mirror, but the daily breeze sprang up
at eleven o'clock, its accustomed hour.
Although no more attentive to scenery than most boys of his age, Colin
fairly cried aloud with admiration as the steamer rounded the point and
turned into Avalon Bay. Almost a perfect semicircle, the beach of
glistening white sand enclosed a basin of turquoise sea in which were
reflected the dark, rich tones of the cliffs, all glowing like an opal
beneath the sun, while above rose the hills covered with the wild lilac
and greasewood of California. Even the tame sea-lions which frequent the
harbor and follow incoming boats, and which frequently are to be seen
hauled up on small fishing-craft, seemed to fit wonderfully into the
scene. A passenger who heard the boy's exclamation of delight, turned to
him.
"That's the way I feel about it," he said. "I think it more beautiful
every time I come."
"It makes me think of an abalone shell," Colin remarked thoughtfully,
"before the outside is polished; the bay looks just like the glow of the
shell inside and the sand-hills resemble the rough outside of the shell,
with barnacles growing on it."
"Perhaps that is why it is called Avalon?" his companion said; "abalone,
Avalon--it's not improbable, though I never heard such a derivation
before; the Vale of Avalon in Pennsylvania is supposed to have been the
prime factor in giving the name. But it's a wonderful place in itself,
and besides, there's not one of those hundreds of boats moored in the
harbor but could tell some thrilling tale of big game at sea. Look," he
continued, as the steamer drew near to the entrance of the harbor,
"there's a chap who's hooked to something big. By the way he's playing
the fish it's probably a leaping tuna. Wait a minute and I'll tell you."
He unslung his fieldglasses and focused them on the boat.
"Yes, he's got a tuna," he continued, "for the flag is flying."
The news spread rapidly over the boat, for almost every one on board
was going to Avalon for the angling, and the capture of a large tuna is
an event. The glasses were handed from person to person, and presently
were passed to Colin, who noted with eager interest the little
motor-boat and the big flag. Then he turned the glass on the people in
the boat, and flashed out excitedly:
[Illustration: SEA-SERPENT STRANDED ON CALIFORNIA COAST.
Showing length of small specimen and its semi-transparency.
_By permission of Prof. David Starr Jordan._]
[Illustration: THE SEA-SERPENT CAUGHT BY COLIN.
Oarfish, thirty feet in length, with flaming red upstanding mane, and a
knife-like body less than three inches in thickness.
_By permission of Prof. David Starr Jordan._]
"Why, that's Father!"
"He's in luck, then," said the boy's companion. "I hope I get a chance
this season. Still, it's a good omen, seeing a catch like this when
coming into the harbor."
"Sure thing," said Colin confidently, "there are probably lots of them
this season. Do you suppose Father will land him?"
"About nine out of ten get away," was the reply, "and it takes a good
fisherman to bring them to the gaff. Has your father been here before?
Perhaps I may know him."
"He comes nearly every year," Colin answered. "Dare is his name, Major
Dare."
"Oh, you're Dare's son, are you?" was the response, as the older man
held out his hand. "I've known your father for years. He holds a blue
tuna button, doesn't he?"
"I've never heard of it, if he does," Colin answered. "What's that for?"
"It is the greatest fishing honor that is to be got anywhere. Only about
seventy members of the club have gained it; two, I believe, being women,
and the second largest tuna ever caught on rod and line was brought to
gaff by a woman angler. It is given for catching a tuna weighing over
one hundred pounds, on a light rod."
"That must be fearfully hard to do," the boy said; "even a twenty-pound
fish is a strain to a light rod."
"It is difficult," was the reply, "but the club rules require the use of
a rod the tip of which shall be not less than five feet long, weighing
not over sixteen ounces in weight, and a line not over a 'twenty-four'
or smaller than the usual trout-line. With this equipment, to conquer a
tuna weighing over one hundred pounds is an angling achievement of the
highest rank, and for this the blue tuna button is given by the club."
"And Father never told me!" Colin said reproachfully, watching the
contest with the fish as well as he could considering his distance from
the scene of action.
"Major Dare is a thorough sportsman," the angler said, "and I suppose
he thought it would look like boasting. What's happening there in the
boat?"
"It looks as though they had started out to sea," Colin answered,
handing back the glass.
"That's what's the matter!" the angler said. "By Jonah's whale, how she
is flying through the water!"
The two watched the boat until a turn of the cliff hid it from sight and
then, Colin, turning round, saw that the steamer was nearly at the pier,
close enough for him to distinguish his mother and sister waiting there
and waving to attract his attention. He signaled enthusiastically in
reply, and in a few minutes the steamer was alongside the wharf.
The greeting was most exciting, for the boy was simply bursting with
news, and there had been a good deal of anxiety felt by his parents on
his behalf while he had been wandering in the Behring Sea. But their
talk was broken in upon by an enthusiastic angler friend, who begged
Mrs. Dare to come to the extreme end of the pier and watch the battle
with the big tuna.
"Oh, Mother," eagerly said the boy, "do you mind if I jump in a boat so
that I can go out and watch Father better? I'm sure he wouldn't
object."
"I think I would like to have you with me for a little while, Colin,"
his mother said with a gentle smile, "after you have been away so long.
But you are just the same, after all, eager to do everything
immediately. I know you would be happier in going, so you can desert us
if you like."
"I don't mean that, Mother!" said the boy, feeling a twinge of
self-reproach.
"No, I know. But you can tell us all the rest of your adventures when
you get back. Lucy quite thinks that you have become a sort of 'Robinson
Crusoe.'"
Colin gave his little sister--of whom he was very fond--an unobserved
hug, and then fairly sped down to the end of the pier and called a
boatman to take him off. The boatman, who was a native of the place, and
to whom everything connected with angling was an old story, laughed at
the boy's excitement.
"Goin' to catch a tuna with your hands, sir?" he asked, seeing that the
boy was not carrying any fishing-tackle.
"No," the boy answered, "but I just came in on the steamer and, as we
passed the point, saw Father's boat, and he seemed to have something
big on the line, so I want to go out and see the fun."
"I heard Major Dare had a tuna this mornin'," the boatman said, casting
off and starting the little engine, "although there haven't many of 'em
showed up yet this season. Are you his son?"
"Yes," Colin answered, "I'm the oldest."
"I hope you're goin' to take after him, then," the boatman said
approvingly; "he's a fine angler. Looks like the tuna was comin' in," he
continued a moment later, as the boat with the flag flying came speeding
into the harbor. But the fish was darting from side to side in short
rushes, and it was evident that he was tiring.
"Hullo, Father," called the boy, as they came within hearing; "are you
going to land him?"
"Is that you, Colin?" his father answered, without taking his eyes from
his line, however. "Glad to have you back. Yes," he continued, answering
the boy's question, "I think I'll land him all right, but I'm pretty
well tuckered out, I hooked him over three hours ago."
Even recalling what the angler aboard the steamer had told him about the
sportsmanlike rules that obtain at Avalon, it seemed absurd to Colin
for any one to try and catch so heavy a fish as the tuna seemed to be,
with a rod and line that would be thought light for trout.
"How big do the fish run here?" he asked the boatman.
"'Bout a thousand pounds for the biggest game fishes, them's black
sea-bass," the man answered; "leastways there was an eight-hundred
pounder brought in, and lots of us have seen bigger ones."
"But how can they catch fishes that size on a little bit of a spindling
rod and a line so fine you can hardly see it?"
"They don't," was the reply, "not that big. The record black sea-bass,
rod and reel, that has been caught here was four hundred and thirty-six
pounds in the season of 1905. The biggest tuna--they're the hardest
fighters of any fish that swims--was two hundred and fifty-one pounds,
caught in the season of 1900. I reckon Major Dare's fast to one that's
just a good size for sport."
"You're getting him, Father!" cried Colin, who had been watching the
contest with the fish, while listening to the boatman.
"He's a fair size," said the boatman critically, "but not one of the
really big ones, probably only about eighty or ninety pounds."
The fight came to a close sooner than Colin expected. Dexterously, Major
Dare reeled in his line during a moment's pause while the fish sulked,
bringing him to the surface, and his boatman, quick as a flash of light,
leaned over the side and slipped the long, slender hook, or gaff, into
the gills. But the end was not yet, for the tuna, with a powerful shake
of his head, nearly pulled the man overboard, shook out the gaff, and
commenced another panic-stricken rush.
Colin's father, however, with thumb on the brake of the reel, gave him
absolutely no leeway, and the tuna was stopped within twenty feet, to be
reeled in again. In the meantime, the gaffer had recovered his weapon,
and as the big fish was brought to the side of the boat, he struck
again, this time succeeding in holding against the rush of the fish,
though he was pulled elbow-deep into the water. Then, standing on the
gunwale, the gaffer lifted the head of the tuna and tilted the boat over
as far as was safe, sliding in the fish as he did so, accompanied by the
cheers of Colin. As soon as the tuna was fairly secure, a big square of
canvas was thrown over it to keep it from pounding and threshing in the
bottom of the boat.
"That was bully, Father!" said Colin, reaching out and shaking hands;
"I'm glad I got here in time."
His father looked at him with a twinkle in his eye.
"How the deuce did you know I was out here?" he asked; "I thought the
steamer was only just about due."
"I saw you as we came into the harbor," Colin answered, "and I yelled
loud enough to be heard 'way back in Los Angeles, but you didn't pay any
attention."
"I thought I heard some one shouting a while back," his father said,
"but I was busy then and didn't have time to see who it was."
"How big is the tuna, do you think?"
"Not big enough to be listed. About eighty-five, I should say. What
about it, Vincente?"
"Little more," the boatman said; "I think perhaps ninety."
"Nothing of a record, you see, Colin," his father said, "just a good
morning's sport. But I want to hear all about your doings. It seems to
me that you're developing into quite a sensational person with your
fights with whales, and your sea-serpents, and all the rest of it.
You've been writing good letters, too, my boy. I'm glad to see that you
make use of your eyes when you're in strange places. Tell me how you got
to Astoria, I didn't quite follow that salmon business."
Colin started his yarn, but was only fairly launched into it when they
arrived at the wharf. There quite a crowd had gathered to welcome the
incoming boat, for a big tuna catch always arouses interest in Avalon,
and one of its features is the manner in which it is regarded as a
personal triumph for the angler. The promenaders gather to see the prize
weighed by the officials of the club, and it is rare that the customary
photograph of fish, angler, and gaffer is omitted. As for Colin, he was
as proud over the fish he had seen caught as though he had held the rod
himself.
"I had thought of going to the other side of the island for black
sea-bass to-morrow, Colin," his father said, "and I purposed going with
Colonel Roader. I suppose you would like to come instead, and from what
I hear I think I'll put off that trip and try tuna again to-morrow. You
want to come along?"
"I certainly should, Father," the boy said gratefully, "if it wouldn't
be spoiling your fun."
"Not a bit, my boy," was the kindly reply, "I've been looking forward to
teaching you something about real fishing. Beside which, I have an idea
that you and I will have enough to talk about to keep us going for a
good while. I'd like to take you up to the club-house now, but you'll
probably want to get back home, and we'll go along together. I can get
the boatman to look after notification at the club, and all that sort of
thing."
"I'll wait, if you like."
"No; Vincente knows all the ropes as well as I do. I judge from your
letters that you've enjoyed running around the way you have?"
"I wish you'd been along, Father," the boy replied. "I've had a bully
time. I never expected anything like it when I got aboard the _Gull_."
"I didn't either," said Major Dare dryly; "if I had thought of the
possibility of the ship being rammed by a whale, you'd never have put a
foot on her deck. But Captain Murchison said that whales were entirely
harmless, and so I let you go."
"But, Father, you should have seen the way the old whale charged"--and
the lad plunged into the thick of the story. He was fairly out of
breath when they reached the little cottage Major Dare had rented for a
couple of months, but the boy was by no means out of material, and
nothing short of an absolute command could keep him silent long enough
to eat his lunch. In the afternoon he unpacked his trunk, revealing
little quaint articles he had picked up on his travels as gifts for the
various members of the family. But the excitement of home-coming had
tired the boy, and quite early in the evening he found himself getting
sleepy, so that not long after his little sister had been snugly tucked
up, Colin announced his readiness to go to bed, on the ground that he
was to get up early the next day, as he was going tuna-fishing.
The morning broke hot and hazy. The gray-green of the foliage on the
mountains had a purple tinge in the early morning light, and the sea
took on a mother-of-pearl gleam behind its amethyst, as it reflected the
changing hues of the roseate sunrise. Over San Antonio and San Jacinto
the sun rose gloriously, and in the freshness of the morning air the
giant flying-fish of the Pacific leaped and gleamed across the
mirror-smooth sea.
Colin drew a long breath and expanded his lungs to the full, as though
he could breathe in the glow of color and the wonder of it all.
"It always feels good to be alive at this hour of the morning!" he said.
His father smiled appreciatively.
"You're generally asleep," he said. "But it's a good thing we did get up
in time to-day, for unless my eyes are failing me, I think I can see in
the distance the tunas coming in. Say, Vincente, doesn't that look like
them over there?"
"Yes, sair, I t'ink dat's a school. I overheard a man on ze pier telling
of a beeg one he caught yesterday," said the boatman.
"That was Mr. Retaner," was the answer, "one of the most famous anglers
and authorities on fishing in America. That's why I came out this
morning; he said he thought the school would arrive soon, and what
Retaner doesn't know about fishing isn't worth knowing. He practically
created deep-sea angling in America, so that as an industry it is worth
millions of dollars annually to the country, and as a sport it has been
put in the first rank."
Across the sea of glass with its rose reflections of the sunrise and the
deep underglow of richly-colored life beneath the transparent water,
there came a quick shiver of ripples. Then half a mile away, but
advancing rapidly, appeared a strange turmoil, and in the sunlight, a
stretch of sea, acres in extent, was churned into white foam, looking
like some fairy ice- or snow-field. Above this, at a height of about ten
feet, glittered a palpitating silver canopy, almost blinding in its
sparkle and its sheen.
"What is that?" asked Colin, wondering.
"The tuna feeding and coming down the coast," was the reply.
As it drew nearer, Colin saw that the gleaming silver canopy was formed
of thousands upon thousands of flying-fish, skimming through the air,
dropping to the water every fifty yards or so, then, with a single twist
of the screw-like tail, rising in the air for another soaring flight.
Below, from the surface of the water broken to foam by the tumult, would
leap those tremendous jumpers of the sea, the tuna, plunging through the
living cloud of flying-fish, and dropping to feed upon those which fell
stunned under their impetuous charges. Occasionally, but very rarely, a
tuna would seize its fish in midair, and it was marvelous to see a fish
nearly as large as a man spring like a bolt from a cross-bow out of the
sea, often until it was ten feet above the water, then turn and plunge
back into the ocean.
"We'd better get out of here, I think," Major Dare said to the boatman;
"this is getting to be too much of a good thing."
But, as he said the word, the school of flying-fish swerved right in the
direction of the boat, and in a minute the anglers were surrounded. The
silent, skimming flight of the long-finned flying-fish, the boiling of
the sea, lashed to fury by the pursuing tuna, and these living
projectiles, hurled as a silvered bolt into the air, frightened Colin
not a little, although he was enjoying the experience thoroughly.
"Look out you don't get struck by a flying-fish," his father called to
him, bending low in his seat. Colin, who had not thought of this
possibility, followed suit rapidly, because the California flying-fish,
unlike his Atlantic cousin, is a fish sometimes eighteen inches long,
and he saw that if he were struck by one in the full speed of its
skimming flight, he might easily be knocked overboard.
"Can't they see where they are going?" asked the boy.
"They can see well enough," his father answered, "but they have little
or no control over their flight. They can't change the direction in
which they are going until they touch water again. That's how the tuna
catches them, it swims under in a straight line and grabs the fish as it
comes down to get impetus for another flight."
"But I thought flying-fish went ever so much higher than that!" said the
boy. "I'm sure I've read of their landing on the decks of vessels!"
"They do," was the answer; "they are attracted by the glare of the
lights and fall on board. But that is generally on sailing vessels with
a low freeboard. You don't often hear of flying-fish falling on the deck
of a modern liner, and in the few cases in which they have, it has been
because they happened to come out of the water with a rush against a
slant of wind which carried them up twenty or thirty feet. They go with
an awful force, and I knew an angler once who was pitched head first
overboard by a flying-fish, and was nearly drowned before his boatman
could get him aboard. He had been struck square between the shoulders
and the blow had stunned him for the moment."
"Suppose a chap got hit by a tuna?" queried the boy.
"That's less likely," the father answered, "because, you see, the tuna
comes nearly straight up and down; he leaps, he doesn't skim."
"Zere was one went t'rough a boat last season, Major Dare," the boatman
interjected. "It was late in ze year, after you had gone, I t'ink,
sair."
"Had it been hooked?" asked Colin.
"No, sair," the boatman answered; "tuna don't leap after zey are hooked.
It was when zey were chasing a school, just like this."
"You're thinking of the tarpon, Colin," his father said; "it leaps
wildly after it has been hooked. The tuna, although a wonderful leaper,
hardly ever rises from the water after it is fast to the line. But the
tarpon is a vicious fighter. A couple of years ago a boat was found
drifting in the Galveston fishing-ground off Texas, with a dead angler
and a dead tarpon. The fish had been hooked and had tried to leap over
the boat, striking the angler and breaking his neck, then had fallen
into the boat itself and had not been able to get out."
"There's some excitement to fishing when it's like that!" Colin
commented.
"It's as good as big-game hunting any day, I think," his father
answered; "and you don't have to travel for weeks out of civilization
to find it. Well, now, we'll give you a chance to show how much of the
angler you've got in you."
[Illustration: WHERE THE BIG TUNA WAS CAUGHT.
The Bay and City of Avalon, Santa Catalina Islands, Cal., the most
famous sport-fishing centre in the world.
_By permission of Mr. Chas. Fredk. Holder._]
[Illustration: THE LARGEST SUNFISH ON RECORD.
Estimated at over 2500 pounds, caught off Avalon, Santa Catalina.
_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]
He handed Colin a rod and the boy looked at it. It was nearly seven feet
long, and the whole weight of it, except for the short butt which held
the reel, was not more than sixteen ounces. The line was thin enough to
be threaded through a big darning-needle, it was known as '21 thread' as
it had that number of strands, each strand being tested to a breaking
strain of two pounds.
"Something will smash, sure," said Colin, examining the outfit
carefully; "that looks as though it wouldn't hold a trout!"
"The rod is a split bamboo," his father said, "and if the line breaks it
will be because you've allowed the fish to jerk. Anybody can catch fish
with a heavy line, but the fish hasn't got any chance, and there's no
sport in it. It's on a par with shooting quail sitting instead of
flushing them. Good angling consists in landing the heaviest fish with
the lightest tackle, not in securing the greatest amount of fish. Why,
here in Avalon, there isn't a single boatman who would allow his boat to
be used by a 'fish-hog' who wanted to use heavy tackle."
He had hardly finished speaking when there came a quiver on the line,
and excitedly Colin jerked up his rod.
"Don't strike with a jerk!" his father cried, but Colin was in fortune,
and the line did not break. The reel screamed "z-z-z-ee" with the speed
of its revolutions as the tuna sped to the bottom, and the older angler,
leaning forward, wetted thoroughly the leather brake that the boy was
holding down with his right thumb.
"Easy on the brake," came the warning; "don't put too much strain on the
line or she'll snap!"
But Colin had the makings of an angler in him and he was able
instinctively to judge the amount of pressure that was needed. The tuna,
followed by a sheet of spume-blue water churned by the rapidly-towed
line, plunged on and on, until two hundred and fifty feet of line had
been run out. Then, from the ice-cold bottom, rising as a meteor darts
across the sky, the great fish clove the water to the surface.
"What will I do when he leaps?" asked Colin breathlessly, reeling for
dear life as soon as he felt the upward dash of the tuna.
"He won't leap after he's hooked," his father said; "they very seldom
do. I told you that before. It's the tarpon that plunges and leaps after
being hooked."
The tuna reached the surface with a speed that seemed incredible to the
boy, and though he had been reeling as rapidly as he could make his
fingers fly, even the big multiplier on the reel had failed to bring in
all the slack. The tuna, panic-stricken by the strange line that hissed
behind him and which he could neither outrace nor shake off, tried to
charge the loops of twine that the reel had not yet been able to bring
in. The sea fairly seemed to boil as the fin of the tuna cut through the
water at the surface.
"Look out now, Colin," the boy's father called. "He'll see the boat in a
minute!"
He did. On the instant he saw the launch and the three men in it, and in
the very midst of his charge, the body bent and shot into the depths
again.
"Watch out for the jerk!" the older angler cried, and as the fish
reached the end of the slack line there was a sudden tug which Colin
felt sure meant a lost fish. But his father's warning had come in time,
and by releasing the thumb-brake entirely when the tug came, the reel
was free, and it rattled out another fifty feet, the boy gradually
beginning to apply the pressure again and to feel the tuna at the end of
the line.
One hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet of line reeled out at this
second great rush, and the older man began to look grave as the big reel
grew empty.
"Ought I to try and stop him with the brake, Father?" asked the boy.
"Better not try too hard," came the cautious answer, "the weight of the
line that is out is a heavy pull on him. Unless he's a monster he'll
have to stop soon."
Fifty feet more of line ran out before the rush stopped, and then a
change of action at the other end of the line telegraphed the
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