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diff --git a/old/63211-8.txt b/old/63211-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4de2907..0000000 --- a/old/63211-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4958 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Year with a Whaler, by Walter Noble Burns - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Year with a Whaler - -Author: Walter Noble Burns - -Release Date: September 15, 2020 [EBook #63211] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YEAR WITH A WHALER *** - - - - -Produced by TCosmas and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -Transcriber Note - -Text emphasis denoted as _Italics_. - - - - -A YEAR WITH A WHALER - -[Illustration: "Cutting Out" A Whale] - - - - - A YEAR WITH A - WHALER - - BY - WALTER NOBLE BURNS - - _Illustrated with Photographs_ - - - [Illustration] - - - NEW YORK - OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY - MCMXIII - - - Copyright, 1913, BY - OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY - - All rights reserved - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. The Lure of the Outfitter 11 - - II. The Men of the "Alexander" 21 - - III. Why We Don't Desert 33 - - IV. Turtles and Porpoises 46 - - V. The A, B, C of Whales 59 - - VI. The Night King 71 - - VII. Dreams of Liberty 83 - - VIII. Gabriel's Little Drama 95 - - IX. Through the Roaring Forties 107 - - X. In the Ice 118 - - XI. Cross Country Whaling 128 - - XII. Cutting In and Trying Out 137 - - XIII. Shaking Hands with Siberia 149 - - XIV. Moonshine and Hygiene 162 - - XV. News From Home 171 - - XVI. Slim Goes on Strike 182 - - XVII. Into the Arctic 191 - - XVIII. Blubber and Song 198 - - XIX. A Narrow Pinch 210 - - XX. A Race and a Race Horse 219 - - XXI. Bears for a Change 230 - - XXII. The Stranded Whale 239 - - XXIII. And So--Home 247 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - "Cutting Out" a Whale _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - In Bowhead Waters 16 - - When Whaling is an Easy Job 40 - - Waiting for the Whale to Breach 72 - - Unalaska 112 - - Waiting for the Floes to Open 120 - - "Trying Out" 144 - - Callers From Asia 152 - - Peter's Sweetheart 160 - - Eskimos Summer Hut at St. Lawrence Bay 168 - - At the Gateway to the Arctic 176 - - Hoisting the Blubber Aboard 184 - - Our Guests Coming Aboard in St. Lawrence Bay 192 - - The Lip of a Bowhead Whale 208 - - A Close Call Off Herald Island 216 - - Skin Boat of the Siberian Eskimos 240 - - - - -A YEAR WITH A WHALER - - - - -A Year With A Whaler - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE LURE OF THE OUTFITTER - - -When the brig _Alexander_ sailed out of San Francisco on a whaling voyage -a few years ago, I was a member of her forecastle crew. Once outside the -Golden Gate, I felt the swing of blue water under me for the first time in -my life. I was not shanghaied. Let's have that settled at the start. I had -shipped as a green hand before the mast for the adventure of the thing, -because I wanted to go, for the glamor of the sea was upon me. - -I was taking breakfast in a San Francisco restaurant when, in glancing -over the morning paper, I chanced across this advertisement: - - Wanted--Men for a whaling voyage; able seamen, ordinary seamen, and - green hands. No experience necessary. Big money for a lucky voyage. - Apply at Levy's, No. 12 Washington Street. - -Until that moment I had never dreamed of going to sea, but that small -"ad." laid its spell upon my imagination. It was big with the lure of -strange lands and climes, romance and fresh experiences. What did it -matter that I had passed all my humdrum days on dry land? "No experience -necessary!" There were the magic words staring me in the face. I gulped -down my eggs and coffee and was off for the street called Washington. - -Levy's was a ship's outfitting store. A "runner" for the house--a -hulking man with crafty eyes and a face almost as red as his hair and -mustache--met me as I stepped in the door. He looked me over critically. -His visual inventory must have been satisfactory. I was young. - -"Ever been a sailor?" he asked. - -"No." - -"Makes no difference. Can you pull an oar?" - -"Yes." - -"You'll do. Hang around the store to-day and I'll see what vessels are -shipping crews." - -That was all. I was a potential whaler from that minute. - -A young working man in overalls and flannel shirt came in later in the -day and applied to go on the voyage. He qualified as a green hand. But no -spirit of adventure had brought him to Levy's. A whaling voyage appealed -to his canny mind as a business proposition. - -"What can we make?" he asked the runner. - -"If your ship is lucky," replied the runner, "you ought to clean up a pile -of money. You'll ship on the 190th lay. Know what a lay is? It's your per -cent. of the profits of the voyage. Say your ship catches four whales. She -ought to catch a dozen if she has good luck. But say she catches four. Her -cargo in oil and bone will be worth about $50,000. Your share will amount -to something like $200, and you'll get it in a lump sum when you get back." - -This was "bunk talk"--a "springe to catch woodcock"--but we did not know -it. That fluent and plausible man took pencil and paper and showed us just -how it would all work out. It was reserved for us poor greenhorns to learn -later on that sailors of whaling ships usually are paid off at the end of -a voyage with "one big iron dollar." This fact being discreetly withheld -from us, our illusions were not disturbed. - -The fact is the "lay" means nothing to sailors on a whaler. It is merely -a lure for the unsophisticated. It might as well be the 1000th lay as the -190th, for all the poor devil of a sailor gets. The explanation is simple. -The men start the voyage with an insufficient supply of clothing. By the -time the vessel strikes cold weather their clothes are worn out and it -is a case of buy clothes from the ship's slop-chest at the captain's own -prices or freeze. As a consequence, the men come back to port with expense -accounts standing against them which wipe out all possible profits. This -has become so definitely a part of whaling custom that no sailor ever -thinks of fighting against it, and it probably would do him no good if -he did. As a forecastle hand's pay the "big iron dollar" is a whaling -tradition and as fixed and inevitable as fate. - -The outfitter who owned the store did not conduct a sailor's boarding -house, so we were put up at a cheap hotel on Pacific street. After -supper, my new friend took me for a visit to the home of his uncle in the -Tar Flats region. A rough, kindly old laboring man was this uncle who -sat in his snug parlor in his shirt sleeves during our stay, sent one of -the children to the corner for a growler of beer, and told us bluntly we -were idiots to think of shipping on a whaling voyage. We laughed at his -warning--we were going and that's all there was to it. The old fellow's -pretty daughters played the piano and sang for us, and my last evening on -shore passed pleasantly enough. When it came time to say good-bye, the -uncle prevailed on my friend to stay all night on the plea that he had -some urgent matters to talk over, and I went back alone to my dingy hotel -on the Barbary Coast. - -I was awakened suddenly out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night. -My friend stood beside my bed with a lighted candle in his hand. - -"Get up and come with me," he said. "Don't go whaling. My uncle has told -me all about it. He knows. You'll be treated like a dog aboard, fed on -rotten grub, and if you don't die under the hard knocks or freeze to -death in the Arctic Ocean, you won't get a penny when you get back. Don't -be a fool. Take my advice and give that runner the slip. If you go, you'll -regret it to the last day of your life." - -In the yellow glare of the candle, the young man seemed not unlike -an apparition and he delivered his message of warning with prophetic -solemnity and impressiveness. But my mind was made up. - -"I guess I'll go," I said. - -He argued and pleaded with me, all to no purpose. He set the candle on the -table and blew it out. - -"You won't come?" he said out of the darkness. - -"No." - -"You're a fool." - -He slammed the door. I never saw him again. But many a time on the -long voyage I recalled his wise counsel, prompted as it was by pure -friendliness, and wished from my heart I had taken his advice. - -[Illustration: In Bowhead Waters] - -Next day the runner for Levy's tried to ship me aboard the steam whaler -_William Lewis_. When we arrived at the shipping office on the water -front, it was crowded with sailors and rough fellows, many of them half -drunk, and all eager for a chance to land a berth. A bronzed and bearded -man stood beside a desk and surveyed them. He was the skipper of the -steamer. The men were pushing and elbowing in an effort to get to the -front and catch his eye. - -"I've been north before, captain," "I'm an able seaman, sir," "I know -the ropes," "Give me a chance, captain," "Take me, sir; I'll make a good -hand,"--so they clamored their virtues noisily. The captain chose this man -and that. In twenty minutes his crew was signed. It was not a question of -getting enough men; it was a mere matter of selection. In such a crowd of -sailormen, I stood no show. In looking back on it all, I wonder how such -shipping office scenes are possible, how men of ordinary intelligence are -herded aboard whale ships like sheep, how they even fight for a chance to -go. - -It was just as well I failed to ship aboard the _William Lewis_. The -vessel went to pieces in the ice on the north Alaskan coast the following -spring. Four men lost their lives and only after a bitter experience as -castaways on the floes were the others rescued. - -That afternoon Captain Shorey of the brig _Alexander_ visited Levy's. I -was called to his attention as a likely young hand and he shipped me as a -member of his crew. I signed articles for a year's voyage. It was provided -that I was to receive a $50 advance with which to outfit myself for the -voyage; of course, any money left over after all necessary articles had -been purchased was to be mine--at least, in my innocence, I imagined it -was. - -The brig was lying in the stream off Goat Island and the runner set about -the work of outfitting me at once. He and I and a clerk went about the -store from shelf to shelf, selecting articles. The runner carried a pad -of paper on which he marked down the cost. I was given a sailor's canvas -bag, a mattress, a pair of blankets, woolen trousers, dungaree trousers, -a coat, a pair of brogans, a pair of rubber sea boots, underwear, socks, -two flannel shirts, a cap, a belt and sheath knife, a suit of oil-skins -and sou'wester, a tin cup, tin pan, knife, fork and spoon. That was all. -It struck me as a rather slender equipment for a year's voyage. The runner -footed up the cost. - -"Why," he said with an air of great surprise, "this foots up to $53 and -your advance is only $50." - -He added up the column of figures again. But he had made no mistake. He -seemed perplexed. - -"I don't see how it is possible to scratch off anything," he said. "You'll -need every one of these articles." - -He puckered his brow, bit the end of his pencil, and studied the figures. -It was evidently a puzzling problem. - -"Well," he said at last, "I'll tell you what I'll do. Bring me down a few -curios from the Arctic and I'll call it square." - -I suppose my outfit was really worth about $6--not over $10. As soon as my -bag had been packed, I was escorted to the wharf by the runner and rowed -out to the brig. As I prepared to climb over the ship's rail, the runner -shook me by the hand and clapped me on the back with a great show of -cordial goodfellowship. - -"Don't forget my curios," he said. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE MEN OF THE "ALEXANDER" - - -The brig _Alexander_ was a staunch, sea-worthy little vessel. She had no -fine lines; there was nothing about her to please a yachtsman's eye; but -she was far from being a tub as whaling ships are often pictured. She was -built at New Bedford especially for Arctic whaling. Her hull was of sturdy -oak, reinforced at the bows to enable her to buck her way through ice. - -Though she was called a brig, she was really a brigantine, rigged with -square sails on her fore-mast and with fore-and-aft sails on her main. -She was of only 128 tons but quite lofty, her royal yard being eighty -feet above the deck. On her fore-mast she carried a fore-sail, a single -topsail, a fore-top-gallant sail, and a royal; on her main-mast, a big -mainsail with a gaff-topsail above it. Three whale boats--starboard, -larboard, and waist boats--hung at her davits. Amidships stood the brick -try-works equipped with furnaces and cauldrons for rendering blubber into -oil. - -As soon as I arrived on board I was taken in charge by the ship keeper and -conducted to the forecastle. It was a dark, malodorous, triangular hole -below the deck in the bows. At the foot of the ladder-like stairs, leading -down through the scuttle, I stepped on something soft and yielding. Was -it possible, I wondered in an instant's flash of surprise, that the -forecastle was laid with a velvet carpet? No, it was not. It was only -a Kanaka sailor lying on the floor dead drunk. The bunks were ranged -round the walls in a double tier. I selected one for myself, arranged my -mattress and blankets, and threw my bag inside. I was glad to get back to -fresh air on deck as quickly as possible. - -Members of the crew kept coming aboard in charge of runners and boarding -bosses. They were a hard looking lot; several were staggering drunk, -and most of them were tipsy. All had bottles and demijohns of whiskey. -Everybody was full of bad liquor and high spirits that first night on the -brig. A company of jolly sea rovers were we, and we joked and laughed -and roared out songs like so many pirates about to cruise for treasure -galleons on the Spanish Main. Somehow next morning the rose color had -faded out of the prospect and there were many aching heads aboard. - -On the morning of the second day, the officers came out to the vessel. -A tug puffed alongside and made fast to us with a cable. The anchor was -heaved up and, with the tug towing us, we headed for the Golden Gate. -Outside the harbor heads, the tug cast loose and put back into the bay in -a cloud of smoke. The brig was left swinging on the long swells of the -Pacific. - -The captain stopped pacing up and down the quarter-deck and said something -to the mate. His words seemed like a match to powder. Immediately the -mate began roaring out orders. Boat-steerers bounded forward, shouting -out the orders in turn. The old sailors sang them out in repetition. Men -sprang aloft. Loosened sails were soon rolling down and fluttering from -every spar. The sailors began pulling on halyards and yo-hoing on sheets. -Throughout the work of setting sail, the green hands were "at sea" in a -double sense. The bustle and apparent confusion of the scene seemed to -savor of bedlam broke loose. The orders were Greek to them. They stood -about, bewildered and helpless. Whenever they tried to help the sailors -they invariably snarled things up and were roundly abused for their pains. -One might fancy they could at least have helped pull on a rope. They -couldn't even do that. Pulling on a rope, sailor-fashion, is in itself an -art. - -Finally all the sails were sheeted home. Ropes were coiled up and hung -neatly on belaying pins. A fresh breeze set all the snowy canvas drawing -and the brig, all snug and shipshape, went careering southward. - -At the outset of the voyage, the crew consisted of twenty-four men. -Fourteen men were in the forecastle. The after-crew comprised the captain, -mate, second mate, third mate, two boat-steerers, steward, cooper, cook, -and cabin boy. Captain Shorey was not aboard. He was to join the vessel at -Honolulu. Mr. Winchester, the mate, took the brig to the Hawaiian Islands -as captain. This necessitated a graduated rise in authority all along the -line. Mr. Landers, who had shipped as second mate, became mate; Gabriel, -the regular third mate, became second mate; and Mendez, a boatsteerer, was -advanced to the position of third mate. - -Captain Winchester was a tall, spare, vigorous man with a nose like Julius -Caesar's and a cavernous bass voice that boomed like a sunset gun. He -was a man of some education, which is a rarity among officers of whale -ships, and was a typical New England Yankee. He had run away to sea as -a boy and had been engaged in the whaling trade for twenty years. For -thirteen years, he had been sailing to the Arctic Ocean as master and -mate of vessels, and was ingrained with the autocratic traditions of the -quarter-deck. Though every inch a sea dog of the hard, old-fashioned -school, he had his kindly human side, as I learned later. He was by far -the best whaleman aboard the brig; as skillful and daring as any that ever -laid a boat on a whale's back; a fine, bold, hardy type of seaman and an -honor to the best traditions of the sea. He lost his life--poor fellow--in -a whaling adventure in the Arctic Ocean on his next voyage. - -Mr. Landers, the mate, was verging on sixty; his beard was grizzled, but -there wasn't a streak of gray in his coal-black hair. He was stout and -heavy-limbed and must have been remarkably strong in his youth. He was a -Cape Codder and talked with a quaint, nasal, Yankee drawl. He had been -to sea all his life and was a whaleman of thirty years' experience. In -all these years, he had been ashore very little--only a few weeks between -his year-long voyages, during which time, it was said, he kept up his -preference for liquids, exchanging blue water for red liquor. He was a -picturesque old fellow, and was so accustomed to the swinging deck of a -ship under him that standing or sitting, in perfectly still weather or -with the vessel lying motionless at anchor, he swayed his body from side -to side heavily as if in answer to the rise and fall of waves. He was a -silent, easy-going man, with a fund of dry humor and hard common sense. He -never did any more work than he had to, and before the voyage ended, he -was suspected by the officers of being a malingerer. All the sailors liked -him. - -Gabriel, the second mate, was a negro from the Cape Verde islands. His -native language was Portuguese and he talked funny, broken English. He -was about forty-five years old, and though he was almost as dark-skinned -as any Ethiopian, he had hair and a full beard as finely spun and free -from kinkiness as a Caucasian's. The sailors used to say that Gabriel was -a white man born black by accident. He was a kindly, cheerful soul with -shrewd native wit. He was a whaleman of life-long experience. - -Mendez, the third mate, and Long John, one of the boatsteerers, were also -Cape Verde islanders. Long John was a giant, standing six feet, four -inches; an ungainly, powerful fellow, with a black face as big as a ham -and not much more expressive. He had the reputation of being one of the -most expert harpooners of the Arctic Ocean whaling fleet. - -Little Johnny, the other boatsteerer, was a mulatto from the Barbadoes, -English islands of the West Indies. He was a strapping, intelligent -young man, brimming over with vitality and high spirits and with all a -plantation darky's love of fun. His eyes were bright and his cheeks ruddy -with perfect health; he loved dress and gay colors and was quite the dandy -of the crew. - -Five of the men of the forecastle were deep-water sailors. Of these one -was an American, one a German, one a Norwegian, and two Swedes. They -followed the sea for a living and had been bunkoed by their boarding -bosses into believing they would make large sums of money whaling. -They had been taken in by a confidence game as artfully as the man who -loses his money at the immemorial trick of three shells and a pea. When -they learned they would get only a dollar at the end of the voyage and -contemplated the loss of an entire working year, they were full of -resentment and righteous, though futile, anger. - -Taylor, the American, became the acknowledged leader of the forecastle. He -quickly established himself in this position, not only by his skill and -long experience as a seaman, but by his aggressiveness, his domineering -character, and his physical ability to deal with men and situations. -He was a bold, iron-fisted fellow to whom the green hands looked for -instruction and advice, whom several secretly feared, and for whom all had -a wholesome respect. - -Nels Nelson, a red-haired, red-bearded old Swede, was the best sailor -aboard. He had had a thousand adventures on all the seas of all the -world. He had been around Cape Horn seven times--a sailor is not rated -as a really-truly sailor until he has made a passage around that stormy -promontory--and he had rounded the Cape of Good Hope so many times he had -lost the count. He had ridden out a typhoon on the coast of Japan and had -been driven ashore by a hurricane in the West Indies. He had sailed on an -expedition to Cocos Island, that realm of mystery and romance, to try to -lift pirate treasure in doubloons, plate, and pieces-of-eight, supposed -to have been buried there by "Bugs" Thompson and Benito Bonito, those -one-time terrors of the Spanish Main. He had been cast away in the South -Seas in an open boat with three companions, and had eaten the flesh of the -man whose fate had been sealed by the casting of lots. He was some man, -was Nelson. I sometimes vaguely suspected he was some liar, too, but I -don't know. I think most of his stories were true. - -He could do deftly everything intricate and subtle in sailorcraft from -tying the most wonderful knots to splicing wire. None of the officers -could teach old Nelson anything about fancy sailorizing and they knew it. -Whenever they wanted an unusual or particularly difficult piece of work -done they called on him, and he always did it in the best seamanly fashion. - -Richard, the German, was a sturdy, manly young chap who had served in the -German navy. He was well educated and a smart seaman. Ole Oleson, the -Norwegian, was just out of his teens but a fine sailor. Peter Swenson, -a Swede, was a chubby, rosy boy of sixteen, an ignorant, reckless, -devil-may-care lad, who was looked upon as the baby of the forecastle and -humored and spoiled accordingly. - -Among the six white green hands, there was a "mule skinner" from western -railway construction camps; a cowboy who believed himself fitted for -the sea after years of experience on the "hurricane deck" of a bucking -broncho; a country boy straight from the plow and with "farmer" stamped -all over him in letters of light; a man suspected of having had trouble -with the police; another who, in lazy night watches, spun frank yarns -of burglaries; and "Slim," an Irishman who said he had served with the -Royal Life Guards in the English army. There was one old whaler. He was a -shiftless, loquacious product of city slums. This was his seventh whaling -voyage--which would seem sufficient comment on his character. - -"It beats hoboing," he said. And as his life's ambition seemed centered on -three meals a day and a bunk to sleep in, perhaps it did. - -Two Kanakas completed the forecastle crew. These and the cabin boy, who -was also a Kanaka, talked fair English, but among themselves they always -spoke their native language. I had heard much of the liquid beauty of the -Kanaka tongue. It was a surprise to find it the most unmusical and harshly -guttural language I ever heard. It comes from the mouth in a series of -explosive grunts and gibberings. The listener is distinctly and painfully -impressed with the idea that if the nitroglycerine words were retained in -the system, they would prove dangerous to health and is fearful lest they -choke the spluttering Kanaka to death before he succeeds in biting them -off and flinging them into the atmosphere. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -WHY WE DON'T DESERT - - -As soon as we were under sail, the crew was called aft and the watches -selected. Gabriel was to head the starboard watch and Mendez the port. -The men were ranged in line and the heads of the watches made their -selections, turn and turn about. The deep-water sailors were the first to -be chosen. The green hands were picked for their appearance of strength -and activity. I fell into the port watch. - -Sea watches were now set--four hours for sleep and four for work -throughout the twenty-four. My watch was sent below. No one slept during -this first watch below, but we made up for lost time during our second -turn. Soon we became accustomed to the routine and found it as restful -as the usual landsman's method of eight hours' sleep and sixteen of -wakefulness. - -It is difficult for a landlubber to understand how sailors on shipboard -can be kept constantly busy. The brig was a veritable hive of industry. -The watch on deck when morning broke pumped ship and swept and flushed -down the decks. During the day watches, in addition to working the ship, -we were continuously breaking out supplies, keeping the water barrel on -deck filled from casks in the hold, laboring with the cargo, scrubbing -paint work, polishing brass work, slushing masts and spars, repairing -rigging, and attending to a hundred and one details that must be looked -after every day. The captain of a ship is one of the most scrupulous -housekeepers in the world, and only by keeping his crew busy from morning -till night is he able to keep his ship spick and span and in proper -repair. Whale ships are supposed to be dirty. On the contrary, they are -kept as clean as water and brooms and hard work can keep them. - -The food served aboard the brig was nothing to brag about. Breakfast -consisted of corned-beef hash, hardtack, and coffee without milk or sugar. -We sweetened our coffee with molasses, a keg of which was kept in the -forecastle. For dinner, we had soup, corned-beef stew, called "skouse," a -loaf of soft bread, and coffee. For supper, we had slices of corned-beef -which the sailors called "salt horse," hardtack, and tea. The principal -variation in this diet was in the soups. - -The days were a round of barley soup, bean soup, pea soup, and back -to barley soup again, an alternation that led the men to speak of the -days of the week not as Monday, Tuesday, and so on, but as "barley soup -day," "bean soup day," and "pea soup day." Once or twice a week we had -gingerbread for supper. On the other hand the cabin fared sumptuously on -canned vegetables, meat, salmon, soft bread, tea, and coffee with sugar -and condensed milk, fresh fish and meat whenever procurable, and a dessert -every day at dinner, including plum duff, a famous sea delicacy which -never in all the voyage found its way forward. - -From the first day, the green hands were set learning the ropes, to stand -lookout, to take their trick at the wheel, to reef and furl and work -among the sails. These things are the A B C of seamanship, but they are -not to be learned in a day or a week. A ship is a complicated mechanism, -and it takes a long time for a novice to acquire even the rudiments of -sea education. Going aloft was a terrifying ordeal at first to several of -the green hands, though it never bothered me. When the cowboy was first -ordered to furl the fore-royal, he hung back and said, "I can't" and "I'll -fall," and whimpered and begged to be let off. But he was forced to try. -He climbed the ratlines slowly and painfully to the royal yard, and he -finally furled the sail, though it took him a long time to do it. He felt -so elated that after that he wanted to furl the royal every time it had to -be done;--didn't want to give anyone else a chance. - -Furling the royal was a one-man job. The foot-rope was only a few feet -below the yard, and if a man stood straight on it, the yard would strike -him a little above the knees. If the ship were pitching, a fellow had to -look sharp or he would be thrown off;--if that had happened it was a nice, -straight fall of eighty feet to the deck. My own first experience on the -royal yard gave me an exciting fifteen minutes. The ship seemed to be -fighting me and devoting an unpleasant amount of time and effort to it; -bucking and tossing as if with a sentient determination to shake me off -into the atmosphere. I escaped becoming a grease spot on the deck of the -brig only by hugging the yard as if it were a sweetheart and hanging on -for dear life. I became in time quite an expert at furling the sail. - -Standing lookout was the one thing aboard a green hand could do as well -as an old sailor. The lookout was posted on the forecastle-head in fair -weather and on the try-works in a storm. He stood two hours at a stretch. -He had to scan the sea ahead closely and if a sail or anything unusual -appeared, he reported to the officer of the watch. - -Learning to steer by the compass was comparatively easy. With the ship -heading on a course, it was not difficult by manipulating the wheel to -keep the needle of the compass on a given point. But to steer by the -wind was hard to learn and is sometimes a nice matter even for skillful -seamen. When a ship is close-hauled and sailing, as sailors say, right in -the wind's eye, the wind is blowing into the braced sails at the weather -edge of the canvas;--if the vessel were brought any higher up, the wind -would pour around on the back of the sails. The helmsman's aim is to -keep the luff of the royal sail or of the sails that happen to be set, -wrinkling and loose--luffing, sailors call it. That shows that the wind is -slanting into the sails at just the right angle and perhaps a little bit -is spilling over. I gradually learned to do this in the daytime. But at -night when it was almost impossible for me to see the luff of the sails -clearly, it was extremely difficult and I got into trouble more than once -by my clumsiness. The trick at the wheel was of two hours' duration. - -The second day out from San Francisco was Christmas. I had often read that -Christmas was a season of good cheer and happiness among sailors at sea, -that it was commemorated with religious service, and that the skipper sent -forward grog and plum duff to gladden the hearts of the sailormen. But -Santa Claus forgot the sailors on the brig. Bean soup only distinguished -Christmas from the day that had gone before and the day that came after. -No liquor or tempting dishes came to the forecastle. It was the usual day -of hard work from dawn to dark. - -After two weeks of variable weather during which we were often becalmed, -we put into Turtle bay, midway down the coast of Lower California, and -dropped anchor. - -Turtle bay is a beautiful little land-locked harbor on an uninhabited -coast. There was no village or any human habitation on its shores. A -desolate, treeless country, seamed by gullies and scantily covered with -sun-dried grass, rolled away to a chain of high mountains which forms -the backbone of the peninsula of Lower California. These mountains were -perhaps thirty miles from the coast; they were gray and apparently barren -of trees or any sort of herbage, and looked to be ridges of naked granite. -The desert character of the landscape was a surprise, as we were almost -within the tropics. - -We spent three weeks of hard work in Turtle bay. Sea watches were -abolished and all hands were called on deck at dawn and kept busy until -sundown. The experienced sailors were employed as sail makers; squatting -all day on the quarter-deck, sewing on canvas with a palm and needle. Old -sails were sent down from the spars and patched and repaired. If they were -too far gone, new sails were bent in their stead. The green hands had the -hard work. They broke out the hold and restowed every piece of cargo, -arranging it so that the vessel rode on a perfectly even keel. Yards and -masts were slushed, the rigging was tarred, and the ship was painted -inside and out. - -The waters of the harbor were alive with Spanish mackerel, albacore, -rock bass, bonitos, and other kinds of fish. The mackerel appeared in -great schools that rippled the water as if a strong breeze were blowing. -These fish attracted great numbers of gray pelicans, which had the most -wonderful mode of flight I have ever seen in any bird. For hours at a -time, with perfectly motionless pinions, they skimmed the surface of the -bay like living aeroplanes; one wondered wherein lay their motor power -and how they managed to keep going. When they spied a school of mackerel, -they rose straight into the air with a great flapping of wings, then -turned their heads downward, folded their wings close to their bodies, -and dropped like a stone. Their great beaks cut the water, they went -under with a terrific splash, and immediately emerged with a fish in the -net-like membrane beneath their lower mandible. - -[Illustration: When Whaling Is An Easy Job] - -Every Sunday, a boat's crew went fishing. We fished with hand lines -weighted with lead and having three or four hooks, baited at first with -bacon and later with pieces of fresh fish. I never had such fine fishing. -The fish bit as fast as we could throw in our lines, and we were kept busy -hauling them out of the water. We would fill a whale boat almost to the -gunwales in a few hours. With the return of the first fishing expedition, -the sailors had dreams of a feast, but they were disappointed. The fish -went to the captain's table or were salted away in barrels for the cabin's -future use. The sailors, however, enjoyed the fun. Many of them kept lines -constantly over the brig's sides, catching skates, soles, and little -sharks. - -By the time we reached Turtle bay, it was no longer a secret that we would -get only a dollar for our year's voyage. As a result, a feverish spirit of -discontent began to manifest itself among those forward and plans to run -away became rife. - -We were anchored about a half mile from shore, and after looking over the -situation, I made up my mind to try to escape. Except for an officer and a -boatsteerer who stood watch, all hands were asleep below at night. Being -a good swimmer, I planned to slip over the bow in the darkness and swim -ashore. Once on land, I figured it would be an easy matter to cross the -Sierras and reach a Mexican settlement on the Gulf of California. - -Possibly the officers got wind of the runaway plots brewing in the -forecastle, for Captain Winchester came forward one evening, something he -never had done before, and fell into gossipy talk with the men. - -"Have you noticed that pile of stones with a cross sticking in it on the -harbor head?" he asked in a casual sort of way. - -Yes, we had all noticed it from the moment we dropped anchor, and had -wondered what it was. - -"That," said the captain impressively, "is a grave. Whaling vessels have -been coming to Turtle bay for years to paint ship and overhaul. Three -sailors on a whaler several years ago thought this was a likely place in -which to escape. They managed to swim ashore at night and struck into the -hills. They expected to find farms and villages back inland. They didn't -know that the whole peninsula of Lower California is a waterless desert -from one end to the other. They had some food with them and they kept -going for days. No one knows how far inland they traveled, but they found -neither inhabitants nor water and their food was soon gone. - -"When they couldn't stand it any longer and were half dying from thirst -and hunger, they turned back for the coast. By the time they returned to -Turtle bay their ship had sailed away and there they were on a desert -shore without food or water and no way to get either. I suppose they -camped on the headland in the hope of hailing a passing ship. But the -vessels that pass up and down this coast usually keep out of sight of -land. Maybe the poor devils sighted a distant topsail--no one knows--but -if they did the ship sank beyond the horizon without paying any attention -to their frantic signals. So they died miserably there on the headland. - -"Next year, a whale ship found their bodies and erected a cairn of stones -marked by the cross you see over the spot where the three sailors were -buried together. This is a bad country to run away in," the captain added. -"No food, no water, no inhabitants. It's sure death for a runaway." - -Having spun this tragic yarn, Captain Winchester went aft again, feeling, -no doubt, that he had sowed seed on fertile soil. The fact is his story -had an instant effect. Most of the men abandoned their plans to escape, -at least for the time being, hoping a more favorable opportunity would -present itself when we reached the Hawaiian islands. But I had my doubts. -I thought it possible the captain merely had "put over" a good bluff. - -Next day I asked Little Johnny, the boatsteerer, if it were true as the -captain had said, that Lower California was an uninhabited desert. He -assured me it was and to prove it, he brought out a ship's chart from the -cabin and spread it before me. I found that only two towns throughout the -length and breadth of the peninsula were set down on the map. One of these -was Tia Juana on the west coast just south of the United States boundary -line and the other was La Paz on the east coast near Cape St. Lucas, the -southern tip of the peninsula. Turtle bay was two or three hundred miles -from either town. - -That settled it with me. I didn't propose to take chances on dying in the -desert. I preferred a whaler's forecastle to that. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -TURTLES AND PORPOISES - - -We slipped out of Turtle bay one moonlight night and stood southward. -We were now in sperm whale waters and the crews of the whale boats were -selected. Captain Winchester was to head the starboard boat; Mr. Landers -the larboard boat; and Gabriel the waist boat. Long John was to act as -boatsteerer for Mr. Winchester, Little Johnny for Mr. Landers, and Mendez -for Gabriel. The whale boats were about twenty-five feet long, rigged with -leg-of-mutton sails and jibs. The crew of each consisted of an officer -known as a boat-header, who sat in the stern and wielded the tiller; a -boatsteerer or harpooner, whose position was in the bow; and four sailors -who pulled the stroke, midship, tub, and bow oars. Each boat had a tub -in which four hundred fathoms of whale line were coiled and carried two -harpoons and a shoulder bomb-gun. I was assigned to the midship oar of -Gabriel's boat. - -Let me take occasion just here to correct a false impression quite -generally held regarding whaling. Many persons--I think, most -persons--have an idea that in modern whaling, harpoons are fired at whales -from the decks of ships. This is true only of 'long-shore whaling. In -this trade, finbacks and the less valuable varieties of whales are chased -by small steamers which fire harpoons from guns in the bows and tow the -whales they kill to factories along shore, where blubber, flesh, and -skeleton are turned into commercial products. Many published articles have -familiarized the public with this method of whaling. But whaling on the -sperm grounds of the tropics and on the right whale and bowhead grounds of -the polar seas is much the same as it has always been. Boats still go on -the backs of whales. Harpoons are thrown by hand into the great animals as -of yore. Whales still run away with the boats, pulling them with amazing -speed through walls of split water. Whales still crush boats with blows -of their mighty flukes and spill their crews into the sea. - -There is just as much danger and just as much thrill and excitement in -the whaling of to-day as there was in that of a century ago. Neither -steamers nor sailing vessels that cruise for sperm and bowhead and right -whales nowadays have deck guns of any sort, but depend entirely upon the -bomb-guns attached to harpoons and upon shoulder bomb-guns wielded from -the whale boats. - -In the old days, after whales had been harpooned, they were stabbed to -death with long, razor-sharp lances. The lance is a thing of the past. The -tonite bomb has taken its place as an instrument of destruction. In the -use of the tonite bomb lies the chief difference between modern whaling -and the whaling of the old school. - -The modern harpoon is the same as it has been since the palmy days of the -old South Sea sperm fisheries. But fastened on its iron shaft between the -wooden handle and the spear point is a brass cylinder an inch in diameter, -perhaps, and about a foot long. This cylinder is a tonite bomb-gun. -A short piece of metal projects from the flat lower end. This is the -trigger. When the harpoon is thrown into the buttery, blubber-wrapped -body of the whale, it sinks in until the whale's skin presses the trigger -up into the gun and fires it with a tiny sound like the explosion of an -old-fashioned shotgun cap. An instant later a tonite bomb explodes with a -muffled roar in the whale's vitals. - -The Arctic Ocean whaling fleet which sails out of San Francisco and -which in the year of my voyage numbered thirty vessels, makes its spring -rendezvous in the Hawaiian Islands. Most of the ships leave San Francisco -in December and reach Honolulu in March. The two or three months spent in -this leisurely voyage are known in whaler parlance as "between seasons." -On the way to the islands the ships cruise for sperm whales and sometimes -lower for finbacks, sulphur-bottoms, California grays, and even black -fish, to practice their green hand crews. - -Captain Winchester did not care particularly whether he took any sperm -whales or not, though sperm oil is still valuable. The brig was not -merely a blubber-hunter. Her hold was filled with oil tanks which it was -hoped would be filled before we got back, but the chief purpose of the -voyage was the capture of right and bowhead whales--the great baleen -whales of the North. - -As soon as we left Turtle Bay, a lookout for whales was posted. During -the day watches, a boatsteerer and a sailor sat on the topsail yard for -two hours at a stretch and scanned the sea for spouts. We stood down the -coast of Lower California and in a few days, were in the tide-rip which is -always running off Cape St. Lucas, where the waters of the Pacific meet a -counter-current from the Gulf of California. We rounded Cape St. Lucas and -sailed north into the gulf, having a distant view of La Paz, a little town -backed by gray mountains. Soon we turned south again, keeping close to the -Mexican coast for several days. I never learned how far south we went, but -we must have worked pretty well toward the equator, for when we stood out -across the Pacific for the Hawaiian Islands, our course was northwesterly. - -I saw my first whales one morning while working in the bows with the watch -under Mr. Lander's supervision. A school of finbacks was out ahead moving -in leisurely fashion toward the brig. There were about twenty of them and -the sea was dotted with their fountains. "Blow!" breathed old man Landers -with mild interest as though to himself. "Blow!" boomed Captain Winchester -in his big bass voice from the quarter-deck. "Nothin' but finbacks, sir," -shouted the boatsteerer from the mast-head. "All right," sang back the -captain. "Let 'em blow." It was easy for these old whalers even at this -distance to tell they were not sperm whales. Their fountains rose straight -into the air. A sperm whale's spout slants up from the water diagonally. - -The whales were soon all about the ship, seemingly unafraid, still -traveling leisurely, their heads rising and falling rhythmically, and at -each rise blowing up a fountain of mist fifteen feet high. The fountains -looked like water; some water surely was mixed with them; but I was told -that the mist was the breath of the animals made visible by the colder -air. The breath came from the blow holes in a sibilant roar that resembled -no sound I had ever heard. If one can imagine a giant of fable snoring in -his sleep, one may have an idea of the sound of the mighty exhalation. The -great lungs whose gentle breathing could shoot a jet of spray fifteen feet -into the air must have had the power of enormous bellows. - -Immense coal-black fellows these finbacks were--some at least sixty or -seventy feet long. One swam so close to the brig that when he blew, the -spray fell all about me, wetting my clothes like dew. The finback is a -baleen whale and a cousin of the right whale and the bowhead. Their mouths -are edged with close-set slabs of baleen, which, however, is so short that -it is worthless for commercial purposes. They are of much slenderer build -than the more valuable species of whale. Their quickness and activity make -them dangerous when hunted in the boats, but their bodies are encased in -blubber so thin that it is as worthless as their bone. Consequently they -are not hunted unless a whaling ship is hard up for oil. - -We gradually worked into the trade winds that blew steadily from the -southeast. These winds stayed with us for several weeks or rather we -stayed with the winds; while in them it was rarely necessary to take in -or set a sail or brace a yard. After we had passed through these aerial -rivers, flowing through definite, if invisible, banks, we struck the -doldrums--areas of calm between wind currents--they might be called -whirlpools of stillness. Later in the day light, fitful breezes finally -pushed us through them into the region of winds again. - -The slow voyage to the Hawaiian islands--on the sperm whale grounds, we -cruised under short sail--might have proved monotonous if we had not been -kept constantly busy and if diverting incidents had not occurred almost -every day. Once we sighted three immense turtles sunning themselves on -the sea. To the captain they held out prospect of soups and delicate -dishes for the cabin table, and with Long John as boatsteerer, a boat was -lowered for them. I expected it would be difficult to get within darting -distance. What was my surprise to see the turtles, with heads in the air -and perfectly aware of their danger, remain upon the surface until the -boat was directly upon them. The fact was they could not go under quickly; -the big shells kept them afloat. Long John dropped his harpoon crashing -through the shell of one of the turtles, flopped it into the boat, and -then went on without particular hurry, and captured the other two in the -same way. The cabin feasted for several days on the delicate flesh of the -turtles; the forecastle got only a savory smell from the galley, as was -usual. - -We ran into a school of porpoises on another occasion--hundreds of them -rolling and tumbling about the ship, like fat porkers on a frolic. Little -Johnny took a position on the forecastle head with a harpoon, the line -from which had been made fast to the fore-bitt. As a porpoise rose beneath -him, he darted his harpoon straight into its back. The sea pig went -wriggling under, leaving the water dyed with its blood. It was hauled -aboard, squirming and twisting. Little Johnny harpooned two more before -the school took fright and disappeared. The porpoises were cleaned and -some of their meat, nicely roasted, was sent to the forecastle. It made -fine eating, tasting something like beef. - -The steward was an inveterate fisherman and constantly kept a baited hook -trailing in the brig's wake, the line tied to the taff-rail. He caught -a great many bonitos and one day landed a dolphin. We had seen many of -these beautiful fish swimming about the ship--long, graceful and looking -like an animate streak of blue sky. The steward's dolphin was about five -feet long. I had often seen in print the statement that dolphins turned -all colors of the rainbow in dying and I had as often seen the assertion -branded as a mere figment of poetic imagination. Our dolphin proved the -truth of the poetic tradition. As life departed, it changed from blue to -green, bronze, salmon, gold, and gray, making death as beautiful as a -gorgeous kaleidoscope. - -We saw flying fish every day--great "coveys" of them, one may say. They -frequently flew several hundred yards, fluttering their webbed side fins -like the wings of a bird, sometimes rising fifteen to twenty feet above -the water, and curving and zigzagging in their flight. More than once they -flew directly across the ship and several fell on deck. I was talking with -Kaiuli, the Kanaka, one night when we heard a soft little thud on deck. I -should have paid no attention but Kaiuli was alert on the instant. "Flying -feesh," he cried zestfully and rushed off to search the deck. He found -the fish and ate it raw, smacking his lips over it with great gusto. The -Hawaiian islanders, he told me, esteem raw flying fish a great delicacy. - -I never saw water so "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue" as in the -middle of the Pacific where we had some four miles of water under us. -It was as blue as indigo. At night, the sea seemed afire with riotous -phosphorescence. White flames leaped about the bows where the brig cut -the water before a fresh breeze; the wake was a broad, glowing path. When -white caps were running every wave broke in sparks and tongues of flame, -and the ocean presented the appearance of a prairie swept by fire. A big -shark came swimming about the ship one night and it shone like a living -incandescence--a silent, ghost-like shape slowly gliding under the brig -and out again. - -The idle night watches in the tropics were great times for story telling. -The deep-water sailors were especially fond of this way of passing the -time. While the green hands were engaging in desultory talk and wishing -for the bell to strike to go back to their bunks, these deep-water fellows -would be pacing up and down or sitting on deck against the bulwarks, -smoking their pipes and spinning yarns to each other. The stories as a -rule were interminable and were full of "Then he says" and "Then the other -fellow says." It was a poor story that did not last out a four-hour watch -and many of them were regular "continued in our next" serials, being cut -short at the end of one watch to be resumed in the next. - -No matter how long-winded or prosy the narrative, the story teller was -always sure of an audience whose attention never flagged for an instant. -The boyish delight of these full-grown men in stories amazed me. I had -never seen anything like it. Once in a while a tale was told that was -worth listening to, but most of them were monotonously uninteresting. They -bored me. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE A, B, C OF WHALES - - -One damp morning, with frequent showers falling here and there over the -sea and not a drop wetting the brig, Captain Winchester suddenly stopped -pacing up and down the weather side of the quarter-deck, threw his head up -into the wind, and sniffed the air. - -"There's sperm whale about as sure as I live," he said to Mr. Landers. "I -smell 'em." - -Mr. Landers inhaled the breeze through his nose in jerky little sniffs. - -"No doubt about it," he replied. "You could cut the smell with a knife." - -I was at the wheel and overheard this talk. I smiled. These old sea dogs, -I supposed, were having a little joke. The skipper saw the grin on my -face. - -"Humph, you don't believe I smell whale, eh?" he said. "I can smell whale -like a bird dog smells quail. Take a sniff at the wind. Can't you smell it -yourself?" - -I gave a few hopeful sniffs. - -"No," I said, "I can't smell anything unless, perhaps, salt water." - -"You've got a poor smeller," returned the captain. "The wind smells rank -and oily. That means sperm whale. If I couldn't smell it, I could taste -it. I'll give you a plug of tobacco, if we don't raise sperm before dark." - -He didn't have to pay the tobacco. Within an hour, we raised a sperm -whale spouting far to windward and traveling in the same direction as the -brig. The captain hurried to the cabin for his binoculars. As he swung -himself into the shrouds to climb to the mast-head, he shouted to me, -"Didn't I tell you I could smell 'em?" The watch was called. The crew of -the captain's boat was left to work the ship and Mr. Landers and Gabriel -lowered in the larboard and waist boats. Sails were run up and we went -skimming away on our first whale hunt. We had a long beat to windward -ahead of us and as the whale was moving along at fair speed, remaining -below fifteen minutes or so between spouts, it was slow work cutting down -the distance that separated us from it. - -"See how dat spout slant up in de air?" remarked old Gabriel whom the -sight of our first sperm had put in high good humor. - -We looked to where the whale was blowing and saw its fountain shoot into -the air diagonally, tufted with a cloudy spread of vapor at the top. - -"You know why it don't shoot straight up?" - -No one knew. - -"Dat feller's blow hole in de corner ob his square head--dat's why," said -Gabriel. "He blow his fountain out in front of him. Ain't no udder kind -o' whale do dat. All de udder kind blow straight up. All de differ in de -worl' between dat sperm whale out dere and de bowhead and right whale up -nort'. Ain't shaped nothin' a-tall alike. Bowhead and right whale got big -curved heads and big curved backs. Sperm whale's about one-third head and -his back ain't got no bow to it--not much--jest lies straight out behind -his head. He look littler in de water dan de right and bowhead whale. But -he ain't. He's as big as de biggest whale dat swims de sea. I've seen a -150 barrel sperm dat measure seventy feet. - -"Blow!" added the old negro as he caught sight of the whale spouting again. - -"Bowhead and right whale got no teeth," he continued. "Dey got only long -slabs o' baleen hung wit' hair in de upper jaw. Sperm whale got teeth same -as you and me--about twenty on a side and all in his lower jaw. Ain't got -no teeth in his upper jaw a-tall. His mouth is white inside and his teeth -stand up five or six inches out o' his gums and are wide apart and sharp -and pointed and look jes' like de teeth of a saw. Wen he open his mouth, -his lower jaw fall straight down and his mouth's big enough to take a -whale boat inside. - -"Sperm whale's fightin' whale. He fight wit' his tail and his teeth. He -knock a boat out de water wit' his flukes and he scrunch it into kindlin' -wood wit' his teeth. He's got fightin' sense too--he's sly as a fox. W'en -I was young feller, I was in de sperm trade mysel' and used to ship out -o' New Bedford round Cape o' Good Hope for sperm whale ground in Indian -Ocean and Sout' Pacific. Once I go on top a sperm whale in a boat an' -he turn flukes and lash out wit' his tail but miss us. Den he bring up -his old head and take a squint back at us out o' his foxy little eye and -begin to slew his body roun' till he get his tail under de boat. But de -boatheader too smart fer him and we stern oars and get out o' reach. But -de whale didn't know we done backed out o' reach and w'en he bring up dat -tail it shoot out o' de water like it was shot out o' a cannon. Mighty -fine fer us he miss us dat time. - -"But dat don't discourage dat whale a-tall. He swim round and slew round -and sight at us out o' his eye and at las' he get under de boat. Den he -lift it on de tip o' his tail sky-high and pitch us all in de water. Dat -was jes' what he been working for. He swim away and turn round and come -shootin' back straight fer dat boat and w'en he get to it, he crush it -wit' his teeth and chew it up and shake his head like a mad bulldog until -dere warn't nothin' left of dat boat but a lot o' kindlin' wood. But dat -warn't all. He swim to a man who wuz lying across an oar to keep afloat -and he chew dat man up and spit him out in li'l pieces and we ain't never -see nothin' o' dat feller again. - -"Guess that whale was goin' to give us all de same medicine, but he ain't -have time. De udder boats come up and fill him full o' harpoons and keep -stickin' der lances into him and kill him right where he lays and he never -had no chance to scoff the rest o' us. But if it ain't fer dem boats, -I guess dat feller eat us all jes' like plum duff. Sperm whale, some -fighter, believe me. - -"Dere he white waters--blow!" added Gabriel as the whale came to the -surface again. - -"Sperm whale try out de bes' oil," the garrulous old whaleman went on. -"Bowhead and right whale got thicker blubber and make more oil, but sperm -whale oil de bes'. He got big cistern--what dey call a 'case'--in de top -ob his head and it's full o' spermaceti, sloshing about in dere and jes' -as clear as water. His old head is always cut off and hoist on deck to -bale out dat case. Many times dey find ambergrease (ambergis) floating -beside a dead sperm whale. It's solid and yellowish and stuck full o' -cuttle feesh beaks dat de whale's done swallowed but ain't digest. Dey -makes perfume out o' dat ambergrease and it's worth its weight in gold. -I've offen seen it in chunks dat weighed a hundred pounds. - -"You see a sperm whale ain't eat nothin' but cuttle feesh--giant squid, -dey calls 'em, or devil feesh. Dey certainly is terrible fellers--is dem -devil feesh. Got arms twenty or thirty feet long wit' sucking discs all -over 'em and a big fat body in de middle ob dese snaky arms, wit' big -pop-eyes as big as water buckets and a big black beak like a parrot's -to tear its food wit'. Dose devil feesh. Dey certainly is terrible -fellers--is dem sperm whale nose 'em out and eat 'em. Some time dey comes -to de top and de whale and de cuttle feesh fights it out. I've hearn old -whalers say dey seen fights between sperm whale and cuttle feesh but I -ain't never seen dat and I reckon mighty few fellers ever did. But when a -sperm whale is killed, he spews out chunks o' cuttle feesh and I've seen -de water about a dead sperm thick wit' white chunks of cuttle feesh as big -as a sea ches' and wit' de suckin' disc still on 'em. - -"Blow!" said Gabriel again with his eyes on the whale. "Dat feesh -certainly some traveler." - -We were hauling closer to the whale. I could see it distinctly by this -time and could note how square and black its head was. Its appearance -might be compared not inaptly to a box-car glistening in the sun under a -fresh coat of black paint. It did not cut the water but pushed it in white -foam in front of it. - -"Sperm pretty scarce nowadays," Gabriel resumed. "Nothing like as -plentiful in Pacific waters as dey used to be in de ole days. Whalers done -pretty well thinned 'em out. But long ago, it used to be nothin' to see -schools of a hundred, mostly cows wit' three or four big bulls among 'em." - -"Any difference between a bowhead and a right whale?" some one asked. - -"O good Lord, yes," answered Gabriel. "Big difference. Right whale -thinner whale dan a bowhead, ain't got sech thick blubber neither. He's -quicker in de water and got nothin' like such long baleen. You ketch right -whale in Behring Sea. I ain't never see none in de Arctic Ocean. You ketch -bowhead both places. Right whale fightin' feesh, too, but he ain't so -dangerous as a sperm." - -Let me add that I give this statement of the old whaleman for what it is -worth. All books I have ever read on the subject go on the theory that the -Greenland or right whale is the same animal as the bowhead. We lowered for -a right whale later in the voyage in Behring Sea. To my untrained eyes, -it looked like a bowhead which we encountered every few days while on the -Arctic Ocean whaling grounds. But there was no doubt or argument about it -among the old whalemen aboard. To them it was a "right whale" and nothing -else. Old Gabriel may have known what he was talking about. Despite the -naturalists, whalers certainly make a pronounced distinction. - -By the time Gabriel had imparted all this information, we had worked to -within a half mile of our whale which was still steaming along at the -rate of knots. They say a sperm whale has ears so small they are scarcely -detected, but it has a wonderfully keen sense of hearing for all that. -Our whale must have heard us or seen us. At any rate it bade us a sudden -good-bye and scurried off unceremoniously over the rim of the world. The -boats kept on along the course it was heading for over an hour, but the -whale never again favored us with so much as a distant spout. Finally -signals from the brig's mast-head summoned us aboard. - -As the men had had no practice in the boats before, both boats lowered -sail and we started to row back to the vessel. We had pulled about a mile -when Mendez, who was acting as boatsteerer, said quietly, "Blow! Blackfish -dead ahead." - -"Aye, aye," replied Gabriel. "Now stand by, Tomas. I'll jes' lay you -aboard one o' dem blackfeesh and we'll teach dese green fellers somethin' -'bout whalin'." - -There were about fifty blackfish in the school. They are a species of -small toothed whale, from ten to twenty feet long, eight or ten feet in -circumference and weighing two or three tons. They were gamboling and -tumbling like porpoises. Their black bodies flashed above the surface -in undulant curves and I wondered if, when seen at a distance, these -little cousins of the sperm had not at some time played their part in -establishing the myth of the sea serpent. - -"Get ready, Tomas," said Gabriel as we drew near the school. - -"Aye, aye, sir," responded Mendez. - -Pulling away as hard as we could, we shot among the blackfish. Mendez -selected a big one and drove his harpoon into its back. Almost at the -same time Mr. Lander's boat became fast to another. Our fish plunged and -reared half out of water, rolled and splashed about, finally shot around -in a circle and died. Mr. Lander's fish was not fatally hit and when it -became apparent it would run away with a tub of line, Little Johnny, -the boatsteerer, cut adrift and let it go. Mendez cut our harpoon free -and left our fish weltering on the water. Blackfish yield a fairly -good quality of oil, but one was too small a catch to potter with. Our -adventure among the blackfish was merely practice for the boat crews to -prepare them for future encounters with the monarchs of the deep. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE NIGHT KING - - -The crew called Tomas Mendez, the acting third mate, the "Night King." I -have forgotten what forecastle poet fastened the name upon him, but it -fitted like a glove. In the day watches when the captain and mate were on -deck, he was only a quite, unobtrusive little negro, insignificant in size -and with a bad case of rheumatism. But at night when the other officers -were snoring in their bunks below and the destinies of the brig were in -his hands, he became an autocrat who ruled with a hand of iron. - -He was as black as a bowhead's skin--a lean, scrawny, sinewy little -man, stooped about the shoulders and walking with a slight limp. His -countenance was imperious. His lips were thin and cruel. His eyes -were sharp and sinister. His ebony skin was drawn so tightly over the -frame-work of his face that it almost seemed as if it would crack when he -smiled. His nose had a domineering Roman curve. He carried his head high. -In profile, this little blackamoor suggested the mummified head of some -old Pharaoh. - -He was a native of the Cape Verde islands. He spoke English with the -liquid burr of a Latin. His native tongue was Portuguese. No glimmer of -education relieved his mental darkness. It was as though his outside color -went all the way through. He could neither read nor write, but he was a -good sailor and no better whaleman ever handled a harpoon or laid a boat -on a whale's back. For twenty years he had been sailing as boatsteerer -on whale ships, and to give the devil his due, he had earned a name for -skill and courage in a thousand adventures among sperm, bowhead, and right -whales in tropical and frozen seas. - -[Illustration: Waiting for the Whale to Breach] - -My first impression of the Night King stands out in my memory with cameo -distinctness. In the bustle and confusion of setting sails, just after the -tug had cut loose from us outside Golden Gate heads, I saw Mendez, like an -ebony statue, standing in the waist of the ship, an arm resting easily on -the bulwarks, singing out orders in a clear, incisive voice that had in it -the ring of steel. - -When I shipped, it had not entered my mind that any but white men would -be of the ship's company. It was with a shock like a blow in the face -that I saw this little colored man singing out orders. I wondered in a -dazed sort of way if he was to be in authority over me. I was not long in -doubt. When calm had succeeded the first confusion and the crew had been -divided into watches, Captain Winchester announced from the break of the -poop that "Mr." Mendez would head the port watch. That was my watch. While -the captain was speaking, "Mr." Mendez stood like a black Napoleon and -surveyed us long and silently. Then suddenly he snapped out a decisive -order and the white men jumped to obey. The Night King had assumed his -throne. - -The Night King and I disliked each other from the start. It may seem -petty now that it's all past, but I raged impotently in the bitterness -of outraged pride at being ordered about by this black overlord of the -quarter-deck. He was not slow to discover my smoldering resentment and -came to hate me with a cordiality not far from classic. He kept me -busy with some silly job when the other men were smoking their pipes -and spinning yarns. If I showed the left-handedness of a landlubber in -sailorizing he made me stay on deck my watch below to learn the ropes. If -there was dirt or litter to be shoveled overboard, he sang out for me. - -"Clean up dat muck dere, you," he would say with fine contempt. - -The climax of his petty tyrannies came one night on the run to Honolulu -when he charged me with some trifling infraction of ship's rules, of which -I was not guilty, and ordered me aloft to sit out the watch on the fore -yard. The yard was broad, the night was warm, the ship was traveling on a -steady keel, and physically the punishment was no punishment at all. There -was no particular ignominy in the thing, either, for it was merely a joke -to the sailors. The sting of it was in having to take such treatment from -this small colored person without being able to resent it or help myself. - -The very next morning I was awakened by the cry of the lookout on the -topsail yard. - -"Blow! Blow! There's his old head. Blo--o--o--w! There he ripples. There -goes flukes." Full-lunged and clear, the musical cry came from aloft like -a song with little yodling breaks in the measure. It was the view-halloo -of the sea, and it quickened the blood and set the nerves tingling. - -"Where away?" shouted the captain, rushing from the cabin with his -binoculars. - -"Two points on the weather bow, sir," returned the lookout. - -For a moment nothing was to be seen but an expanse of yeasty sea. Suddenly -into the air shot a fountain of white water--slender, graceful, spreading -into a bush of spray at the top. A great sperm was disporting among the -white caps. - -"Call all hands and clear away the boats," yelled the captain. - -Larboard and waist boats were lowered from the davits. Their crews -scrambled over the ship's side, the leg-o'-mutton sails were hoisted, and -the boats, bending over as the wind caught them, sped away on the chase. -The Night King went as boatsteerer of the waist boat. I saw him smiling to -himself as he shook the kinks out of his tub-line and laid his harpoons -in position in the bows--harpoons with no bomb-guns attached to the -spear-shanks. - -In the distance, a slow succession of fountains gleamed in the brilliant -tropical sunshine like crystal lamps held aloft on fairy pillars. Suddenly -the tell-tale beacons of spray went out. The whale had sounded. Over the -sea, the boats quartered like baffled foxhounds to pick up the lost trail. - -Between the ship and the boats, the whale came quietly to the surface at -last and lay perfectly still, taking its ease, sunning itself and spouting -lazily. The captain, perched in the ship's cross-trees, signalled its -position with flags, using a code familiar to whalemen. The Night King -caught the message first. He turned quickly to the boatheader at the -tiller and pointed. Instantly the boat came about, the sailors shifted -from one gunwale to the other, the big sail swung squarely out and filled. -All hands settled themselves for the run to close quarters. - -With thrilling interest, I watched the hunt from the ship's forward -bulwarks, where I stood grasping a shroud to prevent pitching overboard. -Down a long slant of wind, the boat ran free with the speed of a -greyhound, a white plume of spray standing high on either bow. The Night -King stood alert and cool, one foot on the bow seat, balancing a harpoon -in his hands. The white background of the bellying sail threw his tense -figure into relief. Swiftly, silently, the boat stole upon its quarry -until but one long sea lay between. It rose upon the crest of the wave -and poised there for an instant like some great white-winged bird of -prey. Then sweeping down the green slope, it struck the whale bows-on and -beached its keel out of the water on its glistening back. As it struck, -the Night King let fly one harpoon and another, driving them home up to -the wooden hafts with all the strength of his lithe arms. - -The sharp bite of the iron in its vitals stirred the titanic mass of -flesh and blood from perfect stillness into a frenzy of sudden movement -that churned the water of the sea into white froth. The great head went -under, the giant back curved down like the whirling surface of some -mighty fly-wheel, the vast flukes, like some black demon's arm, shot -into the air. Left and right and left again, the great tail thrashed, -smiting the sea with thwacks which could have been heard for miles. It -struck the boat glancingly with its bare tip, yet the blow stove a great -hole in the bottom timbers, lifted the wreck high in air, and sent the -sailors sprawling into the sea. Then the whale sped away with the speed -of a limited express. It had not been vitally wounded. Over the distant -horizon, it passed out of sight, blowing up against the sky fountains of -clear water unmixed with blood. - -The other boat hurried to the rescue and the crew gathered up the -half-drowned sailors perched on the bottom of the upturned boat or -clinging to floating sweeps. Fouled in the rigging of the sail, held -suspended beneath the wreck in the green crystal of the sea water, they -found the Night King, dead. - -When the whale crushed the boat--at the very moment, it must have -been--the Night King had snatched the knife kept fastened in a sheath on -the bow thwart and with one stroke of the razor blade, severed the harpoon -lines. He thus released the whale and prevented it from dragging the boat -away in its mad race. The Night King's last act had saved the lives of his -companions. - -I helped lift the body over the rail. We laid it on the quarter deck near -the skylight. It lurched and shifted in a ghastly sort of way as the ship -rolled, the glazed eyes open to the blue sky. The captain's Newfoundland -dog came and sniffed at the corpse. Sheltered from the captain's eye -behind the galley, the Kanaka cabin boy shook a furtive fist at the dead -man and ground out between clenched teeth, "You black devil, you'll never -kick me again." Standing not ten feet away, the mate cracked a joke to -the second mate and the two laughed uproariously. The work of the ship -went on all around. - -Looking upon the dead thing lying there, I thought of the pride with which -the living man had borne himself in the days of his power. I beheld in -fancy the silent, lonely, imperious little figure, pacing to and fro on -the weather side of the quarter-deck--to and fro under the stars. I saw -him stop in the darkness by the wheel, as his custom was, to peer down -into the lighted binnacle and say in vibrant tones, "Keep her steady," or -"Let her luff." I saw him buttoned up in his overcoat to keep the dew of -the tropical night from his rheumatic joints, slip down the poop ladder -and stump forward past the try-works to see how things fared in the bow. -Again I heard his nightly cry to the lookout on the forecastle-head, -"Keep a bright lookout dere, you," and saw him limp back to continue his -vigil, pacing up and down. The qualities that had made him hated when he -was indeed the Night King flooded back upon me, but I did not forget the -courage of my enemy that had redeemed them all and made him a hero in the -hour of death. - -In the afternoon, old Nelson sat on the deck beside the corpse and with -palm and needle fashioned a long canvas bag. Into this the dead man was -sewed with a weight of brick and sand at his feet. - -At sunset, when all hands were on deck for the dog watch, they carried -the body down on the main deck and with feet to the sea, laid it on the -gang-plank which had been removed from the rail. There in the waist the -ship's company gathered with uncovered heads. Over all was the light of -the sunset, flushing the solemn, rough faces and reddening the running -white-caps of the sea. The captain called me to him and placed a Bible in -my hands. - -"Read a passage of scripture," he said. - -Dumbfounded that I should be called upon to officiate at the burial -service over the man I had hated, I took my stand on the main hatch at -the head of the body and prepared to obey orders. No passage to fit my -singular situation occurred to me and I opened the book at random. The -leaves fell apart at the seventh chapter of Matthew and I read aloud the -section beginning: - -"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye -shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to -you again." - -At the close of the reading the captain called for "The Sweet Bye and Bye" -and the crew sang the verses of the old hymn solemnly. When the full-toned -music ceased, two sailors tilted the gang-plank upwards and the remains of -the Night King slid off and plunged into the ocean. - -As the body slipped toward the water, a Kanaka sailor caught up a bucket -of slop which he had set aside for the purpose, and dashed its filth over -the corpse from head to foot. Wide-eyed with astonishment, I looked to see -instant punishment visited upon this South Sea heathen who so flagrantly -violated the sanctities of the dead. But not a hand was raised, not a word -of disapproval was uttered. The Kanaka had but followed a whaler's ancient -custom. The parting insult to the dead was meant to discourage the ghost -from ever coming back to haunt the brig. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -DREAMS OF LIBERTY - - -At midnight after the burial, we raised the volcanic fire of Mauna Loa -dead ahead. Sailors declare that a gale always follows a death at sea and -the wind that night blew hard. But we cracked on sail and next morning we -were gliding in smooth water along the shore of the island of Hawaii with -the great burning mountain towering directly over us and the smoke from -the crater swirling down through our rigging. - -We loafed away three pleasant weeks among the islands, loitering along the -beautiful sea channels, merely killing time until Captain Shorey should -arrive from San Francisco by steamer. Once we sailed within distant view -of Molokai. It was as beautiful in its tropical verdure as any of the -other islands of the group, but its very name was fraught with sinister -and tragic suggestiveness;--it was the home of the lepers, the island of -the Living Death. - -We did not anchor at any time. None of the whaling fleet which meets here -every spring ever anchors. The lure of the tropical shores is strong and -there would be many desertions if the ships lay in port. We sailed close -to shore in the day time, often entering Honolulu harbor, but at night we -lay off and on, as the sailor term is--that is we tacked off shore and -back again, rarely venturing closer than two or three miles, a distance -the hardiest swimmer, bent upon desertion, would not be apt to attempt in -those shark-haunted waters. - -Many attempts to escape from vessels of the whaling fleet occur in the -islands every year. We heard many yarns of these adventures. A week before -we arrived, five sailors had overpowered the night watch aboard their ship -and escaped to shore in a whale boat. They were captured in the hills back -of Honolulu and returned to their vessel. This is usually the fate of -runaways. A standing reward of $25 a man is offered by whaling ships for -the capture and return of deserters, consequently all the natives of the -islands, especially the police, are constantly on the lookout for runaways -from whaling crews. - -When we drew near the islands the runaway fever became epidemic in the -forecastle. Each sailor had his own little scheme for getting away. Big -Taylor talked of knocking the officers of the night watch over the head -with a belaying-pin and stealing ashore in a boat. Ole Oleson cut up his -suit of oil-skins and sewed them into two air-tight bags with one of which -under each arm, he proposed to float ashore. Bill White, an Englishman, -got possession of a lot of canvas from the cabin and was clandestinely -busy for days making it into a boat in which he fondly hoped to paddle -ashore some fine night in the dark of the moon. "Slim," our Irish -grenadier, stuffed half his belongings into his long sea-boots which he -planned to press into service both as carry-alls and life-preservers. -Peter Swenson, the forecastle's baby boy, plugged up some big empty oil -cans and made life buoys of them by fastening a number of them together. - -Just at the time when the forecastle conspiracies were at their height -we killed a thirteen-foot shark off Diamond Head. Our catch was one of -a school of thirty or forty monsters that came swarming about the brig, -gliding slowly like gray ghosts only a few feet below the surface, nosing -close to the ship's side for garbage and turning slightly on their sides -to look out of their evil eyes at the sailors peering down upon them over -the rail. Long John, the boat-steerer, got out a harpoon, and standing on -the bulwarks shot the iron up to the wooden haft into the back of one of -the sharks, the spear-point of the weapon passing through the creature -and sticking out on the under side. The stout manila hemp attached to the -harpoon had been made fast to the fore bitt. It was well that this was -so, for the shark plunged and fought with terrific fury, lashing the sea -into white froth. But the harpoon had pierced a vital part and in a little -while the great fish ceased its struggles and lay still, belly up on the -surface. - -It was hauled close alongside, and a boat having been lowered, a large -patch of the shark's skin was cut off. Then the carcass was cut adrift. -The skin was as rough as sandpaper. It was cut into small squares, which -were used in scouring metal and for all the polishing purposes for which -sandpaper serves ashore. - -Life aboard the brig seemed less intolerable thereafter, and an essay at -escape through waters infested by such great, silent, ravenous sea-wolves -seemed a hazard less desirable than before. Taylor talked no more about -slugging the night watch. Slim unpacked his sea-boots and put his effects -back into his chest. Peter threw his plugged oil cans overboard. Bill -White turned his canvas boat into curtains for his bunk, and Ole Oleson -voiced in the lilting measure of Scandinavia his deep regret that he had -cut up a valuable suit of oil-skins. - -The captain of one of the whaling ships came one afternoon to visit our -skipper and his small boat was left dragging in our wake as the brig -skimmed along under short sail. It occurred to me, and at the same time -to my two Kanaka shipmates, that here was a fine opportunity to escape. -It was coming on dusk, and if we could get into the boat and cut loose we -might have a splendid chance to get away. The Kanakas and I climbed over -the bow, intending to let ourselves into the sea and drift astern to the -boat, but the breeze had freshened and the brig was traveling so fast we -did not believe we could catch the boat; and if we failed to do so, we -might confidently expect the sharks to finish us. We abandoned the plan -after we had remained squatting on the stays over the bow for a half hour -considering our chances and getting soaked to the skin from the dashing -spray. - -A pathetic incident grew out of the visit of the captain from the other -ship. Tomas Mendez's brother, a boat-steerer, came aboard with the boat's -crew. He was a young negro whom all the boat-steerers and officers knew. -He came swinging lightly over our rail, laughing and happy over the -prospect of seeing his brother. - -"Hello, fellers," he called to the Portuguese officers and boat-steerers -who welcomed him. "Where's my brudder?" - -"Dead, my boy," said one of the boat-steerers gently. - -"Dead?" echoed Mendez. - -He staggered back. When he had heard the details of his brother's death, -he burst into tears. All the time his skipper remained aboard, the poor -fellow stood by the cooper's bench and sobbed. - -While drifting at the mouth of Honolulu harbor one morning, Captain -Winchester called for a boat's crew to row him ashore. All hands wanted -to go. I was one of the lucky ones to be chosen. The morning was calm and -beautiful, the water was smooth, and we pulled away with a will. - -The city looked inviting at the foot of its green mountains, its quaint -houses embowered in tropical foliage. On our starboard beam rose the fine, -bold promontory of Diamond Head, and in between the headland and the city -lay Waikiki, the fashionable bathing beach. We could see the bathers -taking the surf in the bright morning sunlight, while beyond stretched a -delectable wooded country, above the tops of whose trees peeped manors -and villas of wealthy citizens. - -We reached the long pier at last and tied up the boat. While the captain -went into the city the sailors remained on the dock in charge of Long -John, the boat-steerer. Three snaky-eyed Kanaka policemen in blue uniforms -hung about, watching our every movement. We were not allowed to stir off -the dock. There was a street corner within a stone's throw. A little red -brick store stood upon it. A lazy Kanaka lounged against the building, -smoking a cigarette. That corner fascinated me. If I only could dodge -around it! How near it seemed, and yet how unattainable! - -But if we sailormen could not get into town, we at least had the freedom -of the long pier. This was several hundred feet long and piled thick with -freight of all descriptions, which shut its harbor end from view. With a -casual and indifferent air I sauntered out along the pier. In a moment I -was hidden behind the merchandise from the unsuspecting Long John and -the policemen. I soon reached the harbor end. I saw that a sharp curve in -the shore line brought the part of the pier on which I was standing close -to land. It seemed easy to dive off the pier, swim past a big four-masted -English ship unloading alongside, gain the land, and escape to the cane -fields which swept up to the edge of the city. - -I sat down behind some freight and began to take off my shoes. I had one -off when a barefooted Kanaka suddenly stepped into view from behind a pile -of bales and boxes. He was tip-toeing and peering about him furtively. I -knew him for a spy instantly. Directly he saw me staring at him he looked -as guilty as one taken in crime, and slunk away sheepishly. I knew he was -on his way to inform on me and made up my mind not to get my clothes wet -by any hopeless attempt to run away. - -I put my shoe back on and strolled back toward the boat. I saw one of my -shipmates--it was Richard, the deep-water German sailor--walking up the -gang-plank of the English ship alongside the dock. I followed him. When -we reached the deck, we saw a gang of sailors working about an open hatch. - -"Hello, mates," said Richard. "We are merchant seamen and want to clear -out from a blooming whaler. Stow us away, won't you?" - -The sailors didn't seem to take kindly to the proposition. Perhaps they -were afraid of getting into trouble. But they told us we might go down in -the fore-peak of the ship and stow ourselves away. Richard and I climbed -down three decks and found ourselves in the chain lockers deep in the -ship's bow. It was pitch dark down there and we lay upon the ship's cable -in the farthest corners. For three hours we huddled there in silence. - -Just when we were beginning to congratulate ourselves that our escape -would be successful, the hatch was pulled off suddenly and three Kanaka -policemen with drawn clubs came leaping down upon us. - -"Come out of this, you," they yelled, swearing at us and brandishing their -billets. The jig was up; resistance would have got us only broken heads. -We were led upon deck and escorted toward the gangway for the pier. But I -was for one more try before giving up. Suddenly I darted for the rail on -the harbor side of the ship. We were in the waist and the bulwarks reached -about to my breast. Before the Kanaka policemen had recovered from their -surprise I had plunged head first over the rail and dived into the water -twenty or thirty feet below. When I came to the surface I struck out for -shore with all my might. It was only a short swim. I soon made the land -and dragged myself, dripping brine, out upon a beach. - -I glanced toward the pier. The policemen, with a crowd at their backs, -were dashing for me along shore. I started for the cane fields, but in my -wet and heavy clothes I stumbled along as if there was lead in my shoes. -Perhaps I ran a quarter of a mile. My pursuers gained on me steadily. I -was drawing near a cane field, in which I felt I should be able to lose -myself; but before reaching it, my pursuers sprang upon me and bore me to -the ground. Then, with a policeman on either side of me, I was marched -back to the brig's boat. - -The populace had turned out royally in my honor and I passed through a -lane of brown humanity that bent round eyes upon me and chortled and -spluttered Kanaka and seemed to get a huge amount of enjoyment out of -my capture. As my captors paraded me onto the pier, who should be there -waiting for me but Captain Shorey, our new skipper, just arrived from San -Francisco by steamer. He stood with feet wide apart and arms folded on his -breast and looked at me steadily with stern, cold eyes. In my wet clothes -I cut a sorry figure. I felt ashamed of myself and realized that this -introduction to my new captain was not all it should have been. Captain -Winchester had nothing to say to Richard and me on the long pull back to -the brig. Once aboard, he drew a pint of Jamaica rum from his pocket and -gave every man of the boat's crew, except us, a swig. But no penalty of -any sort was imposed upon us for our escapade. This surprised us. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -GABRIEL'S LITTLE DRAMA - - -On a bright, sunshiny morning a few days later, with a light breeze just -ruffling the harbor, the brig with her sails laid back and her head -pointed seaward was drifting with the ebb tide perhaps a mile and a -quarter off shore between Honolulu and Diamond Head. Captain Winchester -had set out for the city in a whale boat. Those of the sailors left aboard -were idling forward. Mr. Landers, the mate, sat by the skylight on the -poop, reading a magazine. Second Mate Gabriel and the cooper were busy at -the cooper's bench in the waist. No one else was on deck and I resolved to -attempt again to escape. The situation seemed made to order. - -In the warm weather of the tropics, I had often seen old man Landers, -when there was nothing doing on deck, sit and read by the hour without -ever looking up. I hoped that this morning his magazine would prove of -absorbing interest. Gabriel and the cooper were intent upon their work. -As for the sailors, I told them I was going to try to swim ashore and if -I were discovered and they had to lower for me, I asked them to hurry as -little as possible so I might have every chance to get away. - -For my adventure I wore a blue flannel shirt, dungaree trousers, and my -blue cap. I tied my shoes together with a rope yarn, which I slipped -baldric-fashion over my shoulder. In the belt at my waist I carried a -sailor's sheath knife. With this I had a foolish idea that I might defend -myself against sharks. Without attracting attention, I slipped over the -bow, climbed down by the bob-stays, and let myself into the sea. I let -myself wash silently astern past the ship's side and struck out for shore, -swimming on my side without splash or noise, and looking back to watch -developments aboard. - -I am convinced to this day that if I had not been in the water, old -Landers would have kept his nose in that magazine for an hour or so -and drowsed and nodded over it as I had seen him do dozens of times -before. Either my good angel, fearful of the sharks, or my evil genius, -malignantly bent upon thwarting me, must have poked the old fellow in the -ribs. At any rate, he rose from his chair and stepped to the taff-rail -with a pair of binoculars in his hand. He placed the glasses to his eyes -and squinted toward the pier to see whether or not the captain had reached -shore. I don't know whether he saw the captain or not, but he saw me. - -"Who's that overboard?" he shouted. - -I did not answer. Then he recognized me. - -"Hey, you," he cried, calling me by name, "come back here." - -I kept on swimming. - -"Lay aft here, a boat's crew," Mr. Landers sang out. - -Gabriel and the cooper ran to the quarter-deck and stared at me. The -sailors came lounging aft along the rail. Mr. Landers and Gabriel threw -the boat's falls from the davit posts. The sailors strung out across the -deck to lower the boat. - -"Lower away," shouted Mr. Landers. - -One end of the boat went down rapidly. The other end jerked and lurched -and seemed to remain almost stationary. I wondered whether my shipmates -were bungling purposely. Mr. Landers and Gabriel sprang among them, -brushed them aside and lowered the boat themselves. A crew climbed down -the brig's side into the boat. Old Gabriel went as boatheader. In a jiffy -the sweeps were shot into place, the boat was shoved off, and the chase -was on. - -All this had taken time. As the ship was drifting one way and I was -quartering off in an almost opposite direction, I must have been nearly a -half mile from the vessel when Gabriel started to run me down. - -I swam on my side with a long, strong stroke that fast swimmers used to -fancy before the Australian crawl came into racing vogue. I was swimming -as I never in my life swam before--swimming for liberty. All my hope and -heart, as well as all my strength, lay in every stroke. The clear, warm -salt water creamed about my head and sometimes over it. I was making time. -Swimming on my side, I could see everything that was happening behind me. -As the boat came after me I noticed there was but a slight ripple of white -water about the prow. Plainly it was not making great speed. - -"Pull away, my boys. We ketch dat feller," sang out Gabriel. - -Wilson at the midship oar "caught a crab" and tumbled over backwards, his -feet kicking in the air. Wilson was a good oarsman. He was my friend. A -hundred yards more and Walker at the tub oar did the same. He also was my -friend. - -The boys were doing their best to help me--to give me a chance. I knew it. -Gabriel knew it, too. The crafty old negro recognized the crisis. I could -not hear what he said or see all that he did, but the boys told me about -it afterwards. It must have been a pretty bit of acting. - -Suddenly Gabriel half rose from his seat and peered anxiously ahead. - -"My God!" he cried, "dat poor feller, he drown. Pull, my boys. Oh, good -God!" - -The sailors at the sweeps had their backs to me. It was a good long swim -and the water was full of sharks. It was not difficult to make them -believe that I was verging on tragedy. - -"Dere he go down!" Gabriel's voice was broken and sobbing. "He t'row his -hands up. He underneath de water. I cain't see him. Oh, dat poor feller! -No, dere he come up again--oh, good Lord! Pull away, my bully boys, pull -away. We save him yet." - -Surely the stage lost a star when Gabriel became a whaler. The old -Thespian was good--he was great. His acting carried conviction. The -sailors believed I was drowning. They leaned upon their oars with a will. -The sweeps bent beneath the powerful strokes. The boat jumped through -the water. I noted the increased speed by the white spray that began to -stand at the bow. Gabriel helped along the speed by forward lurches of his -body, pushing at the same time upon the stroke oar. All the while he kept -shouting: - -"We save him yet, dat poor feller! Pull away, my boys." - -The boat came up rapidly. In a little while it was almost upon me. I tried -to dodge it by darting off at right angles. It was no use--Gabriel slewed -his tiller and the boat came swishing round upon me. I had played the game -out to the last and I was beaten--that was all. I caught the gunwale near -the bow and pulled myself into the boat. - -"You make dam good swim, my boy," said old Gabriel, smiling at me as he -brought the boat around and headed back for the ship. - -I had made a good swim. I was fully a mile from the brig. I was not much -over a half mile from shore. I looked across the sunlit, dancing blue -water to the land. How easy it would have been to swim it! How easy it -would have been after I had crawled out upon the sands to hide in the -nearby mountains and live on wild fruit until the ship started for the -north and all danger of capture was past. - -No land could have seemed more beautiful. Groves of banana, orange, and -cocoanut trees held out their fruit to me. Forests swept to the summits of -the mountains. Flowers were in riotous bloom everywhere. I could almost -count the ribs in the glossy fronds of the palms. I could hear the soft -crash of the combers on the coral beaches of those enchanted shores. It -all looked like paradise and I had missed it by half a mile. - -When I reached the brig, Mr. Landers permitted me to put on dry clothing -and then put me in irons, as the sea phrase is. This consisted in -fastening my hands together in front of me with a pair of steel handcuffs -of the ordinary kind used by sheriffs and policemen everywhere. Then he -made me sit on the main hatch until Captain Winchester came back from -Honolulu, along toward sundown. - -"What's the matter with that man?" roared the captain as he swung over the -rail and his eyes lighted on me. - -"He jumped overboard and tried to swim ashore," said Mr. Landers in his -nasal Cape Cod drawl. - -"Why didn't you get my rifle and shoot him?" thundered the captain. - -"Well," returned Mr. Landers, "I don't shoot folks." - -After supper the captain stuck his head out of the cabin gangway. - -"Come down here, you," he said. I stepped into the cabin, now bright with -lighted lamps. The captain glared at me savagely. - -"You want to give me a bad name with Captain Shorey when he takes command, -do you?" he shouted. "You want to make it appear I have been hard on my -men, eh? You think you're a smart sea lawyer, but I'll teach you the -bitterest lesson you ever learned. We are bound for the Arctic Ocean. -There are no ships up there but whale ships, and we do as we please. I -have been sailing to the Arctic for thirteen years as master and mate of -whale ships and I know just how far I can go in dealing with a man without -making myself liable to law. I am going to make it as rough for you as I -know how to make it. I will put you over the jumps right. I will punish -you to the limit. This ship is going to be a floating hell for you for -the rest of the voyage. And when we get back to San Francisco you can -prosecute me all you please." - -He drew a key from his pocket and unlocked one manacle. It dropped from -one wrist and dangled from the other. - -"Boy," he said to the Kanaka cabin boy, who has been listening with open -mouth and bulging eyes to this tirade, "get this man a cup of water and a -biscuit." - -I had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and I sat down at the cabin -table and ate my one hardtack and drank my quart tin of water with a -relish. After my meal, the captain fastened my handcuff again and jerked a -little hatch out of the floor. - -"Get down there," he said. - -I climbed down and he clapped the hatch on again. I was in darkness except -for the light that filtered from the cabin lamps through the four cracks -of the hatch. When my eyes had become accustomed to the dimness, I made -out that I was in the ship's run, where the provisions for the captain's -table were stored. I rummaged about as well as I could in my handcuffs and -found a sack of raisins open and a box of soda crackers. To these I helped -myself generously. From a forecastle viewpoint they were rare dainties, -and I filled my empty stomach with them. I had not tasted anything so good -since I had my last piece of pie ashore. Pie! Dear me! One doesn't know -how good it is--just common pie baked in a bakery and sold at the corner -grocery--until one cannot get it and has had nothing but salt horse and -cracker hash for months. I used to yearn for pie by day and dream of pie -by night. At bedtime the captain snatched the hatch off again and tossed -me down my blankets. I bundled up in them as best I could and slept with -my manacles on. - -I was kept in irons on bread and water for five days and nights. Sometimes -in the daytime, with one handcuff unlocked and hanging from my other -wrist, I was put at slushing down the main boom or washing paint-work. But -for the most part I was held a close prisoner in the run, being called to -the cabin table three times a day for my bread and water. Finally, when -Captain Shorey came aboard and assumed command and the vessel headed for -the north, I was released and sent to the forecastle. My shipmates proved -Job's comforters and were filled with gloomy predictions regarding my -future. - -"I pity you from now on," each one said. - -But their prophecies proved false. After Captain Shorey took charge of -the ship Mr. Winchester became mate. As mate he was, as may be said, -the ship's foreman, directing the work of the men, and was in much more -intimate contact with the sailors than when he had been skipper. In his -new capacity he had much greater opportunity to make it unpleasant for me -in a thousand ways. But for some reason or other he never made good that -ferocious speech he had delivered to me in the cabin. - -When other green hands bungled, he damned them in round terms for their -awkwardness. When I blundered he showed me how to correct my error. "Not -that way, my boy," he would say. "Do it this way." When I took my trick at -the wheel he would often spin a yarn or crack a joke with me. He loaned -me books from time to time. In Behring Sea, when he got out his rifle -and shot okchug seals as they lay basking on cakes of ice, he almost -invariably took me with him in the boat to bring back the kill. In short, -he treated me more considerately than he treated any other man in the -forecastle and before the voyage was over we had become fast friends. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THROUGH THE ROARING FORTIES - - -Before leaving the islands, we shipped a Portuguese negro boat-steerer -to take the place of the Night King. He was coal black, had a wild roll -to his eyes, an explosive, spluttering way of talking, looked strikingly -like a great ape, and had little more than simian intelligence. His feet -had the reputation of being the largest feet in the Hawaiian Islands. -When I had seen them I was prepared to believe they were the largest in -the world. He was dubbed "Big Foot" Louis, and the nickname stuck to him -during the voyage. He came aboard barefooted. I don't know whether he -could find any shoes in the islands big enough to fit him or not. Anyway, -he didn't need shoes in the tropics. - -When we began to get north into cold weather he needed them badly, and -there were none on board large enough for him to get his toes in. The -captain went through his stock of Eskimo boots, made of walrus hide and -very elastic, but they were too small. When we entered the region of snow, -Louis was still running about the deck barefooted. As a last resort he -sewed himself a pair of canvas shoes--regular meal sacks--and wore them -through snow and blizzard and during the cold season when we were in the -grip of the Behring Sea ice pack. Up around Behring straits the captain -hired an Eskimo to make a pair of walrus hide boots big enough for Louis -to wear, and Louis wore them until we got back to San Francisco and went -ashore in them. I met him wandering along Pacific Street in his walrus -hides. However, he soon found a pair of brogans which he could wear with -more or less comfort. - -One night while I was knocking about the Barbary Coast with my shipmates -we heard dance music and the sound of revelry coming from behind the -swinging doors of the Bow Bells saloon, a free-and-easy resort. We stepped -inside. Waltzing around the room with the grace of a young bowhead out of -water was "Big-Foot" Louis, his arm around the waist of a buxom negress, -and on his feet nothing but a pair of red socks. We wondered what had -become of his shoes and spied them on the piano, which the "professor" was -vigorously strumming. Louis seemed to be having more fun than anybody, and -was perfectly oblivious to the titters of the crowd and to the fact that -it was not _de rigueur_ on the Barbary Coast to dance in one's socks. - -We left the Hawaiian Islands late in March and, standing straight north, -soon left the tropics behind, never to see them again on the voyage. As we -plunged into the "roaring forties" we struck our first violent storm. The -fury of the gale compelled us to heave to under staysails and drift, lying -in the troughs of the seas and riding the waves sidewise. The storm was -to me a revelation of what an ocean gale could be. Old sailors declared -they never had seen anything worse. The wind shrieked and whistled in the -rigging like a banshee. It was impossible to hear ordinary talk and the -men had to yell into each other's ears. We put out oil bags along the -weather side to keep the waves from breaking. But despite the oil that -spread from them over the water, giant seas frequently broke over the -brig. One crushed the waist boat into kindling wood and sent its fragments -flying all over the deck. We were fortunate to have several other extra -boats in the hold against just such an emergency. Waves sometimes filled -the ship to the top of the bulwarks and the sailors waded about up to -their breasts in brine until the roll of the vessel spilled the water -overboard or it ran back into the sea through the scuppers and hawse-holes. - -The waves ran as high as the topsail yard. They would pile up to windward -of us, gaining height and volume until we had to look up almost vertically -to see the tops. Just as a giant comber seemed ready to break in roaring -foam and curl over and engulf us, the staunch little brig would slip up -the slope of water and ride over the summit in safety. Then the sea would -shoot out on the other side of the vessel with a deafening hiss like that -of a thousand serpents and rush skyward again, the wall of water streaked -and shot with foam and looking like a polished mass of jade or agate. - -I had not imagined water could assume such wild and appalling shapes. -Those monster waves seemed replete with malignant life, roaring out their -hatred of us and watching alertly with their devilish foam-eyes for a -chance to leap upon us and crush us or sweep us to death on their crests. - -I became genuinely seasick now for the first time. A little touch of -seasickness I had experienced in the tropics was as nothing. To the rail -I went time and again to give up everything within me, except my immortal -soul, to the mad gods of sea. For two days I lay in my bunk. I tried -pickles, fat bacon, everything that any sailor recommended, all to no -purpose. I would have given all I possessed for one fleeting moment upon -something level and still, something that did not plunge and lurch and -roll from side to side and rise and fall. I think the most wretched part -of seasickness is the knowledge that you cannot run away from it, that you -are penned in with it, that go where you will, on the royal yard or in -the bilge, you cannot escape the ghastly nightmare even for a minute. - -There is no use fighting it and no use dosing yourself with medicines or -pickles or lemons or fat meat. Nothing can cure it. In spite of everything -it will stay with you until it has worked its will to the uttermost, and -then it will go away at last of its own accord, leaving you a wan, limp -wreck. I may add, to correct a general impression, that it is impossible -to become seasoned to seasickness. One attack does not render the victim -immune from future recurrences. I was very sick once again on the voyage. -After a season ashore, the best sailors are liable to seasickness, -especially if they encounter rough weather soon after leaving port. Some -time later we were frozen solidly in Behring Sea for three weeks. When a -storm swell from the south broke up the ice and the motionless brig began -suddenly to rock and toss on a heavy sea, every mother's son aboard, -including men who had been to sea all their lives, was sick. Not one -escaped. - -[Illustration: Unalaska] - -During the storm we kept a man at the wheel and another on the try-works -as a lookout. One day during my trick at the wheel, I was probably -responsible for a serious accident, though it might have happened with -the most experienced sailor at the helm. To keep the brig in the trough -of the seas, I was holding her on a certain point of the compass, but the -big waves buffeted the vessel about with such violence that my task was -difficult. Captain Shorey was standing within arm's length of me, watching -the compass. A sea shoved the brig's head to starboard and, as if it had -been lying in ambush for just such an opportunity, a giant comber came -curling in high over the stern. It smashed me into the wheel and for an -instant I was buried under twenty feet of crystal water that made a green -twilight all about us. - -Then the wave crashed down ponderously upon the deck and I was standing -in clear air again. To my astonishment, the captain was no longer beside -me. I thought he had been washed overboard. The wave had lifted him -upon its top, swept him high over the skylight the entire length of the -quarter-deck and dropped him on the main deck in the waist. His right leg -was broken below the knee. Sailors and boat-steerers rushed to him and -carried him into the cabin, where Mr. Winchester set the broken bones. -We put into Unalaska a week later and the surgeon of the revenue cutter -_Bear_ reset the leg. This was in the last days of March. The captain was -on crutches in July, when we caught our first whale. - -The storm did not blow itself out. It blew us out of it. We must have -drifted sidewise with the seas about six hundred miles. At dawn of -the second day, after leaving the fury of the forties behind, we were -bowling along in smooth water with all sails set. The sky was clear and -the sea like hammered silver. Far ahead a mountain rose into the sky--a -wedge-shaped peak, silver-white with snow, its foot swathed in purple -haze. It rose above Unimak Pass, which connects the Pacific Ocean and -Behring Sea between Unimak and Ugamok islands of the Fox Island chain. - -Unimak Pass is ten miles broad, and its towering shores are sheer, black, -naked rock. Mr. Winchester, who had assumed command after the captain -had broken his leg, set a course to take us directly through the passage. -Running before a light breeze that bellied all our sails, we began to draw -near the sea gorge at the base of the mountain. Then, without warning, -from over the horizon came a savage white squall, blotting out mountain, -pass, sea, and sky. - -I never saw bad weather blow up so quickly. One moment the ship was -gliding over a smooth sea in bright sunlight. The next, a cloud as white -and almost as thick as wool had closed down upon it; snow was falling -heavily in big, moist flakes, a stiff wind was heeling the vessel on its -side, and we could not see ten feet beyond the tip of the jib boom. - -The wind quickened into a gale. By fast work we managed to furl sails and -double-reef the topsail before they carried away. Soon the deck was white -with four or five inches of snow. On the forecastle-head Big Foot Louis -was posted as lookout. Everybody was anxious. Mr. Winchester took his -stand close by the main shrouds at the break of the poop and kept gazing -ahead through his glasses into the mist. The sailors and boat-steerers -crowded the forward rails, peering vainly into the swirling fog. Big Foot -Louis bent forward with his hand shielding his eyes from the falling snow. - -"Land, land!" he cried. - -If it were land that Louis saw through the clouds and blinding snow, it -was mighty close. Our doom seemed sealed. We expected the ship to crash -bows-on upon the rocks. We nerved ourselves for the shock. A momentary -vision of shipwreck on those bleak coasts in snow and storm obsessed me. -But Louis's eyes had deceived him. The ship went riding on its stately way -through the blinding snow before the gale. - -The situation was ticklish, if not critical. We had been headed squarely -for the passage before the storm closed down. Now we could not see where -we were going. If we held directly upon our course we were safe. If the -gale blew us even slightly out of our way, shipwreck and death on the -rock-bound shore awaited us. Which would it be? - -Mr. Winchester was a man of iron nerve. He demonstrated this now as he -did many times afterward. He was as skillful a navigator as he was a -fearless one. He knew his reckonings were good. He knew that when the -squall shut out the world the brig's nose was pointed directly at the -center of Unimak Pass. So he did not veer to east or west, or seek to tack -back from the dangerous coasts on our bows, but drove the vessel straight -upon its course into the blank white wall of mist and snow. - -An hour later the squall lifted as quickly as it had come. Blue skies and -sunshine came back. We found ourselves almost becalmed on a placid sea. To -the south lay the outline of a lofty coast. - -A boat-steerer bustled forward. "We are in Behring Sea," he said with a -laugh. - -We had shot through the narrow channel without sighting the shores. I have -often wondered just how close to port or starboard death was to us that -morning on the black cliffs of Unimak Pass. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -IN THE ICE - - -From Unalaska, into which port we put to have the captain's leg attended -to, the brig stood northwesterly for the spring whaling on the bowhead -and right whale grounds off the Siberian coast. We were a week's sail -from the Fox Islands when we encountered our first ice. It appeared in -small chunks floating down from the north. The blocks became more numerous -until they dappled the sea. They grew in size. Strings and floes appeared. -Then we brought up against a great ice field stretching to the north as -far as the eye could see. It was all floe ice broken into hummocks and -pressure ridges and pinnacles, with level spaces between. There were no -towering 'bergs such as are launched into the sea from the glaciers on the -Greenland coast and the Pacific coast of Alaska. The highest 'berg I saw -on the voyage was not more than forty feet high. It was composed of floe -ice which had been forced upward by the pressure of the pack. - -The crow's nest was now rigged and placed in position on the cross-trees -abaft the fore-mast, between the topsail and the fore-top-gallant-sail -yard. It was a square box of heavy white canvas nailed upon a wooden -frame-work. When a man stood in it the canvas sides reached to his breast -and were a protection against the bitter winds. From early morning until -dark an officer and a boat-steerer occupied the crow's nest and kept a -constant lookout for whales. - -As soon as we struck the ice the captain's slop-chest was broken open -and skin clothes were dealt out to the men. Accoutred for cold weather, -I wore woolen underwear and yarn socks next my flesh; an outer shirt of -squirrel skin with hood or parka; pants and vest of hair seal of the -color and sheen of newly minted silver; a coat of dogskin that reached -almost to my knees; a dogskin cap; deer-skin socks with the hair inside -over my yarn socks; walrus-hide boots and walrus-hide mittens over yarn -mittens. The walrus-boots were fastened by a gathering string just below -the knees and by thongs of tanned skin about the ankle. Some of the men -wore heavy reindeer-skin coats. The skin clothes worn by the officers and -boat-steerers were of finer quality and more pretentious. Perhaps the -handsomest costume was that of Little Johnny. It consisted of coat, vest, -and trousers of silvery hair-seal, with the edges of the coat trimmed with -the snowwhite fur of fur-seal pups. With this he wore a black dogskin cap -and walrus-hide boots. - -While we were among the ice, the officer in the crow's nest directed the -course of the brig. Whaling officers are great fellows to show their skill -by just grazing dangerous ice. Many a time we green hands stood with -our hearts in our mouths as the ship seemed about to crash into a 'berg -bows-on. - -"Starboard, sir," the helmsman would respond. - -"Starboard," would come the order from aloft. - -[Illustration: Waiting For the Floes to Open] - -The bow would swing slowly to one side and the 'berg would go glancing -along the rail so close perhaps that we could have grabbed a snowball off -some projection. - -"Steady," the officer would call. - -"Steady, sir." The bow would stop in its lateral swing. - -"Port." - -"Port, sir." The bow would swing the other way. - -"Steady." We would be upon our old course again. - -Once I remember the mate was in the crow's nest and had been narrowly -missing ice all day for the fun of the thing--"showing off," as we rather -disturbed green hands said. A 'berg about thirty feet high, a giant for -Behring Sea waters, showed a little ahead and to leeward of our course. -The mate thought he could pass to windward. He kept the brig close to the -wind until the 'berg was very near. Then he saw a windward passage was -impossible and tried suddenly to go to leeward. - -"Hard up your wheel," he cried. - -"Hard up it is, sir." - -The bow swung toward the 'berg--swung slowly, slowly across it. The tip -of the jib-boom almost rammed a white pinnacle. Just when everybody was -expecting the brig to pile up in wreck on the ice, the great 'berg swept -past our starboard rail. But we had not missed it. Its jagged edges -scraped a line an inch deep along our side from bow to stern. - -Shooting _okchug_ (or, as it is sometimes spelled, ooksook) or hair seals -was a favorite amusement in the spring ice. The mate was an expert with a -rifle. He shot many as they lay sunning themselves on ice cakes. Okchugs -are as large as oxen and are covered with short silvery hair so glossy -that it fairly sparkles. If an okchug was killed outright, its head -dropped over upon the ice and it lay still. If only slightly wounded, the -animal flounced off into the sea. If vitally hurt, it remained motionless -with its head up and glaring defiance, whereupon a boat's crew would row -out to the ice cake and a sailor would finish the creature with a club. - -It was exciting to step on a small ice cake to face a wounded and savage -okchug. The animal would come bouncing on its flippers straight at one -with a vicious barking roar. The nose was the okchug's most vulnerable -point. A tap on the nose with a club would stretch the great creature out -dead. It required a cool head, a steady nerve, and a good aim to deliver -this finishing stroke upon the small black snout. If one missed or slipped -on the ice, the possible consequences would not have been pleasant. We -tanned the skins of the okchugs and made them into trousers or "pokes." -The meat was hung over the bows to keep in an ice-box of all outdoors. -Ground up and made into sausages, it was a _pièce de resistance_ on the -forecastle bill of fare. - -One night in the latter part of May we saw far off a great light flaring -smokily across the sea. It was what is known in whaler parlance as a -bug-light and was made by blazing blubber swinging in an iron basket -between the two smokestacks of a whale-ship's try-works. By it the crew -of that distant ship was working at trying out a whale. The bug-light -signaled to all the whaling fleet the first whale of the season. - -The great continent of ice drifting southward gradually closed round the -fleet. The ships had worked so far in there was no escape. In the early -part of June the brig was frozen in. For three weeks the vessel remained -motionless in solid ice with every stitch of canvas furled. No water or -land was in sight--nothing but one great sweep of broken and tumbled ice -as far as the eye could see. Those three ice-bound June weeks were given -over to idleness. A stove was placed in the forecastle and was kept going -night and day. This made it possible to keep comfortable and to read. - -We went on frequent seal hunts. We strolled across the frozen sea to visit -the other ships, the nearest of which was two miles away. Visiting is -called "gamming" by whalers. We learned the gossip of the fleet, who had -taken the first whale, how many whales had been caught, the adventures of -the ships, the comedies and tragedies of the whaling season. - -We established, too, what we called the "Behring Sea Circulating Library." -There were a number of books in every forecastle. These greasy, dog-eared -volumes were passed about from ship to ship. Perhaps there were twenty -books aboard the brig which had been read by almost every member of the -crew, forward and aft. Before we got out of the ice, we had exchanged -these volumes for an entirely new lot from other ships. - -One morning I awoke with the ship rocking like a cradle. I pulled on my -clothes and hurried on deck. The ice fields were in wild commotion. Great -swells from some storm upon the open sea to the south were rolling under -them. Crowded and tumultuous waves of ice twenty feet high chased each -other across the frozen fields from horizon to horizon. The ship would -sink for a moment between ridges of ice and snow, and then swing up on the -crest of an ice mountain. Great areas of ice would fall away as if the sea -had opened beneath them. Then they would shoot up and shut out half the -sky. The broken and jagged edges of these white and solid billows appeared -for an instant like a range of snowy sierras which, in another instant, -would crumble from view as if some seismic cataclysm had shaken them down -in ruin. The air was filled with grinding, crushing, ominous noises and -explosions. - -The ship was in imminent peril. In that mad turmoil of ice it seemed -certain she would be ground to pieces. Captain Shorey, who was hobbling -about on crutches, ordered a cask of bread, a cask of water, and a barrel -of beef hoisted on deck ready to be thrown out on an ice cake in case the -brig were wrecked and we were cast away. - -In the grinding of the floes, the ship became wedged in between two -immense pieces of ice. The great bergs washed closer and closer. When they -rose on some tremendous billow, great caverns, washed out by the sea, -appeared in their sides like mouths, edged with splinters and points of -blue and glittering ice, like fangs. As they rose and fell, it seemed the -two white monsters were opening and closing devouring maws for us while -the suck of the water in their ice caves made noises like the roar of -hungry beasts of prey. - -A cable was run out hurriedly over the bow and a bowline at the end of -it was slipped over a hummock of ice. With the inboard end wound around -the windlass, all hands worked like beavers to heave the brig out of her -dangerous position. It was all the crew could do to swing the windlass -bars up and down. The ship went forward slowly, almost imperceptibly, and -all the time the great bergs swept closer and closer. For a long time it -looked as if we were doomed. There was no doubt about the ship's fate -if the bergs struck it. But inch by inch, heave by heave, we hauled her -through. Ten minutes later, the ice monsters came together with a force -that would have crushed an ironclad. - -Gradually patches of clear water began to appear in the ice. It was -as though the white fields were opening great blue eyes. Little lakes -and zigzag lanes of water formed. Sails were set. The brig began to -work her way along. Soon she was swinging on heavy billows--not white -billows of ice but green billows of water, thick with ice in stars and -constellations. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -CROSS COUNTRY WHALING - - -We had hardly washed clear of the ice in the heavy seas when "Blow!" rang -from the crow's nest. A school of whales close ahead, covering the sea -with fountains, was coming leisurely toward the ship. There were more than -thirty of them. - -"Bowheads!" shouted the mate. - -Their great black heads rose above the surface like ponderous pieces of -machinery; tall fountains shot into the air; the wind caught the tops of -the fountains and whisked them off in smoke; hollow, sepulchral whispers -of sound came to the brig as the breath left the giant lungs in mighty -exhalations. Why they were called bowheads was instantly apparent--the -outline of the top of the head curved like an Indian's bow. As the head -sank beneath the surface, the glistening back, half as broad as a city -street and as black as asphalt, came spinning up out of the sea and went -spinning down again. - -Our crippled captain in his fur clothes and on crutches limped excitedly -about the quarter-deck glaring at $300,000 worth of whales spouting under -his nose. But with so much ice about and such a heavy sea running he was -afraid to lower. - -If the whales saw the brig they gave no sign. They passed all around the -vessel, the spray of their fountains blowing on deck. One headed straight -for the ship. The mate seized a shoulder bomb-gun and ran to the bow. The -whale rose, blew a fountain up against the jib-boom, and dived directly -beneath the brig's forefoot. As its back curled down, the mate, with one -knee resting on the starboard knighthead, took aim and fired. He surely -hit the whale--there was little chance to miss. But the bomb evidently did -not strike a vital spot, for the leviathan passed under the ship, came up -on the other side and went on about its business. - -The sight of all these whales passing by us with such unconcern, blowing -water on us as if in huge contempt, almost seeming to laugh at us and mock -our bombs and harpoons and human skill, drove the captain frantic. Should -he allow that fortune in whales to escape him without a try for it? With -purple face and popping eyes he gazed at the herd now passing astern. - -"Lower them boats!" he cried. - -"What?" expostulated Mr. Landers. "Do you want to get us all killed?" - -"Lower them boats!" yelled the skipper. - -"Don't you know that a boat that gets fast to a whale in that ice will be -smashed, sure?" - -"Lower them boats!" shouted the captain. - -Mr. Winchester, enthusiastic and fearless whaleman that he was, was eager -for the captain's order. His boat and Mr. Landers's went down. The waist -boat--mine--was left on its davits. But Gabriel, its boatheader, armed -with a shoulder gun, went in the mate's boat. Left aboard to help work -ship, I had an opportunity to view that exciting chase from beginning to -end. - -With storm-reefed sails, the boats went plunging away over the big seas, -dodging sharply about to avoid the ice cakes. Not more than two hundred -yards away on our starboard beam a great whale was blowing. The mate -marked it and went for it like a bull dog. He steered to intercept its -course. It was a pretty piece of maneuvering. The whale rose almost in -front of him and his boat went shooting upon its back. Long John let -fly his harpoon. Gabriel fired a bomb from his shoulder gun. There was -a flurry of water as the whale plunged under. Back and forth it slapped -with its mighty flukes as it disappeared, narrowly missing the boat. Down -came the boat's sail. It was bundled up in a jiffy and the mast slewed aft -until it stuck out far behind. Out went the sweeps. The mate stood in the -stern wielding a long steering oar. I could see the whale line whipping -and sizzling out over the bows. - -For only a moment the whale remained beneath the surface. Then it -breached. Its black head came shooting up from the water like a titanic -rocket. Up went the great body into the air until at least forty feet -of it was lifted against the sky like some weird, mighty column, its -black sides glistening and its belly showing white. Then the giant bulk -crashed down again with a smack on the sea that might have been heard for -miles and an impact that sent tons of water splashing high in air. For an -instant the monster labored on the water as if mortally hurt, spouting up -fountains of clotted blood that splattered over the ice blocks and turned -them from snow white to crimson. Then a second time the whale sounded and -went speeding away to windward, heading for the ice pack. - -It dragged the boat at a dizzy clip despite the fact that the line was -running out so fast as to seem to the men in the boat a mere vibrant, -indistinct smear of yellow. The boat was taken slicing through the big -waves, driving its nose at times beneath the water, and knocking against -lumps of ice. A long ice block appeared in its course. A collision seemed -inevitable unless the boat was cut loose from the whale. - -Captain Shorey was watching the chase with fierce intentness as he leaned -upon his crutches on the forecastle head. He had been filled with great -joy, seized with anxiety or shaken with anger as the hunt passed from one -phase to another. He shouted his emotions aloud though there was never a -chance for the men in the boats to hear him. - -"Good boy, Long John," he had cried when the boatsteerer drove his harpoon -home. - -"That's our fish," he had chortled as the wounded leviathan leaped high -against the sky and spouted blood over the ice. - -Now when it seemed possible that the mate would be forced to cut loose -from the whale to save his boat from destruction, the captain danced about -on his crutches in wild excitement. - -"Don't cut that line! Don't cut that line!" he yelled. - -Mr. Winchester realized as well as the captain that there was something -like $10,000 on the other end of the rope, and he had no idea of cutting -loose. Towed by the whale the boat drove toward the ice. The mate worked -hard with his steering oar to avoid striking the block. It was impossible. -The bow smashed into one end of the ice cake, was lifted out of the water -and dragged across to slip back into the sea. A hole was stove in the -starboard bow through which the water rushed. The crew thereafter was kept -busy bailing. - -It was evident from the fountains of blood that the whale was desperately -wounded, but its vitality was marvelous and it seemed it might escape. -When Mr. Landers saw the mate's line being played out so rapidly he should -have hurried to the mate's boat and bent the line from his own tub to the -end of the mate's line. As an old whaleman Mr. Landers knew what to do -in this crisis, but in such ice and in such high seas he preferred not -to take a chance. He was a cautious soul, so he held his boat aloof. The -mate waved to him frantically. Long John and Gabriel wigwagged frenzied -messages with waving arms. - -As for Captain Shorey on his crutches on the forecastle head, when it -seemed certain that the whale would run away with all the mate's line -and escape, he apparently suffered temporary aberration. He damned old -man Landers in every picturesque and fervent term of an old whaleman's -vocabulary. He shook his fist at him. He waved a crutch wildly. - -"Catch that whale!" he yelled in a voice husky and broken with emotion. -"For God's sake, catch that whale!" - -All this dynamic pantomime perhaps had its effect on Landers. At any rate, -his men began to bend to their sweeps and soon his boat was alongside that -of the mate. His line was tied to the free end of the rope in the mate's -almost exhausted tub just in time. The mate's line ran out and Landers' -boat now became fast to the whale. - -Fortune favored Landers. His boat was dragged over the crests of the seas -at thrilling speed, but he managed to keep clear of ice. The whale showed -no sign of slowing down. In a little while it had carried away all the -line in Mr. Landers' tub. The monster was free of the boats at last. It -had ceased to come to the surface to blow. It had gone down into the deep -waters carrying with it the mate's harpoon and 800 fathoms of manila rope. -It seemed probable it had reached the safety of the ice pack and was lost. - -The boats came back to the brig; slowly, wounded, limping over the waves. -The flying spray had frozen white over the fur clothes of the men, making -them look like snow images. They climbed aboard in silence. Mr. Landers -had a hang-dog, guilty look. The skipper was a picture of gloom and -smoldering fury. He bent a black regard upon Mr. Landers as the latter -swung over the rail, but surprised us all by saying not a word. - -When the next day dawned, we were out of sight of ice, cruising in a quiet -sea. A lookout posted on the forecastle head saw far ahead a cloud of -gulls flapping about a dark object floating on the surface. It was the -dead whale. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -CUTTING IN AND TRYING OUT - - -Two boats were sent to secure the whale. I lowered with one. As we came up -to the whale, I marveled at its immense bulk. It looked even larger than -when it had breached and I had seen it shoot up, a giant column of flesh -and blood, against the heavens. It had turned belly up as dead whales do, -its ridged white abdomen projecting above the waves. It seemed much like -a mighty white and black rock, against which the waves lapped lazily. -Seventy-five feet long the officers estimated it--an unusually large bull -whale. I had never imagined any animal so large. I had seen Jumbo, said -to be the largest elephant ever in captivity. Jumbo made ordinary circus -elephants seem like pigmies. This whale was as big as a dozen Jumbos. The -great hairy mammoth, of which I had seen stuffed specimens in museums, -would have seemed a mere baby beside this monster of the deep. - -As proof that the whale was ours, the harpoon sticking in its back bore -the brig's name, and fast to the haft and floating far out on the sea in -a tangled mass was the 800 fathoms of line from the brig's two tubs. Our -first work was to recover the line. As this had to be straightened out -and coiled in the boats, it was a long and tedious job. Then with a short -sharp spade, a hole was cut through the whale's flukes and a cable passed -through and made fast. With both boats strung out along the cable, the men -bent to the sweeps, hauling the carcass slowly toward the brig. Meanwhile -the vessel had been sailing toward us. So we had but a hundred yards or so -to pull. - -The loose end of the hawser was passed through the hawse-hole in the -starboard bow and made fast to the fore-bitt. In this way the flukes -were held close to the bow. As the brig made headway under short sail, -the great body washed back against the vessel's side and lay upon the -surface, the head abreast the wheel on the quarter-deck--which will give -an idea of the whale's length. - -The gang-plank was taken from the bulwarks and a cutting stage lowered -over the whale. This stage was made of three broad planks. Two projected -from the ship's side, the third joined their outer ends. Along the inside -of the third plank was a low railing. Two officers took their station -on the outer plank with long-handled spades to cut in the blubber. The -spade was enough like a garden spade in shape to suggest its name and was -fastened to a long pole. Its cutting edge was as sharp as a razor. - -A block and tackle was rigged above the whale, the upper block fastened -to the cross-trees of the main mast and the tackle carried forward to -the windlass. A great hook was fastened into the whale's blubber, and -everything was ready for the cutting in. - -As the officers with their spades cut under the blubber, the sailors -heaved on the windlass. The blanket piece of blubber began to rise. As -it rose, the officers kept spading under it, rolling the whale over -gradually. Thus the whale was peeled much as one would peel a roll of -bologna sausage. When the great carcass had been rolled completely over, -the blanket piece of blubber came off. The upper end of it fast to the -tackle hook was up almost against the cross-trees as the lower end swung -free. The largest blanket pieces weighed perhaps ten tons. Six were -taken off in the process of skinning. The weight of the whale, I should -estimate, was roughly something like one hundred tons, perhaps a little -more. - -When the blanket piece was cut free from the whale it swung inboard, -and as it came over the main hatch, it was lowered into the hold. There -men fell upon it with short spades, cutting it into small pieces and -distributing them equally about the ship to prevent the vessel from -listing. It took most of the day to strip the whale of its blubber. When -this had been finished the great flensed carcass stretched out along the -ship's side a mass of blood-red flesh. The final work was cutting in the -"old head." - -Long John with an axe climbed down upon the whale's back. As it was his -boat that had struck the whale the cutting in of the head was his job. -Nobody envied him the task. The stripped body of a whale offers a surface -as slippery as ice. As the waves rocked the whale, Long John had much -ado to keep his footing. Once he fell and almost tumbled into the water. -Finally he cut himself two foot-holds and began to wield his axe, raining -blows upon the neck. He chopped through from the upper neck surface into -the corners of the mouth, thus loosening the head and upper jaw from the -body. The lower jaw is devoid of teeth. The tackle hook having been fixed -in the tip-top of the head's bowlike curve, the windlass men heaved away. -Up rose the head above the bulwarks and swung inwards. - -"Lower, lower away!" cried the mate. - -Down came the head upon the deck and a great cheer went up. The "old head" -was safe. Immediately afterwards, the mate came forward with a bottle of -Jamaica rum and gave each man a swig. "Bringing in his old head," as it -is called, is a memorable event in cutting in a whale, and is always -celebrated by dealing out a drink all around. - -Great hunks of meat were cut out from the carcass. These were hung over -the bow. The meat was served in the form of steaks and sausages in both -forecastle and cabin. And let me give my testimony right here that whale -steak is mighty good eating. It tastes something like tender beef, though -it is coarser grained and of ranker flavor. We preferred to eat it as -steaks, though made into meat balls with gravy it was extremely toothsome. -I do not know how whale would taste if served on the home table, but at -sea, after months of salt horse and "sow belly," it was delicious. The -hunks became coated with ice over the bow and kept well. They lasted us -for several weeks. - -When the carcass was cut adrift it went floating astern. Flocks of gulls -and sea birds that had been constantly hovering about the ship in hundreds -waiting for the feast swooped down upon it. The body washed slowly out of -sight, still swarmed over by the gulls. - -The head rested in the waist near the poop. It was, I should say, twelve -feet high at the crest of the bow, and suggested some strange sort of -tent. I stepped inside it without bending my head and walked about in it. -Its sides were shaggy with the long hair hanging from the teeth or baleen, -and the interior resembled, in a way, a hunter's forest lodge made of pine -boughs. If the head had been in a forest instead of on the deck of a ship -it would have formed an ideal shelter for a winter's night with a wood -fire burning at the opening. - -Only the lower tip of the head or what we might call the nose rested -on the deck. It was supported otherwise upon the teeth. I now had my -first opportunity to see baleen in its natural setting. The teeth viewed -from the outside looked something like the interior of a piano. The -whale's gums, following the bony skeleton of the jaw, formed an arched -and undulant line from nose tip to the back of the jaw. The front teeth -were six inches long; the back ones were ten feet. Each tooth, big and -little alike, was formed of a thin slab of bluish whalebone, almost flat. -The largest of these slabs were six inches broad at their base in the -gum. The smallest were an inch. All tapered to a point. They were set in -the gum with the flat surfaces together and almost touching. They were -extremely pliant and at the outer ends could be pulled wide apart. The -inner edges were hung with black coarse hair, which seemed exactly like -that of a horse's tail. The hair on the small front teeth was an inch long -perhaps; on the back teeth, it was from six to ten inches long. - -Such teeth are beautifully adapted to the animal's feeding habits. The -baleen whale feeds on a kind of jelly fish. We saw at times the sea -covered with these flat, round, whitish living discs. The whale swims -through an area of this food with its mouth open. When it has obtained -a mouthful, it closes its jaws. The water is forced out between the -slab-like teeth; the jelly fish remain tangled in the hair to be gulped -down. - -Our first job after the cutting in of the whale was to cut the baleen from -the jaw. It was cut away in bunches of ten or a dozen slabs held together -by the gums and stowed away in the hold not to be touched again until -later in the voyage. - - -[Illustration: "Trying Out"] - - -While the baleen was being prepared for stowage, the lid was removed -from the try-works, uncovering the two big copper caldrons. A fire was -started in the furnace with kindling and a handful of coal, but kept going -thereafter with tried-out blubber called "scrap." Two men dressed in -oil-skins were sent down into the blubber-room as the portion of the hold -was called in which the blanket pieces of blubber had been stowed. Their -oil-skins were to protect them from the oil which oozed from the blubber. -Oilskins, however, are but slight protection as I learned later when I was -sent into the blubber room at the taking of another whale. The oil soaks -through the water-proof oil-skins and saturates one's clothes and goes -clear through to the skin leaving it as greasy as if it had been rubbed -with oil. - -A whale's blubber lies immediately beneath its skin, which is black and -rubbery and about a quarter of an inch thick. The blubber is packed -between this thin covering and the flesh in a layer of pink and -opalescent fat from six inches to two feet thick. The blubber is so full -of oil that the oil exudes from it. One can squeeze the oil from a piece -of raw blubber as water from a sponge. - -The two blubber-room men with short handled spades cut the great blankets -of blubber in what in whaling parlance are called "horse pieces." These -horse pieces are two or three feet long and about six inches wide. They -are pitched into tubs on deck and the tubs dragged forward to the mincing -vat. This is an immense oblong tub across the top of which is fastened a -plank. Two sailors with mincing knives are stationed at each end of the -plank. The mincing knife is like a carpenter's drawing knife, except that -the edge is on the outside. The sailor lays a horse piece along the plank. -Then grasping the mincing knife by its two handles, he passes the blade -back and forth from side to side across the blubber until it has been cut -into leaves something like those of a book, each leaf perhaps a quarter of -an inch thick and all of them held together at the back by the black skin. -Thus minced the horse pieces are pitch-forked into the caldrons that -are kept bubbling with boiling oil. When the oil has been boiled out of -them, the horse-pieces, now shrunken and twisted into hard, brittle lumps, -called "scrap," are skimmed off and thrown into a vat at the port side of -the try-works to be used later as fuel in trying out the remainder of the -blubber. The oil is ladled off into a cooling vat at the starboard side -where, after it has cooled, it is siphoned into hogsheads or tanks and -these are later stowed in the hold. - -The trying out of the whale gave several delicacies to the forecastle -menu. Hardtack biscuit soaked in buckets of sea water and then boiled in -the bubbling caldrons of oil made relishing morsels. The crisp, tried-out -blubber, which looked like honey-comb, was palatable to some. Black whale -skin freed of blubber and cut into small cubes and pickled in salt and -vinegar had a rather agreeable taste, though it was much like eating -pickled rubber. These things with whale steaks and whale sausages made -trying-out days a season of continual feasting. - -At night "scrap" was put into an iron basket swung between the two -chimneys of the try-works and set on fire, making a flaring yellow -blaze which lighted the ship from stem to stern and threw weird shadows -everywhere. The beacon not only gave us plenty of light to work by, but -advertised the brig's good luck to any ship which happened in sight of us. -In the blubber-room, holes were cut in a blanket piece and rope yarns, -having been rubbed upon the blubber, were coiled in the hole and lighted. -As they burned they lighted the oil from the blubber. These unique lamps -had all the oil in a ten-ton blanket piece to draw on. It was only the -wick that ever gave out. New strands of rope yarn had to be provided from -time to time. Three or four of these lamps blazing and spluttering made -the blubber-room bright. - -Working night and day, it took three days to cut in and try out the whale. -While the work was going on, the decks were so greasy that we could run -and slide anywhere for long distances like boys on ice. After the whale -had been tried out and the oil casks had been stowed below, we fell upon -the decks and paint work with lye and water. Hard work soon had the ship -looking as bright as a new pin. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -SHAKING HANDS WITH SIBERIA - - -The ship's prow was turned northward after work on the whale had been -finished. I expected we would soon run into the ice again. We sailed -on and on, but not a block of ice big enough to make a highball did we -sight. The white floes and drifts and the frozen continent floating -southward, along the coasts of which we had cruised for whales and which -had surrounded us and held us captive for three weeks, had disappeared -entirely. The warm water from the south, the southern winds, and the -spring sunshine had melted the ice. Its utter disappearance savored of -magic. - -A long hilly coast rose ahead of us covered with grass, barren of trees or -shrubs, dotted with blackened skeletons of old ice--an utterly desolate -land. It was Siberia. We put into a bight called St. Lawrence Bay. -There was an Eskimo village on the shore. The huts were made of whale -ribs covered with hides of walrus and reindeer. In the warm weather, -some of the hides had been removed and we saw the white gleaming bones -of the frame work. We could see the dogs with tails curling over their -backs frisking about and could hear their clamor as they bayed the great -white-winged thing that had come up from over the sea's verge. - -In this first part of July it was continuous day. The sun set at eleven -o'clock at night in the northwest. Its disc remained barely below the -horizon--we could almost see its flaming rim. A molten glow of color made -the sky resplendent just above it as it passed across the north pole. It -rose at 1:30 in the morning high in the northeast. All the time it was -down a brilliant twilight prevailed--a twilight like that which in our -temperate zone immediately follows the sinking of the sun behind a hill. -We could see to read without difficulty. - -Soon boats and kyacks were putting off from the village. When we were -still a mile or two out, strange craft came alongside and Eskimo men, -women, and children swarmed aboard. Very picturesque they looked in -clothes made of the skins of reindeer, hair seals, dogs, and squirrels, -oddly trimmed and decorated with fur mosaics in queer designs. Some of -the women wore over their furs a yellow water-proof cloak made of the -intestines of fish, ornamented with needle-work figures and quite neat -looking. - -The men and the older women had animal faces of low intelligence. The -young girls were extremely pretty, with glossy, coal-black hair, bright -black eyes, red cheeks, lips like ripe cherries, and gleaming white teeth -forever showing in the laughter of irresponsibility and perfect health. - -The captain ordered a bucket of hardtack brought out in honor of our -guests. The biscuit were dumped in a pile on the main deck. The Eskimos -gathered around in a solemn and dignified circle. The old men divided the -bread, giving an equal number of hardtack to each. - -This ceremony of welcome over, the Eskimos were given the freedom of the -ship, or at least, took it. We kept a careful watch upon them, however, -to see that they took nothing else. Several of the Eskimo men had a -sufficient smattering of English to make themselves understood. They had -picked up their small vocabulary among the whalers which every spring -put in at the little ports along the Siberian and Alaskan coasts. One -of them had been whaling to the Arctic Ocean aboard a whale ship which -some accident had left short handed. He spoke better English than any -of the others and was evidently regarded by his fellow townsmen as a -wonderfully intellectual person. He became quite friendly with me, showing -his friendship by begging me to give him almost everything I had, from -tobacco to clothes. He constantly used an Eskimo word the meaning of which -all whalers have learned and it assisted him materially in telling his -stories--he was a great story teller. This word was "_pau_,"--it means -"nothing." I never knew before how important nothing could be in human -language. Here is a sample of his use of "nothing:" - -[Illustration: Callers from Asia] - - -"Winter," he said, "sun pau; daylight pau. All dark. Water pau; all ice. -Land pau, all snow. Eskimo igloo, plenty fire. Moss in blubber oil all -time blaze up. Cold pau. Plenty hot. Eskimo, he sweat. Clothes pau. Good -time. Hot time. Eat plenty. Sleep." - -This seemed to me a good, vivid description. The picture was there, -painted chiefly with "nothing." - -Of course he had the English words "yes" and "no" in his assortment, but -his way of using them was pure Eskimo. For instance: "You wear no clothes -in winter?" I asked him. "No," he replied. "No?" I echoed in surprise. -"Yes," he said. His "yes" merely affirmed his "no." It sometimes required -a devious mental process to follow him. - -A pretty girl came up to me with a smile and an ingratiating air. - -"Tobac," she said holding out her hand. - -I handed her my smoking plug. She took half of it at one cavernous bite -and gave the remainder back to me, which I thought considerate. She -enjoyed the tobacco. She chewed upon it hard, working her jaws as if she -were masticating a dainty tidbit. Did she expectorate? Not a drop. She -evidently did not propose to waste any of the flavor of that good weed. -Neither did she get sick--that pretty Eskimo girl. At last when she had -chewed for twenty minutes or so, she removed her quid and stuck it behind -her right ear. She chewed it at intervals later on, always between times -wearing it conspicuously behind her ear. - -I rather expected our guests would depart after a call of an hour or so. -Not so. They had come to stay indefinitely. When they became tired they -lay on deck--it didn't make any particular difference where--and went -quietly to sleep. They seemed to have no regular time for sleeping. I -found Eskimos asleep and awake during all my deck watches. As it was day -all the twenty-four hours, I wondered if these people without chronometers -did not sometimes get their hours mixed up. - -New parties of Eskimos kept coming to see us. One of these had killed a -walrus and the skin and the raw meat, butchered into portable cuts, lay in -the bottom of their big family canoe of hide. The boat was tied alongside -and the Eskimos came aboard. If any of them became hungry, they climbed -down into the canoe and ate the raw walrus meat, smacking their lips over -it. When the sailors would lean over the rail to watch this strange feat -of gastronomy, the Eskimos would smile up at them with mouths smeared with -blood and hold out a red chunk in invitation. It was their joke. - -We loafed in St. Lawrence Bay for more than a week. We could not have -sailed away if we had wanted to, for all the time there was a windless -calm and the sea heaved and fell, unruffled by a ripple, like a vast sheet -of moving mercury. - -It was weather characteristic of the Arctic summer--a beautiful dream -season of halcyon, silver seas, opalescent haze, and tempered golden -sunlight. To the men in skin clothes, it was warm weather, but one had -only to step from sunshine to shadow to pass from summer to winter. One -perspired in the sunlight; in the shadow there was frost, and if the spot -were damp, a coating of ice. - -I went duck hunting with a boat's crew one day. Mr. Winchester, who -headed the boat, was a good hand with a shotgun and brought back a fine -bag. One of the ducks, knocked over on the wing, dropped within a few feet -of shore. When we rowed to pick it up, I touched Siberia with an oar. I -felt that it was a sort of handshake with the Asiatic continent. I never -landed and never got any nearer. - -In a little while, most of us had traded for a number of nicely tanned -hair-seal skins and had set the Eskimo women and girls to work tailoring -trousers and vests and coats. It was marvelous how dexterous they were -at cutting and sewing. They took no measurements and yet their garments -fitted rather snugly. Before they began sewing they softened the edges of -the skins by chewing them. They wore their thimble on their index finger -and drove the needle into one side of the skins and jerked it through from -the other side with such amazing rapidity that the two movements seemed -one. A good seamstress--and all seemed remarkably expert--could cut and -sew a pair of trousers in an hour, a bit of work it would have taken a -sailor a day or two to accomplish. We could hire a seamstress for an -entire morning or afternoon for five hardtack. A bowl of soup with a piece -of salt horse was sufficient pay for a day's labor. - -My old skin clothes, which I had obtained from the slop-chest were -greasy, dirty, and worn and I had an Eskimo woman make me a complete -new outfit from hair-seal skins I purchased from her husband. She cut -out a coat, vest, and trousers, spreading the skins on deck and using a -knife in cutting. She sat cross-legged on deck most of the day sewing -on the garments and I carefully superintended the job. She ornamented -the coat with a black dogskin collar and edged it down the breast and -around the bottom with the same material, which set off the glistening -seal skin attractively. I also bought a new squirrel skin shirt with a -hood attached. When I appeared on deck in my new toggery, I felt quite -presentable. - -However, I was not alone in gorgeous regalia. Most of my shipmates were -soon looking like animate statues of silver in their shining seal skins. -Our turns up and down deck became fashion parades. We strutted like -peacocks, it must be admitted, and displayed our fine clothes to best -advantage under the eyes of the Eskimo beauties. - -It remained for Peter, our rolypoly little Swede, to make the only real, -simon-pure conquest. In his new clothes, which sparkled like a silver -dollar fresh from the mint, and with his fresh boyish face, he cut quite -a handsome figure and one little Eskimo maid fell a victim to his fatal -fascinations. "'E's killed her dead," said English Bill White. She was -perhaps fifteen years old, roguish eyed, rosy cheeked, and with coal-black -hair parted in the middle and falling in two braids at the sides of her -head. Plump and full of life and high spirits, the gay little creature was -as pretty as any girl I saw among the Eskimos. - -Peter was all devotion. He gave his sweetheart the lion's share of all -his meals, feasting her on salt horse, hardtack, soup, and gingerbread -which to her primitive palate that never had risen to greater gastronomic -heights than blubber and raw meat must have seemed epicurean delicacies. -The sailors called the girl "Mamie," which was very different from the -Eskimo name her mother spluttered at her. If Peter was missed at any time, -it was only necessary to locate the charming Miss Mamie, and there by her -side Peter would be found, speaking only with his eyes and making distinct -progress. - -Sometimes Peter, finding optical language not entirely satisfactory, -pressed into his service the intellectual Eskimo as interpreter. These -three-cornered efforts at love making were amusing to all who chanced -to overhear them;--the dashing young Romeo could scarcely talk English -himself, the interpreter could talk even less and the object of Peter's -adoration could not speak a word. - -As the upshot of this interesting affair, the little lady and Peter -plotted between them that Peter should run away from the ship and live -among her people. This plan appealed to Peter who was a cold weather -product himself and almost as primitive as his inamorata. But Peter made -one mistake;--he took old Nels Nelson, his countryman and side-partner, -into his confidence. Nelson loved the boy like a father and did his best -to persuade him to give up the idea, but Peter was determined. - -One twilight midnight with the sun just skimming below the horizon, -Peter wrapped from head to foot in an Eskimo woman's mackintosh of fish -intestine, with the hood over his head and half hiding his chubby face, -climbed over the rail into an Eskimo boat with a number of natives, his -sweetheart among them, and set out for shore. Nelson and several sailors -watched the boat paddle away, but no one but Nelson knew that the person -bundled up in the native raincoat was Peter. The boat got half a mile from -the brig. Then Nelson could stand it no longer. The strain was too much. -He rushed back to the quarter-deck where old Gabriel was walking up and -down. - -"Peter's run away," Nelson blurted out. "There he goes in that boat. -That's him dressed up like a woman in fish-gut oil-skins." - -[Illustration: Peter's Sweetheart] - - -Without ado Gabriel called aft the watch, manned a boat, and set out in -pursuit. The Eskimo canoe was quickly overhauled and Peter was captured -and brought back aboard. - -"You ben bigges' fool for sech a li'l' boy I ever have see," said Gabriel -severely. "You don't know you freeze to deaf up here in winter time, no?" - -Peter had nothing to say. He was ashamed, but he was mad, too. He was not -punished. When Captain Shorey learned of the escapade, he merely laughed. -Peter took the matter quite to heart and pouted for days. To the end of -the voyage, he still dreamed of his Eskimo sweetheart and of the happiness -that might have been his. Every time he spoke of her his eyes grew bright. -"She was fine gal," he used to say. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -MOONSHINE AND HYGIENE - - -We noticed that several of our Eskimo guests appeared at times to be -slightly under the influence of liquor and thought perhaps they had -obtained gin or rum from some whaling vessel that had touched at the port -before we arrived. We asked the intellectual Eskimo where these fellows -had got their booze. He pointed to an Eskimo and said, "Him." - -"Him" was a lordly person dressed in elaborately trimmed and ornamented -skin clothes. From the way he strutted about, we had fancied him a chief. -He turned out be a "moonshiner." - -This doubtless will surprise those whose ideas of "moonshiners" are -associated with southern Appalachian ranges, lonely mountain coves, -revenue raids, and romance. But here was an Eskimo "moonshiner" who -made unlicensed whiskey under the midnight sun and yet was as genuine -a "moonshiner" as any lawless southern mountaineer. The sailors, being -thirsty souls, at once opened negotiations with him for liquor. He drew -from beneath his deer-skin coat a skin bottle filled with liquor and sold -it to us for fifteen hardtack. Wherefore there was, for a time, joy in the -forecastle--in limited quantity, for the bottle was small. This product of -the ice-bound North was the hottest stuff I ever tasted. - -The captain was not long in discovering that the Eskimo had liquor to sell -and sent a boat ashore with a demijohn. The jug was brought back filled -with Siberian "moonshine," which had been paid for with a sack of flour. -The boat's crew found on the beach a little distillery in comparison -with which the pot stills of the Kentucky and Tennessee mountains, made -of old kitchen kettles would seem elaborate and up-to-date plants. The -still itself was an old tin oil can; the worm, a twisted gun barrel; the -flake-stand, a small powder keg. The mash used in making the liquor, -we learned, was a fermented mixture of flour and molasses obtained in -trade from whale ships. It was boiled in the still, a twist of moss -blazing in a pan of blubber oil doing duty as a furnace. The vapor from -the boiling mash passed through the worm in the flake-stand and was -condensed by ice-cold water with which the powder keg was kept constantly -filled by hand. The liquor dripped from the worm into a battered old -tomato can. It was called "kootch" and was potently intoxicating. An -Eskimo drunk on "kootch" was said to be brave enough to tackle a polar -bear, single-handed. The little still was operated in full view of the -villagers. There was no need of secrecy. Siberia boasted no revenue -raiders. - -The owner of the plant did an extensive trade up and down the coast and -it was said natives from Diomede Islands and Alaska paddled over in their -canoes and _bidarkas_ to buy his liquor. They paid for it in walrus tusk -ivory, whale bone, and skins and the "moonshiner" was the richest man in -all that part of Siberia. - -If contact with civilization had taught the Eskimo the art of distillation -and drunkenness, it also had improved living conditions among them. Many -owned rifles. Their spears and harpoons were steel tipped. They bartered -for flour, molasses, sugar, and all kinds of canned goods with the whale -ships every summer. They had learned to cook. There was a stove in the -village. The intellectual Eskimo boasted of the stove as showing the high -degree of civilization achieved by his people. The stove, be it added, was -used chiefly for heating purposes in winter and remained idle in summer. -The natives regarded the cooked foods of the white man as luxuries to be -indulged in only occasionally in a spirit of connoisseurship. They still -preferred their immemorial diet of blubber and raw meat. - -Aside from these faint touches of civilization, the Eskimos were as -primitive in their life and mental processes as people who suddenly had -stepped into the present out of the world of ten thousand years ago. I -fancy Adam and Eve would have lived after the manner of the Eskimos if -the Garden of Eden had been close to the North Pole. - -There is apparently no government or law among these Eskimos. They have -no chiefs. When it becomes necessary to conduct any business of public -importance with outsiders, it is looked after by the old men. The Eskimos -are a race, one may say, of individuals. Each one lives his life according -to his own ideas; without let or hindrance. Each is a law unto himself. -Under these conditions one might expect they would hold to the rule of the -strong arm under which might makes right. This is far from true. There is -little crime among them. Murder is extremely rare. Though they sometimes -steal from white men--the sailors on the brig were warned that they would -steal anything not nailed down--they are said never--or hardly ever--to -steal from each other. They have a nice respect for the rights of their -neighbors. They are not exactly a Golden Rule people, but they mind their -own business. - -The infrequency of crime among them seems stranger when one learns that -they never punish their children. Eskimo children out-Topsy Topsy in -"just growing." I was informed that they are never spanked, cuffed, or -boxed on the ears. Their little misdemeanors are quietly ignored. It might -seem logical to expect these ungoverned and lawless little fellows to grow -up into bad men and women. But the ethical tradition of the race holds -them straight. - -When a crime occurs, the punishment meted out fits it as exactly as -possible. We heard of a murder among the Eskimos around St. Lawrence Bay -the punishment of which furnishes a typical example of Eskimo justice. -A young man years before had slain a missionary by shooting him with a -rifle. The old men of the tribe tried the murderer and condemned him to -death. His own father executed the sentence with the same rifle with which -the missionary had been killed. - -Tuberculosis is a greater scourge among the Eskimos than among the peoples -of civilization. This was the last disease I expected to find in the cold, -pure air of the Arctic region. But I was told that it caused more than -fifty per cent. of the deaths among the natives. These conditions have -been changed for the better within the last few years. School teachers, -missionaries, and traveling physicians appointed by the United States -government have taught the natives of Alaska hygiene and these have passed -on the lesson to their kinsmen of Siberia. Long after my voyage had ended, -Captain A. J. Henderson, of the revenue cutter _Thetis_ and a pioneer -judge of Uncle Sam's "floating court" in Behring Sea and Arctic Ocean -waters, told me of the work he had done in spreading abroad the gospel of -health among the Eskimos. - -Finding tuberculosis carrying off the natives by wholesale, Captain -Henderson began the first systematic crusade against the disease during -a summer voyage of his vessel in the north. In each village at which the -_Thetis_ touched, he took the ship's doctor ashore and had him deliver -through an interpreter a lecture on tuberculosis. Though the Eskimos lived -an out-door life in summer, they shut themselves up in their igloos in -winter, venturing out only when necessity compelled them, and living in -a super-heated atmosphere without ventilation. As a result their winter -igloos became veritable culture beds of the disease. - -[Illustration: Eskimos Summer Hut at St. Lawrence Bay] - - -Those afflicted had no idea what was the matter with them. Their witch -doctors believed that they were obsessed by devils and attempted by -incantations to exorcise the evil spirits. The doctor of the _Thetis_ -had difficulty in making the natives understand that the organism that -caused their sickness was alive, though invisible. But he did succeed in -making them understand that the disease was communicated by indiscriminate -expectoration and that prevention and cure lay in plenty of fresh air, -cleanliness, and wholesome food. - -In all the villages, Captain Henderson found the igloos offensively -filthy and garbage and offal scattered about the huts in heaps. He made -the Eskimos haul these heaps to sea in boats and dump them overboard. He -made them clean their igloos thoroughly and take off the roofs to allow -the sun and rains to purify the interiors. After this unroofing, Captain -Henderson said, the villages looked as if a cyclone had struck them. He -taught the natives how to sew together sputum cups of skin and cautioned -the afflicted ones against expectoration except in these receptacles. - -The Eskimos were alive to the seriousness of the situation and did their -utmost to follow out these hygienic instructions to the last detail. -As a result of this first missionary campaign in the cause of health, -the Eskimos have begun to keep their igloos clean and to ventilate -them in winter. There has grown up among them an unwritten law against -indiscriminate expectoration more carefully observed than such ordinances -in American cities. The villages have been gradually turned into open-air -sanitariums and the death rate from tuberculosis has been materially -reduced. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -NEWS FROM HOME - - -With the first breeze, we set sail for Port Clarence, Alaska, the northern -rendezvous of the Arctic Ocean whaling fleet in early summer. There in the -latter part of June or the early part of July, the fleet always met the -four-masted schooner _Jennie_, the tender from San Francisco, by which all -firms in the whaling trade sent mail and supplies to their vessels. On our -way across from Siberia to Alaska, we passed just south of Behring Straits -and had our first distant glimpse of the Arctic Ocean. When we dropped -anchor in the windy roadstead of Port Clarence, eighteen whale ships were -there ahead of us. - -The land about Port Clarence was flat and covered with tall, rank grass--a -region of tundra stretching away to distant hills. The _Jennie_ came in -direct from San Francisco soon after we arrived. Boats from the whale -ships swarmed about her as soon as she dropped anchor, eager for letters -and newspapers. Our mate brought back a big bundle of San Francisco -newspapers which were sent forward after the cabin had read them. They -gave us our first news since leaving Honolulu of how the great world was -wagging. Every man in the forecastle who could read read these papers -from the first headline to the last advertisement. It seemed good to get -into touch once more with the men and events of civilization. Exiles of -the sea, the news of our country seemed to have an intimate personal -meaning to us which it never could possibly have to stay-at-homes to whom -newspapers are every-day, casual budgets of gossip and information. I -remember that a telegraphic brevity describing a murder in my native state -seemed like a message from home. - -Among the Eskimos who came aboard the brig from the large village on -shore, was a white man dressed like an Eskimo to the last detail and -looking like one except for a heavy beard. He had run away from a whale -ship three years before, hoping to make his way to some white settlement -to the south and there secure passage on shipboard back to San Francisco. -He had escaped, he said, in an Eskimo kyack tied alongside his ship. As -soon as he was missed officers and boatsteerers put ashore in a boat and -trailed him. He led his pursuers a long chase inland and though he was -shot at several times, he managed to elude them and reach the safety of -the hills. - -After he had seen the whaling fleet sail away, he ventured back to the -Eskimo village on shore where he was welcomed by the natives. He soon -found that escape by land was practically impossible; the nearest white -settlement was hundreds of miles distant and he would have to thread his -way through pathless forests and across ranges of mountains covered at all -seasons with ice and snow. Moreover, he learned what he should have known -before he ran away that no vessels except whaling ships, their tender, and -an occasional revenue cutter ever touched at Port Clarence which at that -time was far north of the outmost verge of the world's commerce. There -was nothing left for him to do but settle among the Eskimos and wait for -the arrival of the whaling fleet in the following summer. - -During the long Arctic night, with the temperature forty and fifty degrees -below zero, he lived in an igloo after the manner of the natives; learned -to eat raw meat and blubber--there was nothing else to eat--became fluent -in the Eskimo language; and took an Eskimo girl for a wife. He found -existence among these human anachronisms left over from the stone age -a monotonously dreary and soul-wearying experience, and he waited with -nervous impatience for the coming of the fleet with its annual opportunity -for getting back to civilization. - -The first year passed and the ships anchored in Port Clarence. He hurried -out in his kyack to ask the Captains for permission to work his way -back to San Francisco. He never once doubted that they would give him -his chance. But a sad surprise was in store for him. From ship to ship -he went, begging to be allowed to remain aboard, but the hard-hearted -captains coldly refused him, one after the other. He was a deserter, they -told him; he had made his bed and he could lie in it; to take him away -would encourage others to desert. Some captains cursed him; some ordered -him off their vessels. Finally the ships sailed away for the whaling -grounds, leaving him marooned on the bleak shore to pass another year in -the squalor of his igloo. - -Next year when the whaling fleet came again it was the same story over -again. Again he watched the ships arrive with a heart beating high with -hope and again he saw their topmasts disappear over the horizon, leaving -him hopeless and wretched behind. Before he came aboard the brig, he had -made the rounds of the other ships and had met with the same refusals as -of yore. I saw him go aft and plead with Captain Shorey and that stern -old sea dog turned him down as curtly as the other skippers had done. The -ships sailed away, leaving him to his fate. To me his story was the most -pathetic that ever fell within my personal experience. I never learned -whether he ever managed somehow to get back home or left his bones to -bleach upon the frozen tundra. - -From Port Clarence, we headed back to Unalaska to ship our whale bone to -San Francisco by steamer. Midway of our run down the Behring Sea a thick -fog closed about us and we kept our fog horn booming. Soon, off our bows, -we heard another fog horn. It seemed to be coming closer. Our cooper, an -old navy bugler, became suspicious. He got out his old bugle and sounded -"assembly" sharply. As the first note struck into the mist, the other fog -horn ceased its blowing. We did not hear it again. When the mist lifted, -no vessel was in sight, but the situation was clear. We had chanced upon -a poaching sealer and when she heard our cooper's bugle, she concluded we -were a revenue cutter and took to her heels. - -[Illustration: At the Gateway to the Arctic] - - -Aday or two later, we saw the revenue cutter _Corwin_ chasing a poacher. -Heeled over under crowded sail, the sealing schooner was scurrying before -a stiff wind. The _Corwin_ was plowing in hot pursuit, smoke pouring from -her funnel and hanging thick in the wake of the chase. She was gaining -steadily, for she was a steamship and the schooner had only her sails -to depend on. Finally the revenue cutter sent a solid shot across the -schooner's bows. The ball knocked up a great splash of water. But the -poacher did not heave to--just kept on her way, leaning so far over that -the clews of her lower sails almost touched the waves and a big white -feather of spray stood up in front of her. So pursuer and pursued passed -over the horizon and we did not see the end of the hunt. But we knew that -there could be but one end. The fate of that poacher was sealed. Only a -fog could save her, and the sky was clear. - -We passed close to St. George Island, the southernmost of the Pribiloff -group, the breeding place of the fur seals. As we came near the shores, -the air literally shook with the raucous, throbbing bark of countless -seals. The din was deafening. Along the shore, a shelving beach ran up -to rocky declivities and beach and rocks were packed with seals. There -may have been a hundred thousand; there may have been a million; and -it seemed as if every seal was barking. The water alongshore swarmed -with them. Thousands of heads were sticking out of the sea. Thousands of -other seals were playing, breaching out of the water like porpoises. They -swam close to the brig and floated lazily on the surface, staring at us -unafraid. If we had been poachers, I should think we could have taken -several hundred thousand dollars worth of seals without difficulty. - -A dozen little pup seals whose fur was of a snowy and unspotted white came -swimming about the vessel. These sea babies were soft, furry, cunning -little fellows and they paddled about the brig, sniffing at the strange -monster that had invaded their home. They seemed absolutely fearless and -gazed up at us out of big, brown, wondering, friendly eyes. Sealers kill -them, as their fur makes beautiful edgings and borders for fur garments. - -The fur seals are supposed to pass the winter somewhere in the South -Pacific, but whether in the open sea or on land has never been definitely -learned. From their mysterious southern hiding places, they set out for -the North in the early spring. They first appear in March in the waters -off California. Coastwise vessels find the sea alive with thousands of -them. They travel slowly northward following the coast line, fifty or a -hundred miles out at sea, feeding on fish and sleeping on the surface. -Regularly each year in April, a revenue cutter setting out from Port -Townsend for patrol service in Behring Sea and Arctic Ocean waters, -picks up the herd and convoys it to the Pribiloffs to guard it against -the attacks of poachers. The seals swarm through the passes between the -Aleutian islands in May and arrive at the Pribiloffs in the latter part of -that month or early in June. - -They remain on the Pribiloffs during the breeding and rearing season and -begin to depart for the South again in the latter part of September. They -are all gone as a rule by November, though in some years the last ones -do not leave until December. They are again seen as they crowd through -the Aleutian channels, but all track of them is lost a few hundred miles -to the south. At what destination they finally arrive on that southward -exodus no man knows. It is one of the mysteries of the sea. - -We saw no whales on our southward passage and did not much expect to -see any, though we kept a lookout at the mast-head on the off chance -of sighting some lone spout. The summer months are a second "between -seasons," dividing the spring whaling in Behring Sea from that in the -Arctic Ocean in the fall. The whales had all followed the retreating ice -northward through Behring Straits. - -The Fourth of July found us in the middle of Behring Sea. We observed the -glorious Fourth by hoisting the American flag to our gaff-topsail peak, -where it fluttered all day long. Mr. Winchester came forward with two -bottles of Jamaica rum and dealt out a drink all around. - -We entered Unalaska harbor by the same long, narrow, and precipitous -channel through which we had passed on our voyage north when we put into -the harbor to have the captain's leg set. Negotiating this channel--I -should say it was about two miles long--was another illustration of our -captain's seamanship. We had to tack innumerable times from one side of -the channel to the other, our jib-boom at every tack projecting over the -land before the brig came around. We finally dropped anchor opposite -the old, cross-crowned Greek church which stands in the center of the -struggling village. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -SLIM GOES ON STRIKE - - -It was the heart of the Arctic summer and the high hills that rose all -about the town were green with deep grass--it looked as if it would reach -a man's waist--and ablaze with wild flowers. I was surprised to see such -a riot of blooms in this far northern latitude, but there they were, and -every off-shore breeze was sweet with their fragrance. The village was -dingy enough, but the country looked alluring and, as the day after we -dropped anchor was Sunday and nothing to do aboard, the crew decided to -ask for a day's liberty ashore. Bill White, the Englishman, and Slim, our -Royal Life Guardsman, agreed to act as the forecastle's ambassadors to the -cabin. They dressed up in their smartest clothes and went aft to interview -Captain Shorey on the quarter-deck. White made the speech of the occasion -and proffered the forecastle's request in his best rhetoric. Captain -Shorey puffed silently at his cigar. "I'll see about it," he said. That -closed the incident as far as the captain was concerned. We got no shore -leave. - -As the day wore away and the desired permission failed to materialize, the -forecastle became piqued at what it considered the skipper's gratuitous -ungraciousness. Slim waxed particularly indignant. - -"He'll 'see about it,'" Slim sneered. "He never had no idea of letting us -go in the first place. He's a cold-blooded son of a sea cook--that's what -he is--and as for me, I'll never do another tap of work aboard the bloody -hooker." - -This was strong language. Of course, none of us took it seriously, feeling -sure Slim would reconsider by the next morning and turn to for work with -the rest of us. But we did not know Slim. Bright and early Monday morning, -the men mustered on deck and went to work, but Slim remained in his bunk. - -Having rowed our whale bone to the dock and stored it in a warehouse to -await the first steamer for San Francisco, a boat's crew towed three or -four hogsheads roped together ashore for water. Another boat went ashore -for coal. Those left aboard the brig were put to work in the hold near -the main hatch under the supervision of Mr. Winchester. The mate suddenly -noted Slim's absence. - -"Where's Slim?" he asked. - -Nobody answered. - -"He didn't go ashore in the boats," said the mate. "Where is he?" - -Someone volunteered that Slim was sick. - -"Sick, eh?" said the mate. - -He hustled off to the forecastle scuttle. - -"Slim," he sang out, "what's the matter with you?" - -"I'm sick," responded Slim from his bunk. - -"If you're sick," said the mate, "come aft and report yourself sick to the -captain." - -In a little while, Slim shuffled back to the cabin. A few minutes later -wild yells came from the cabin. We stopped work. The mate seemed to think -we might rush to the rescue. - -[Illustration: Hoisting the Blubber Aboard] - - -"Get busy there," he roared. "Slew that cask around." - -The yells broke off. We went to work again. For a half hour, there was -silence in the cabin. We wondered what had happened. Slim might have been -murdered for all we knew. Finally Slim emerged and went silently forward. -We noticed a large shaved spot on the top of his head where two long -strips of court-plaster formed a black cross. - -The first thing Slim did after getting back to the forecastle was to -take one of his blue flannel shirts and, while none of the officers was -looking, shin up the ratlines and hang it on the fore-lift. This is an -old-time sailor sign of distress and means trouble aboard. The mate soon -spied the shirt swinging in the breeze. - -"Well, I'll be darned," he said. "Jump up there one of you and take that -shirt down." - -No one stirred. The mate called the cabin boy and the young Kanaka brought -down the shirt. Slim told us at dinner time all about his adventure in the -cabin. - -"I goes down in the cabin," said Slim, "and the captain is standing with -his hands in his pants pockets, smiling friendly-like. 'Hello, Slim,' he -says. 'Sit down in this chair.' I sits down and the captain says, 'Well, -my boy, what's the matter with you?' 'I'm sick,' says I. 'Where do you -feel bad?' he says. 'I ache all over,' says I. He steps over in front of -me, still with that little smile on his face. 'I've got good medicine -aboard this ship,' he says, 'and I'll fix you up in a jiffy, my boy,' says -he. With that he jerks one of his hands out of his pocket and he has a -revolver clutched in it. 'Here's the medicine you need,' he says and he -bats me over the cocoanut with the gun. - -"The blood spurts all over me and I jumps up and yells, but the captain -points his pistol at me and orders me to sit down again. He storms up and -down the cabin floor. 'I'll teach you who's master aboard this ship,' he -shouts and for a minute he was so purple in the face with rage, I thought -he was going to murder me for sure. By and by he cools down. 'Well, Slim,' -he says, 'I guess I hit you a little harder than I meant to, but I'm a bad -man when I get started. You need tending to now, sure enough.' - -"So he has the cabin boy fetch a pan of warm water and he washes the blood -out of my hair with his own hands and then shaves around the cut and -pastes sticking plaster on. That's all. But say, will I have the law on -him when we get back to Frisco? Will I?" - -It was a long way back to Frisco. In the meantime we wondered what was in -store for the luckless Irish grenadier. - -That afternoon, the revenue cutter _Corwin_ came steaming into port towing -a poaching sealer as a prize. It was the same schooner, we learned, we had -seen the _Corwin_ chasing a few days before. As the cutter passed us, Slim -sprang on the forecastle head while Captain Shorey and everybody aboard -the brig looked at him and, waving a blue flannel shirt frantically, -shouted: "Please come aboard. I've had trouble aboard." "Aye, aye," came -back across the water from the government patrol vessel. Waving a shirt -has no significance in sea tradition, but Slim was not enough of a sailor -to know that, and besides, he wanted to leave nothing undone to impress -the revenue cutter officers with the urgency of his case. - -No sooner had the _Corwin_ settled to her berth at the pier than a -small boat with bluejackets at the oars, two officers in gold braid and -epaulettes in the stern, and with the stars and stripes flying, shot out -from under her quarter and headed for the brig. - -"Aha," we chuckled. "Captain Shorey has got his foot in it. He has Uncle -Sam to deal with now. He won't hit him over the head with a revolver." - -The boat came alongside and the officers climbed over the rail. Captain -Shorey welcomed them with a smile and elaborate courtesy and ushered them -into the cabin. Slim was sent for. - -"Tell 'em everything, Slim," we urged. "Give it to the captain hot and -heavy. He's a brute and the revenue cutter men will take you off the brig -as sure as shooting. They won't dare leave you aboard to lead a dog's life -for the rest of the voyage." - -"I'll show him up, all right," was Slim's parting shot. - -Slim came back from the cabin a little later. - -"I told 'em everything," he said. "They listened to everything I had to -say and took down a lot of notes in a book. I asked 'em to take me off the -brig right away, for, says I, Captain Shorey will kill me if they leave me -aboard. I guess they'll take me off." - -An hour later, the two officers of the _Corwin_ emerged from the cabin, -accompanied by Captain Shorey. They were puffing complacently at a couple -of the captain's cigars. They seemed in high good humor. After shaking -hands with Captain Shorey, they climbed down into their boat and were -rowed back to their vessel. That was the last we ever saw of them. Poor -Slim was left to his fate. - -And his fate was a rough one. There was no outward change in the attitude -of the captain or the officers of the brig toward him. Whenever they spoke -to him, they did it with as much civility as they showed the rest of us. -But Slim was compelled to work on deck all day and stand his regular -night watches into the bargain. That meant he got eight hours sleep during -twenty-four hours one day and four hours sleep during the next. As the -ship was in whaling waters from now on, the crew had little to do except -man the boats. But Slim always had plenty to do. While we smoked our pipes -and lounged about, he was kept washing paint work, slushing down masts, -scraping deck and knocking the rust off the anchors. Any one of a hundred -and one little jobs that didn't need doing, Slim did. This continued until -the brig squared her yards for the homeward voyage. Slim had more than -three months of it. The Lord knows it was enough. When his nagging finally -ended, he was a pale, haggard shadow of his former self. It almost killed -him. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -INTO THE ARCTIC - - -From Unalaska, we headed north for the Arctic Ocean. For one day of -calm, we lay again off the little Eskimo village of St. Lawrence Bay and -again had the natives as our guests. Peter made an elaborate toilet in -expectation of seeing once more his little Eskimo sweetheart, but she did -not come aboard. A little breeze came walking over the sea and pushed us -on northward. On August 15, we sailed through Behring Straits and were at -last in the Arctic. - -The straits are thirty-six miles wide, with East Cape, a rounded, -dome-shaped mass of black basalt, on the Asiatic side and on the American -side Cape Prince of Wales, a headland of sharper outline, but neither -so lofty nor so sheer. In between the two capes and in line with them, -lie the two islands of Big and Little Diomede. Through the three narrow -channels between the capes and the islands, the tide runs with the -swiftness of a river's current. - -The Eskimos constantly cross from continent to continent in small boats. -In still weather the passage can be made in a light kyack with perfect -safety. The widest of the three channels is that between Big Diomede and -East Cape and is, I should say, not more than fifteen miles across. While -we were passing through the straits, we saw a party of Eskimos in a skin -boat paddling leisurely across from America to Asia. They no doubt had -been on a visit to relatives or friends on the neighboring continent. We -were told that in winter when the straits are frozen solidly, the Eskimos -frequently walk from one continent to the other. - -[Illustration: Our Guests Coming Aboard in St. Lawrence Bay] - - -While we were sailing close to the American shore soon after passing -through the straits, the cry of "Walrus, walrus!" from the mast-head -sent the crew hurrying to the rail to catch a glimpse of these strange -creatures which we had not before encountered. We were passing an immense -herd. The shore was crowded with giant bulks, lying perfectly still in -the sun, while the waters close to land were alive with bobbing heads. At -a distance and at first glance, those on shore looked like a vast herd -of cattle resting after grazing. They were as big as oxen and when the -sun had dried them, they were of a pronounced reddish color. Those in the -water looked black. - -They had a way of sticking their heads and necks straight up out of the -sea which was slightly suggestive of men treading water. Their heads -seemed small for their great bodies and with their big eyes, their -beard-like mass of thick bristles about the nose, and their long ivory -tusks they had a distinctly human look despite their grotesque ugliness. -They lifted their multitudinous voices in gruff, barking roars like -so many bulldogs affected with a cold. There must have been 10,000 of -them. They paid little attention to the ship. Those on shore remained as -motionless as boulders. - -"Want to collect a little ivory?" Captain Shorey said with a smile to Mr. -Winchester. - -"No, thank you, not just now," replied the mate. "I want to live to get -back to 'Frisco." - -An ivory hunter among those tusked thousands doubtless would have fared -disastrously. Walrus are famous fighters. When attacked, they sometimes -upset a boat with their tusks and drown the hunters. They are dangerous -even in small herds. Moreover they are difficult to kill. Their thick -hides will turn a bullet that does not hit them solidly. Though slow and -unwieldy on land or ice, they are surprisingly agile in the water and a -harpooned walrus will frequently tow a boat at a dizzy clip. - -The region about Cape Prince of Wales is a favorite feeding ground for the -animals. The coasts swarm with clams, mussels, and other shell-fish upon -which the walrus live. Thirteen varieties of edible clams, it is said, -have been discovered by scientists about Cape Prince of Wales. The walrus -dig these shell-fish out of the sand and rocks with their tusks, crush -them with their teeth, eject the shells, and swallow the dainty tidbits. -Their tusks serve them also as weapons of defense and as hooks by which -to haul themselves upon ice floes. - -We did not dare take chances in the boats among such vast numbers of these -formidable creatures and soon left the great herd astern. A little higher -up the coast we ran into a small herd numbering about a hundred, and Mr. -Winchester, armed with his repeating rifle, lowered his boat to have a try -for ivory. - -When the mate's boat dashed among the animals they did not dive or run -away, but held their ground, standing well up out of water and coughing -out defiance. Long John darted a harpoon into one of the beasts and it -plunged below and went scurrying away. One might have thought the boat was -fast to a young whale from the way the line sizzled out over the bow. The -walrus dragged the boat about half a mile, and when the animal again came -to the surface for air Mr. Winchester killed it with a bullet. - -But the blood and the shooting had thrown the remainder of the herd into -violent excitement. Roaring furiously, the great beasts converged from -all sides in the wake of the chase. By the time Long John had cut off -the head of the dead walrus and heaved it aboard and had recovered his -harpoon, the animals were swarming menacingly about the boat. Long John, -who had been in such ticklish situations before, began to beat a tattoo on -the gunwales with his sheath knife, at the same time emitting a series of -blood-curdling yells. This was intended to awe the boat's besiegers and -had a momentary effect. The brutes stood in the water apparently puzzled, -but still roaring savagely. But they were not long to be held off by mere -noise. Led by a monster bull, they rushed at the boat in a concerted -attack. The sailors belabored them over the head with the sweeps. The mate -pumped lead into them from his rifle. Still they came on. - -When Captain Shorey, who had been watching the battle from the -quarter-deck, saw how serious the situation was becoming, he grew alarmed. - -"Those men will be killed," he shouted to Mr. Landers. "Call the watch and -lower those other boats, and be quick about it." - -In a jiffy the boats were lowered, the crews piled in, masts were -stepped, and we shot away to the rescue. But the mate's crew solved their -own problem before we could come into action. When it seemed likely -the walrus would swamp the boat, Long John harpooned the leader of the -herd. The big walrus dived and made off, hauling the boat out of the -midst of the furious brutes to safety. The other animals did not pursue. -They bobbed about the scene of the conflict for some time and finally -disappeared. Long John killed the big bull to which the boat was fast, cut -off its head, and the boat went back to the battleground to take similar -toll of the walrus that had died under the mate's rain of bullets. Eight -carcasses were found afloat and as many more probably had sunk. - -Ten heads with their ivory tusks were brought aboard the brig as trophies -of the hunt. The tusks of the bull that had led the attack measured two -feet six inches. The animal, according to Mr. Winchester, must have been -ten or twelve feet long. The mate estimated its weight at 1,800 pounds--a -guess, of course, but perhaps a close one. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -BLUBBER AND SONG - - -We were cruising in open water soon afterward with two whaling ships in -sight, the _Reindeer_ and the _Helen Marr_, both barkentines and carrying -five boats each, when we raised a school of bowheads straight ahead and -about five miles distant. There were twenty-five or thirty whales and a -broad patch of sea was covered with their incessant fountains. The other -ships saw them about the same time. The long-drawn, musical "Blo-o-o-w!" -from their mastheads came to us across the water. Aboard the brig, the -watch was called and all hands were mustered to the boats. Falls were -thrown off the hooks and we stood by to lower as soon as the captain gave -the word. There was equal bustle on the other ships. Traveling before a -favoring breeze in the same direction as the whales, the three vessels -waited until they could work closer. Each captain in the meanwhile kept a -watchful eye on the others. None of them proposed to let his rivals get -the start. The _Reindeer_ was to windward of us, the _Helen Marr_ on our -lee. - -When the ships had reached within a mile of the whales Captain Shorey sent -our boats down. Instantly the other skippers did the same. Soon thirteen -whale boats were speeding on the chase. - -Fine sailing weather it was, with a fresh breeze ruffling the surface of a -gently heaving sea. With all sails set and keeping well apart, the boats -heeled over, their crews sitting lined up along the weather gunwales. -There seemed no chance of any clash or misunderstanding. There were plenty -of whales, and with any luck there would be glory enough and profit enough -for all. - -Like a line of skirmishers deployed against an enemy, the boats stole -silently toward the whales. We soon saw the great animals were busy -feeding. A few inches below the surface the sea was filled with "whale -food," a round, diaphanous, disk-like jellyfish about the size of a -silver dollar and perfectly white. When he arrived in this Arctic Ocean -whale pasture the water seemed snowy with the millions of jellyfish. With -open jaws, the whales swam this way and that, making zigzag swaths a -hundred yards long through the gelatinous masses, their great heads and -backs well out of water, their fins now and then flapping ponderously. -When they had entangled a sufficient quantity of the jellyfish in the long -hair hanging from the inner edges of their teeth they closed their mouths -with reverberating snaps that sent the water splashing out on either side. - -Before the whales were aware of danger, the boats rushed in among them. -Each boatheader singled out a whale, and five boats were quickly fast--two -from the _Reindeer_, two from the _Helen Marr_, and Mr. Winchester's boat. -Wild turmoil and confusion instantly ensued among the great animals. -They went plunging below in alarm and the boats that made no strike at -the first onslaught had no chance thereafter. The whales did not stop to -investigate the causes of the sudden interruption of their banquet. The -sea swallowed them up and we did not see them again. A little later we -caught a glimpse of their fountains twinkling against the sky on the far -horizon. - -Mr. Winchester's whale was wriggling about among the jellyfish with jaws -widely distended when the boat slipped silently upon it. As the prow -bumped against its black skin, Long John drove a harpoon up to the hitches -in its back. With a tonite bomb shattered in its vitals, the monster -sounded in a smother of foam. In the dynamic violence with which it got -under way it literally stood on its head. Its flukes, easily twenty feet -from tip to tip, shot at least thirty feet into the air. They swung over -to one side, the great body forming a high arch, and struck the sea with a -resounding smack. Then they sailed on high again to come down on the other -side with another broadside smash. Again they rose like lightning into the -air and the whale seemed to slip down perpendicularly into the ocean. - -It was evident at the outset that the animal was badly wounded. It swam -only a short distance below the surface and not rapidly, sending up -thousands of bubbles to mark its course. This broad highway of bubbles -curved and turned, but Mr. Winchester, who had been smart enough not to -lower his sail, followed it as a hound follows the trail of a deer. The -boat sailed almost as swiftly as the whale swam and was able to keep -almost directly above it. When the whale came to the surface the mate was -upon it and Long John's second harpoon stopped it dead in its track. The -whale went through no flurry, but died instantly and rolled over on its -back. - -With excitement all about, there was nothing for Mr. Landers or Gabriel to -do. So we sat still in the boats and watched the swift incidents of the -far-flung battle. - -One of the whales struck by a boat from the _Reindeer_ breached almost -completely out of water as soon as it felt the sting of the harpoon. It -floundered down like a falling tower, rolled about for a moment before -sinking to a swimming depth, and made off at mad speed. It rose within -twenty feet of where our boat lay at a standstill and we could see its -wild eye, as big as a saucer, as the injured creature blew up a fountain -whose bloody spray fell all over us. The boat it was dragging soon went -flashing past us, the crew sitting crouched down and silent. - -"Swing to him, fellers," shouted Kaiuli, standing up and waving his hat -about his head. - -But the others paid no attention to our South Sea island savage. They were -intent just then on tragedy. Their boat struck the whale at its next rise. -The animal went into a violent flurry. It beat the sea into a lather with -fins and flukes and darted around on its side in a semi-circle, clashing -its great jaws, until it finally collapsed and lay limp and lifeless. - -The whale struck by the other boat from the Reindeer ran out a tub of -line, but a second boat had come up in time to bend on its own line and -took the animal in tow. Before the whale had run out this new tub, a third -boat harpooned it. With two boats fast to it, it continued its flight to -windward and was at least two miles from us when its pursuers at last -overtook and killed it. - -Two boats from the _Helen Marr_ struck whales while the monsters were -feeding within an oar's length of each other. One whale started off at -right angles to the direction taken by the other. It looked for a time -as if the two lines would become entangled and the boats would crash -together. But the whale that cut across the other's course swam above the -latter's line and dragged its boat so swiftly after it that a collision -was averted by a few feet. - -One of the whales was bombed and killed after a short flight. The other -acted in a way that whales hardly ever act. It ran hard to windward at -first, as whales usually do when struck. Then it suddenly turned and ran -in an exactly opposite direction. This unexpected change in its course -almost upset the boat, which was jerked violently over on its beam-ends -and spun round like a top, while the crew held on for dear life and barely -escaped being pitched into the sea. Once righted and on its way again, the -boat rapidly hauled up on the whale, whose fast-going vitality showed in -its diminished speed. After a flight that had covered at least a mile, -the whale was finally killed close to the spot at which it had first been -struck. - -When, the sharp, fast work of the boats ended, five mighty carcasses lay -stretched upon the sea. The great whale drive, which had lasted less than -an hour, had bagged game worth something like $60,000. - -The three ships soon sailed to close quarters and the boats had a -comparatively easy time getting the whales alongside. That night the -try-works were started and big cressets whose flames were fed by "scrap" -flared up on all the ships, lighting them in ghostly-wise from the deck to -the topmost sail. - -At the cutting in of this whale I had my first experience at the windlass. -The heaviest labor falls to the sailors who man the windlass and hoist -in the great blanket pieces of blubber and the "old head." Gabriel, the -happiest-spirited old soul aboard, bossed the job, as he always did, and -cheered the sailors and made the hard work seem like play by his constant -chanteys--those catchy, tuneful, working songs of the sea. All the old -sailors on the brig knew these songs by heart and often sang them on the -topsail halyard or while reefing on the topsail yard. The green hands -soon picked up the words and airs of the choruses and joined in. The day -laborer on land has no idea how work at sea is lightened by these songs. - -Gabriel knew no end of them, and in a round, musical voice led the men -at the windlass in such rollicking old-time sea airs as "Whiskey for the -Johnnies," "Blow the Man Down," "Blow, Boys, Blow," and "Rolling Rio." -He would sing a verse and the sailors would stand with their hands on -the windlass bars until he had concluded. Then they would heave away -with a will and make the pawls clank and clatter as they roared out the -chorus. The old negro's favorite was "Whiskey for the Johnnies." It had -a fine rousing chorus and we liked to sing it not only for its stirring -melody but because we always harbored a hope--which, I may add, was never -realized--that the captain would be touched by the words and send forward -a drop of liquor with which to wet our whistles. Gabriel would begin in -this way: - - "O whiskey is the life of man." - -And the sailors as they heaved would chorus: - - "O whiskey, O Johnny. - O whiskey is the life of man, - Whiskey for the Johnnies." - -Then Gabriel would sing: - - "Whiskey killed my poor old dad, - Whiskey drove my mother mad, - Whiskey caused me much abuse, - Whiskey put me in the calaboose, - Whiskey fills a man with care, - Whiskey makes a man a bear." - -And the men would come through with the refrain: - - "Whiskey, Johnny. - I drink whiskey when I can. - O whiskey for the Johnnies." - -At the end of our song which ran through verses enough to bring a blanket -piece of blubber swinging inboard, we would look wistfully toward the -quarter-deck and wonder if the "old man" would take our musical hint. - -Or Gabriel would start up "Rolling Rio": - - "I'll sing you a song of the fish of the sea." - -The men would thunder: - - "Rolling Rio." - -Gabriel would continue: - - "As I was going down Broadway Street - A pretty young girl I chanced to meet." - -And the sailors would sing: - - "To my rolling Rio Grande. - Hurrah, you Rio, rolling Rio. - So fare you well, my pretty young girl, - I'm bound for the Rio Grande." - -"Blow, Boys, Blow" was another with which we made the Arctic ring. The -other ships could not have failed to hear its swinging rhythm as it burst -from our lusty lungs in this fashion: - -Gabriel: - - "A Yankee ship came down the river." - -The sailors: - - "Blow, boys, blow." - -Gabriel: - - "And who do you think was skipper of her? - Dandy Jim of old Carolina." - -Sailors: - - "Blow, my bully boys, blow." - -Gabriel: - - "And who do you think was second greaser? - Why, Pompey Squash, that big buck nigger." - -Sailors: - - "Blow, boys, blow." - -Gabriel: - - "And what do you think they had for dinner? - Monkey lights and donkey's liver." - -[Illustration: The Lip of a Bowhead Whale] - - -Sailors: - - "Blow, my bully boys, blow." - -Gabriel: - - "And what do you think they had for supper? - Old hard tack and Yankee leather. - Then blow, my boys, for better weather. - Blow, my boys, I love to hear you." - -Sailors: - - "Blow, my bully boys, blow." - -So with a heave and a song we soon had our whale stowed, bone and blubber, -below hatches. The _Reindeer_ and the _Helen Marr_ had drifted far away -from us by the time our work was finished, but they were still in sight -and their try-works smoking. Our whale yielded 1,800 pounds of bone. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -A NARROW PINCH - - -The whaling fleet divided soon after entering the Arctic Ocean. Some of -the ships went straight on north to the whaling grounds about Point Barrow -and Herschel Island. The others bore to the westward for the whaling along -the ice north of eastern Siberia. We stood to the westward. In a few days -we had raised the white coasts of a continent of ice that shut in all the -north as far as the eye could see and extended to the Pole and far beyond. -With the winds in the autumn always blowing from the northwest, the sea -was perfectly calm in the lee of this indestructible polar cap. I have -been out in the whale boats when they were heeled over on their beam-ends -under double-reefed sails before a gale of wind upon a sea as smooth as -the waters of a duck pond. - -It was now no longer bright twilight at midnight. The sun already well on -its journey to the equator, sank earlier and deeper below the horizon. -Several hours of darkness began to intervene between its setting and its -rising. By September we had a regular succession of days and nights. - -With the return of night we saw for the first time that electric -phenomenon of the Far North, the aurora borealis. Every night during our -stay in the Arctic the skies were made brilliant with these shooting -lights. I had expected to see waving curtains of rainbow colors, but I -saw no colors at any time. The auroras of those skies were of pure white -light. A great arch would suddenly shoot across the zenith from horizon to -horizon. It was nebulously bright, like a shining milky way or a path of -snow upon which moonlight sparkles. You could hear it rustle and crackle -distinctly, with a sound like that of heavy silk violently shaken. It -shed a cold white radiance over the sea like the light of arc lamps, much -brighter than the strongest moonlight. - -It was not quite bright enough to read by--but almost--and it threw sharp, -black shadows on the deck. Gradually the arch would fade, to be succeeded -by others that spanned the heavens from other angles. Often several arches -and segments were in the sky at the same time. Sometimes, though rarely, -the aurora assumed the form of a curtain hanging vertically along the -horizon and shimmered as though agitated by a strong wind. - -I was pleasantly surprised by the temperatures encountered in the Arctic. -We were in the polar ocean until early in October, but the lowest -temperature recorded by the brig's thermometer was 10 degrees below zero. -Such a temperature seems colder on sea than on land. Greater dampness has -something to do with it, but imagination probably plays its part. There is -something in the very look of a winter sea, yeasty under the north wind -and filled with snowy floes and icebergs, that seems to congeal the marrow -in one's bones. In the cold snaps, when a big wave curled over the bows, -I have seen it break and strike upon the deck in the form of hundreds of -ice pellets. Almost every day when it was rough, the old Arctic played -marbles with us. - -What with the mists, the cold rains, the sleets and snows and flying -spray, the brig was soon a mass of ice. The sides became encased in a -white armor of ice which at the bows was several feet thick. We frequently -had to knock it off. The decks were sheeted with ice, the masts and spars -were glazed with it, the shrouds, stays, and every rope were coated with -ice, and the yard-arms and foot-ropes were hung with ice stalactites. One -of the most beautiful sights I ever saw was the whaling fleet when we fell -in with it one cold, gray morning. The frost had laid its white witchery -upon the other ships as it had upon the brig, and they glided through the -black seas, pallid, shimmering, and phantom-like in their ice armor--an -armada of ghostly _Flying Dutchmen_. - -The brig was constantly wearing and tacking on the whaling grounds and -there was considerable work to be done aloft. By the captain's orders, we -did such work with our mittens off. Hauling bare-handed on ropes of solid -ice was painful labor, and "Belay all!" often came like a benediction -to souls in torment. Then we had much ado whipping our hands against -our sides to restore the circulation. After Big Foot Louis had frozen a -finger, the captain permitted us to keep our mittens on. - -Work aloft under such conditions was dangerous. Our walrus-hide boots were -heelless and extremely slippery and our footing on the foot-ropes was -precarious. We had to depend as much upon our hands as upon our feet to -keep from falling when strung out for reefing along the topsail yard. Many -were the slips and hair-breadth escapes. It seems now, on looking back on -it, almost miraculous that some of us green hands did not tumble to our -death. - -We saw whales frequently. Sometimes the boats were lowered half a dozen -times a day. Often we spent whole days in the boats, and even in our -skin clothes it was freezing business sitting still on the gunwale of a -beam-ended boat driving along at thrilling speed in the teeth of an Arctic -gale. Our skipper was a good gambler, and he lowered whenever there was -an off chance to bag a leviathan. - -As we worked to the westward, twin peaks rose out of the sea ahead of -us. Covered with snow and ice, they stood out against the sky as white -as marble. It was our first glimpse of Herald Island, in latitude 71 -degrees north. We sailed north of the island and close to it. It looked -forbiddingly desolate. Along the shores there was a rampart of black rock. -Nowhere else was a glimpse of earth or herbage of any sort. The island was -a gleaming white mass of snow and ice from the dark sea to the tips of -the twin mountains. It was discovered in 1849 by Captain Kellett of the -English ship _Herald_ and named after his vessel. Captain De Long, leader -of the ill-fated _Jeanette_ expedition, was frozen in close to the island -in the winter of 1880. He found polar bear plentiful and trapped and shot -a number. - -Here at Herald Island we fell in with eighteen ships of the whaling -fleet--all that had cruised to the westward--and it was only by good luck -that some of them did not leave their hulks on those desolate shores. The -polar pack rested solidly against the island's western end and curved in -a great half-moon to the north and east. The pocket thus formed between -the island and the ice looked good for whales and the ships hunted it out -carefully. - -Far to the eastward, a long arm of ice reached out from the pack and -grasped the island's eastern end. This arm was perhaps a mile wide. It -barred our passage back to the open sea. The ships had been caught in a -trap. They were bottled up in a hole of water perhaps a hundred square -miles in extent. Busy on the lookout for whales, the captains of the fleet -did not realize the situation for several hours. When they discovered -their predicament, they hurried to the crow's-nests with glasses to try to -spy out an avenue of escape. Sail was cracked on. The ships began to fly -about like panic-stricken living creatures. - -The great polar pack was pressing rapidly toward the island. Unless the -ships escaped, it seemed likely they would be securely hemmed in before -night. In this event, if they escaped wreck by ice pressure they faced -the prospect of lying still in an ice bed until the pack broke up in the -spring. - -[Illustration: A Close Call Off Herald Island] - - -All day long the frightened ships scurried up and down the ice barrier -without finding an opening. They ran to the westward. There was no escape -there. They flew back to the east. An ice wall confronted them. The case -seemed hopeless. The panic of the captains became more and more evident. -If a ship hurried off in any direction, the other ships flocked after -her like so many scared sheep. Morning and afternoon passed in this wild -search for an outlet. Night was coming on. - -A bark squared her yards and shot away to the southeast. It was the _Sea -Breeze_. When the others expected her to tack, she did no such thing, but -kept going straight ahead. On she went alone, far from the fleet. It was -exciting to watch that single ship flying eastward. What could it mean? -Had she found an opening? The other ships turned their prows after her, -one by one. A long line of vessels soon was careering in the wake of the -_Sea Breeze_. She had dwindled to a little ship in the far distance when -at last we saw her break out the American colors at her mizzen peak. Every -man aboard the brig gave a cheer. Cheers from the other ships came across -the water. It meant that the _Sea Breeze_ was clear. - -She had found a lead that suddenly had opened through the eastern ice -strip, as leads will open in drifting floes. The lead was not entirely -clear. A narrow strip of ice lay across it. The _Sea Breeze_ butted -through this strip and sailed on to freedom. The other vessels followed. -Our brig was the tenth ship to pass through. As we negotiated the narrow -passage, the ice was so close on both sides we could have leaped upon it -from the bulwarks. It was with a joyous sense of escape that we cleared -the pack and swung once more on the open sea. Soon after the last ship of -the fleet had bumped her way to safety the ice closed solidly behind. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -A RACE AND A RACE HORSE - - -Early one morning the old familiar cry rang from the -crow's-nest--"Blo-o-o-w." - -A lone whale, in plain view from the deck, was sporting lazily on the -surface about a mile and a half off our starboard bow. The three boats -were hurriedly lowered and the crews scrambled in. We took to the oars, -for not a breath of air was stirring and the sea was as smooth as polished -silver. Away went the boats together, as if from a starting line at the -crack of a pistol, with the whale as the goal and prize of the race. - -Mr. Winchester had often boasted of the superiority of his crew. Mr. -Landers had not seemed interested in the question, but Gabriel resented -the assumption. "Just wait," he used to say to us confidentially. "We'll -show him which is de bes' crew. Our time'll come." The men of the mate's -boat had shared their officer's vainglorious opinion. They had long -swaggered among us with a self-complacent assurance that made us smart. -Our chance had at last come to prove their pride a mockery under the -skipper's eyes. If ever men wanted, from the bottom of their hearts, to -win, we did. We not only had our name as skillful oarsmen to vindicate, -but a grudge to wipe out. - -So evenly matched were the crews that the boats rushed along side by side -for at least half a mile, Mr. Winchester insouciant and superciliously -smiling, Mr. Landers indifferent, Gabriel all eagerness and excitement. -Perhaps Mr. Landers knew his crew was outclassed. If he did not, he was -not long in finding it out, for his boat began to drop steadily behind and -was soon hopelessly out of the contest. But the other two crews, stroke -for stroke, were proving foemen worthy of each other's prowess. - -"Oho, Gabriel," Mr. Winchester laughed contemptuously, "you think your -boat can out-pull us, eh? Bet you ten pounds of tobacco we beat you to the -whale." - -"I take you," cried Gabriel excitedly. "Dat's a bet." - -If Gabriel accepted the challenge, so did we, and right heartily at that. -We threw ourselves, heart and soul, into the struggle. The men in the -mate's boat, holding us cheaply, believed they could draw away whenever -they chose and go on to win, hands down. The mate kept looking over at us, -a supercilious smile still curling the corners of his mouth. - -"Come on now, my boys," he cried. "All together. Shake her up a bit. Give -those fellows a taste of your mettle." - -We heard his words as distinctly as his own crew heard them--he was only -a few boat lengths away. They inspired us to greater exertion than they -inspired his own men. They spurted. So did we. Still the two boats raced -neck and neck. We were not to be shaken off. The mate looked disconcerted. -His men had done their level best to take the lead and they had failed. -That spurt marked the crisis of the race. - -The mate's smile faded out. His face grew anxious. Then it hardened -into an expression of grim determination. He had sat motionless at the -beginning. Now when he saw his vaunted superiority slipping through his -fingers he began to "jockey"--throwing his body forward in violent lunges -at every stroke of the sweeps, pushing with all his might on the stroke -oar, and booming out, "Pull, my boys; pull away, my boys." - -But old Gabriel was "jockeying," too, and encouraging us in the same -fashion. - -"We show dat mate," he kept repeating. "We show him. Steady together, my -lads. Pull away!" - -And we pulled as if our lives depended on it, bending to the oars with -every ounce of our strength, making the long sweeps bend in the water. We -began to forge ahead, very slowly, inch by inch. We saw it--it cheered -us to stronger effort. Our rivals saw it--it discouraged them. Under the -heart-breaking strain they began to tire. They slipped back little by -little. They spurted again. It was no use. We increased our advantage. -Open daylight began to broaden between the stern of our boat and the bow -of theirs. They were beaten in a fair trial of strength, oarsmanship, and -endurance. - -"Ha, my boys," chuckled Gabriel. "We win. Good-by to dat mate. Now we -catch dat whale." - -We shot along at undiminished speed, pulling exultantly. What the whale -was doing or how close we were to it, we at the oars could not see. - -"Stand by, Louis," said Gabriel presently. - -"Aye, aye, sir," responded Louis. - -A few more strokes and a great black bulk loomed close alongside. - -"Give it to him, Louis," cried Gabriel. - -And as the boat glanced against that island of living ebony, Louis's -harpoon sank deep into the soft, buttery mass. We heard the tiny -concussion of the cap of the tonite gun, and a fraction of a second later -the bomb exploded with a muffled roar in the whale's vitals. - -"Stern, stern!" shouted Gabriel. "Stern for your lives!" - -We backed water as hard as we could. The great back went flashing down, -the mighty tail rose up directly over us, shutting out the sky. It curled -over away from us and smote the sea with deafening thunder. As quick as -lightning it rose into the air again, curled high above us with tragic -menace, and came crashing down, this time toward us. But we had backed -just out of harm's way. Death and that terrible tail missed us by about -three feet. - -The mate's boat came rushing up. It was too late. The whale--our -whale--had sounded. - -"Your boat can beat us, eh?" Gabriel called tauntingly to Mr. Winchester. -"Not much. I know we break blackskin first. I know we win dat race." - -Our line began to dance and sing, leaping up from its neatly laid coils in -the tub in dizzy spirals and humming out over the bow. - -"Ha, boys," sang out Kaiuli, our Kanaka bow oarsman. "Now for fine ride -behind Arctic race horse--eh?" - -With a whale harnessed to our boat and a sea as smooth as any turnpike -for our highway, we settled ourselves for the ride. The friction of the -line set the boat going. It gathered momentum. In a little while we were -tearing along through that sea of oil, our bow deep in the smother as the -whale pulled down upon it, and flashing walls of white spray flaring out -on either side. - -The other boats pulled for the point at which it seemed most probable the -whale would come up. When it rose to the surface, the mate's boat was -nearest. - -"Lay me on four seas off and I'll get him," we heard Long John shout to -Mr. Winchester. The mate did just that. The whale was up but a moment and -Long John tried for it, but it was too long a dart, and his harpoon fell -into the sea. Before he had recovered his iron we had shot past. When the -whale rose again, we bumped out of water on its body. A second harpoon -drove home in its back, a second bomb exploded in its insides. A great -shudder seized the monster. The water foamed white with its throes. Then -everything grew still. Slowly the great body rolled over, belly up. - -Big Foot Louis danced up and down in the bow, raising his knees high in a -sort of joyful cake-walk. Gabriel, equally excited, waved his hat. - -"By golly," he shouted, "dat mate don't strike him. Dat feesh is all ours. -It takes old Gabriel fer kill de whale, by golly." - -When we got back to the brig we looked like snow-powdered Santa Clauses. -The spray kicked up in our wild ride behind the Arctic Ocean race horse -had wet us from head to foot and, freezing on our fur clothes, had frosted -us all over with fine white ice. Mr. Winchester was a good sportsman and -paid his bet promptly. Out of his winnings Gabriel gave each man of his -boat's crew a plug of tobacco. - -After the whale had been brought alongside the ship and the blubber had -been peeled off its body, it fell to the lot of Big Foot Louis to cut -in the "old head." It was his first opportunity to show his experience -in such work and he was as elated as a boy. He threw off his coat with -a theatrical flourish, hitched up his trousers, seized an axe, and with -an air of bravado climbed down on the stripped carcass. A little sea had -begun to run and the whale was bending sinuously throughout its length -and rolling slightly from side to side. - -Louis chopped two little ledges in the whale's flesh with the deftness of -an old hand, and planting his feet in these, began raining blows with his -axe on the neck. He was getting on famously, and the crew, hanging over -the bulwarks, was watching with admiring eyes. Suddenly the whale gave -an unexpectedly violent roll--our Arctic Ocean race horse was proving a -bronco even in death--and Louis's big foot slipped off into the water. -He lost his balance, pitched forward, and sprawled face downward on -the whale, his axe sailing away and plunking into the sea. He clutched -frantically at the whale, but every grip slipped loose and, inch by inch, -with eyeballs popping out of his head, he slid off into the sea and with a -yell went under. - -Everybody laughed. The captain held his sides and the officers on the -cutting stage almost fell off in the violence of their mirth. Louis came -up spluttering and splashing. He was an expert swimmer, as expert as the -Kanakas among whom he had lived for years, and he needed all his skill -to keep afloat in his heavy boots and skin clothes. As soon as the mate -could control his merriment, he stuck the long handle of his spade down -and Louis grasped it and was pulled back on the whale's body. He sat -there, dripping and shivering and with chattering teeth, rolling his white -eyes up at the laughing crew along the rail with a tragic "Et tu, Brute" -expression. He couldn't see the joke. - -"Lemme aboard," he whimpered. - -"Stay where you are," roared the captain, "and cut in that head." - -Louis lived in mortal fear of the skipper, and the way he straightened up -in his slippery seat and said "Aye, aye, sir!" made the crew burst out -laughing again. Another axe was passed down to him. He floundered to his -feet, and though he found it harder than ever in his wet boots to keep his -footing, and slipped more than once and almost fell off again, he finally -succeeded in cutting off the head. He had regained his air of bravado by -the time he had scrambled back on deck. - -"Pretty close shave, Louis," ventured a sailor. - -"Humph," returned Louis, "dat's nothin'--nothin' at all." And with quite -lordly dignity, despite the dripping brine, he stalked off to the cabin to -change his clothes. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -BEARS FOR A CHANGE - - -Soon after taking our third whale, we saw our first polar bears--two of -them on a narrow floe of ice. When the brig was within fifty yards of -them the mate got out his rifle and began blazing away. His first shot -struck one of the bears in the hind leg. The animal wheeled and snapped -at the wound. The second shot stretched it out dead. The second bear was -hit somewhere in the body and, plunging into the sea, it struck out on a -three-mile swim for the main ice pack. It swam with head and shoulders -out, cleaving the water like a high-power launch and leaving a creaming -wake behind. Moving so swiftly across the brig's course, it made a -difficult target. - -"I'm going down after that fellow," said Mr. Winchester. - -He called a boat's crew and lowered, taking his place in the bow with his -rifle, while Long John sat at the tiller. He had got only a short distance -from the ship when Captain Shorey ordered Gabriel after him. - -"Killing that bear may be a bigger job than he thinks," he said. "Lower a -boat, Mr. Gabriel, and lend a hand. It may be needed." - -In a few minutes Gabriel was heading after the mate's boat. Neither boat -hoisted sail. With four men at the sweeps, it was as much as the boats -could do to gain on the brute. If the bear was not making fifteen miles an -hour, I'm no judge. - -Mr. Winchester kept pegging away, his bullets knocking up water all around -the animal. One ball struck the bear in the back. That decided the animal -to change its tactics. It quit running away and turned and made directly -for its enemies. - -"Avast rowing," sang out the mate. - -The men peaked their oars, turned on the thwarts, and had their first -chance to watch developments, which came thick and fast. Rabid ferocity, -blind fury, and deadly menace were in every line of that big white head -shooting across the water toward them. The boat sat stationary on a -dancing sea. The mate's rifle cracked repeatedly. The bullets peppered the -sea, sending up little spurts of water all about the bear. But the beast -did not notice them, never tried to dodge, never swerved aside--just kept -rushing for the boat with the directness of an arrow. - -It was a time of keen excitement for the men in the boat. They kept -glancing with an "Oh, that Blücher or night would come" expression toward -Gabriel's boat, which was doing all that oars could do to get into the -fray, Big Foot Louis standing all the while in the bow with harpoon ready. -The bobbing of his boat disconcerted the mate's aim. Though he was a crack -shot, as he had often proved among the okchugs, I never saw him shoot so -badly. But he kept banging away, and when the bear was within fifteen or -twenty yards he got home a ball in its shoulder. The beast plunged into -the air, snarling and clawing at the sea, then rushed again for the boat -like a white streak. It rammed into the boat bows-on, stuck one mighty -paw over the gunwale, and with a snarling roar and a frothing snap of -glistening fangs, leaped up and tried to climb aboard. - -Just at this critical instant Gabriel's boat came into action with a port -helm. Louis drove a harpoon into the beast behind the shoulder--drove it -up to the haft, so that the spear-head burst out on the other side. At -the same moment the mate stuck the muzzle of his rifle almost down the -bear's throat and fired. The great brute fell back into the water, clawed -and plunged and roared and clashed its teeth and so, in a whirlwind of -impotent fury, died. - -For a moment it lay limp and still among the lapping waves, then slowly -began to sink. But Louis held it up with the harpoon line and the animal -was towed back to the brig. It measured over seven feet in length and -weighed 1,700 pounds--a powerful, gaunt old giant, every inch bone and -sinew. Mr. Winchester retrieved the other bear from the ice floe. It was -considerably smaller. The pelts were stripped off and the carcasses thrown -overboard. The skins were in good condition, despite the earliness of the -season. They were stretched on frames fashioned by the cooper, and tanned. - -A week or so later we sighted a lone bear on an ice floe making a meal off -a seal it had killed. It was late in the afternoon and one had to look -twice before being able to make out its white body against the background -of snow-covered ice. When the brig sailed within seventy-five yards the -bear raised its head for a moment, took a squint at the vessel, didn't -seem interested, and went on eating. - -Resting his rifle on the bulwarks and taking careful aim, Mr. Winchester -opened fire. The pattering of the bullets on the ice seemed to puzzle the -bear. As it heard the missiles sing and saw the snow spurt up, it left the -seal and began walking all about the floe on an investigation. Finally -it reared on its hind legs to its full height. While in this upright -position, a bullet struck it and turned it a sudden twisting somersault. -Its placid mood was instantly succeeded by one of ferocious anger. It -looked toward the vessel and roared savagely. Still the bullets fell -about it, and now alive to its danger, it plunged into the sea and struck -out for the polar pack a mile distant. - -Mr. Winchester again lowered, with Gabriel's boat to back him up. The -chase was short and swift. The boats began to overhaul the bear as it -approached the ice, the mate's bullets splashing all about the animal, -but doing no damage. As the brute was hauling itself upon the ice, a ball -crashed into its back, breaking its spine. It fell back into the water and -expired in a furious flurry. A running bowline having been slipped over -its neck, it was towed back to the brig. - -Not long afterward, while we were cruising in open water, a polar bear -swam across the brig's stern. There was neither ice nor land in sight. -Figuring the ship's deck as the center of a circle of vision about ten -miles in diameter, the bear already had swum five miles, and probably -quite a bit more, and it is certain he had an equal distance to go before -finding any ice on which to rest. It probably had drifted south on an ice -pan and was bound back for its home on the polar pack. - -The bear made too tempting a target for the mate to resist, and he brought -out his rifle and, kneeling on the quarter-deck, he took steady aim and -fired. His bullet struck about two feet behind the animal. He aimed again, -but changed his mind and lowered his gun. - -"No," he said, "that fellow's making too fine a swim. I'll let him go." - -Cleaving the water with a powerful stroke, the bear went streaking out of -sight over the horizon. It is safe to say that before its swim ended the -animal covered fifteen miles at the lowest estimate, and possibly a much -greater distance. - -One moonlight night a little later, while we were traveling under short -sail with considerable ice about, a whale blew a short distance to -windward. I was at the wheel and Mr. Landers was standing near me. "Blow!" -breathed Mr. Landers softly. Suddenly the whale breached--we could hear it -distinctly as it shot up from a narrow channel between ice floes. "There -she breaches!" said Mr. Landers in the same low voice, with no particular -concern. We thought the big creature merely was enjoying a moonlight -frolic. It breached again. This time its body crashed upon a strip of -ice and flopped and floundered for a moment before sliding back into the -water. Then it breached half a dozen times more in rapid succession. I had -never seen a whale breach more than once at a time, even when wounded. Mr. -Landers became interested. "I wonder what's the matter with that whale," -he said. - -To our surprise, two other black bodies began to flash up into the -moonlight about the whale. Every time the whale breached, they breached, -too. They were of huge size, but nothing like so large as the whale. - -"Killers!" cried Mr. Landers excitedly. - -Then we knew the whale was not playing, but fighting for its life. It -leaped above the surface to a lesser and lesser height each time. Plainly -it was tiring fast. When it breached the last time only its head and a -small portion of its body rose into the air and both killers seemed to be -hanging with a bulldog grip upon its lower jaw. What the outcome of that -desperate battle was we did not see. The whale and its savage assailants -moved off out of eye-shot. But for some time after we had lost sight of -the whale we could hear its labored and stertoreous breathing and its -heavy splashes as it attempted to breach. - -Killers, Mr. Landers told me, are themselves a species of rapacious, -carnivorous whale, whose upper and lower jaws are armed with sharp, -saw-like teeth. They are otherwise known as the Orca gladiator, and -tiger-hearted gladiators of the sea they are. The great, clumsy bowhead -with no teeth with which to defend itself, whose only weapons are its -flukes and its fins, is no match for them. They attack the great creature -whenever they encounter it, and when it has exhausted itself in its -efforts to escape, they tear open its jaws and feast upon its tongue. The -killer whale never hunts alone. It pursues its titanic quarry in couples -and trios, and sometimes in veritable wolf-like packs of half a dozen. -There is usually no hope for the bowhead that these relentless creatures -mark for their prey. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -THE STRANDED WHALE - - -Our fourth and last whale gave us quite a bit of trouble. We sighted this -fellow spouting in a choppy sea among ice islands two or three miles -off the edges of the polar pack. All three boats lowered for it. It was -traveling slowly in the same direction the brig was sailing and about -two miles from the vessel. It took the boats some time to work to close -quarters. When the mate's boat was almost within striking distance, the -whale went under. As frightened whales usually run against the wind, Mr. -Winchester steered to windward. But the whale had not been frightened; -it had not seen the boats. Consequently it failed to head into the wind, -but did the unexpected by coming up to leeward, blowing with evident -unconcern. This brought it nearest to Gabriel, who went after it in a -flash. After a sharp, swift run down the wind, we struck the whale, which -dived and went racing under water for the ice pack. The dizzy rate at -which it took out our line might have led us to believe it was not hurt, -but we knew it was seriously wounded by the fountains of blood it sent up -whenever it came to the surface. - -The captain's signals from the brig, by this time, had headed the other -boats in our direction, but they could not reach us in time to be of any -assistance. The whale ran away with our tub of line and we sat still and -watched the red fountains that marked its course as it headed for the big -ice to the north. - -Directly in the whale's course lay an ice floe about half a mile long, a -few hundred yards wide and rising from five to ten feet above the surface. -We naturally supposed the creature would dive under this and keep going -for the main pack. To our surprise we soon saw fountain after fountain, -red with blood, shooting up from the center of the floe. The whale -evidently was too badly injured to continue its flight and had sought -refuge beneath this strip of drifting ice. - -[Illustration: Skin Boat of the Siberian Eskimos] - - -Men were hurriedly landed from all the boats with harpoons and shoulder -guns, leaving enough sailors on the thwarts to fend the boats clear of -the ice. The landing parties clambered over the broken and tumbled ice, -dragging the harpoon lines. We found the whale half exposed in a narrow -opening in the center of the floe, all the ice about it red with clotted -blood. Long John and Little Johnny threw two harpoons each into the big -body and Big Foot Louis threw his remaining one. As a result of this -bombardment, five tonite bombs exploded in the whale, which, with the -harpoons sticking all over its back, suggested a baited bull in a Spanish -bullring hung with the darts of the banderilleros. But the great animal -kept on breathing blood and would not die. After all the harpoons had been -exhausted, shoulder guns were brought into play. In all, twelve tonite -bombs were fired into it before the monster gave a mighty shiver and lay -still. - -But with the whale dead, we still had a big problem on our hands. In some -way the giant bulk had to be hauled out of the ice. This was a difficult -matter even with plenty of time in which to do it. Night was coming on and -it was the brig's custom in the hours of darkness to sail far away from -the great ice pack with its edging of floating bergs and floes in order -to avoid possible accident and to sail back to the whaling grounds on -the morrow. This Captain Shorey prepared to do now. As a solution of the -dilemma, an empty bread cask or hogshead was brought on deck and the name -of the brig was seared in its staves with a hot iron in several places. -This cask was towed to the floe, hauled up on the edge of the ice, and the -long line of one of the harpoons sticking in the whale was made fast to it -by means of staples. Thus the cask marked the floe in which the whale was -lying. - -It was growing dark when the brig went about, said good-night to the -whale, and headed for open water to the south. We sailed away before a -stiff breeze and soon cask and floe and the great white continent beyond -had faded from view. When morning broke we were bowling along under light -sail in a choppy sea with nothing but water to be seen in any direction. -The great ice cap was somewhere out of sight over the world's northern -rim. Not a floe, a berg, or the smallest white chunk of ice floated -anywhere in the purple sphere of sea ringed by the wide horizon. Being a -green hand, I said to myself, "Good-bye, Mr. Whale, we certainly have seen -the last we'll ever see of you." - -Let me make the situation perfectly clear. Our whale was drifting -somewhere about the Arctic Ocean embedded in an ice floe scarcely to be -distinguished from a thousand other floes except by a cask upon its margin -which at a distance of a few miles would hardly be visible through strong -marine glasses. The floe, remember, was not a stationary object whose -longitude and latitude could be reckoned certainly, but was being tossed -about by the sea and driven by the winds and ocean currents. The brig, -on the other hand, had been sailing on the wind without a set course. It -had been tacking and wearing from time to time. It, too, had felt the -compulsion of the waves and currents. So throughout the night the brig -had sailed at random and twenty miles or so away the whale in its floe had -been drifting at random. Now how were we going to find our whale again? -This struck me that morning on the open sea with neither whale nor ice in -sight, as a problem certainly very nice, if not hopeless. The way it was -solved was as pretty a feat of navigation as I ever saw. - -When Captain Shorey came on deck after breakfast, he "shot the sun" -through his sextant and went below to make his calculations. In a little -while he came on deck again and stepped to the man at the wheel. The -helmsman was steering full and by. - -"How do you head?" asked Captain Shorey. - -"Northwest," answered the sailor. - -"Keep her northwest by west half west," said the captain. - -For several hours the brig sailed steadily on this course. Along about -9 o'clock, we saw the peculiar, cold, light look above the sky line -ahead which meant ice and which sailors call an "ice horizon," to be -distinguished at a glance from a water horizon, which is dark. A little -later, we sighted the white loom of the great ice continent. Later still, -we picked up the bergs, floes, islands, and chunks of ice which drift -forever along its edge. - -The brig kept on its course. A floe of ice, looking at a distance like a -long, narrow ribbon, lay ahead of us, apparently directly across our path. -As we drew nearer, we began to make out dimly a certain dark speck upon -the edge of the ice. This speck gradually assumed definiteness. It was our -cask and we were headed straight for it. To a landlubber unacquainted with -the mysteries of navigation, this incident may seem almost unbelievable, -but upon my honest word, it is true to the last detail. - -After the brig had been laid aback near the ice, a boat was lowered and a -hole was cut in the bow of the whale's head. A cable was passed through -this and the other end was made fast aboard the ship. Then under light -sail, the brig set about the work of pulling the whale out of the ice. -The light breeze fell away and the three boats were strung out ahead with -hawsers and lent assistance with the oars. It was slow work. But when the -breeze freshened, the ice began gradually to give, then to open up, and -finally the whale was hauled clear and drawn alongside for the cutting in. - - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -AND SO--HOME - - -It was on October tenth that we broke out the Stars and Stripes at our -main gaff and squared our yards for home. Everybody cheered as the flag -went fluttering up, for everybody was glad that the end of the long, hard -voyage was in sight. Behring Straits which when we were about to enter the -Arctic Ocean--sea of tragedy and graveyard of so many brave men and tall -ships--had looked like the portals of inferno, now when we were homeward -bound seemed like the gateway to the Happy Isles. - -The four whales we had captured on the voyage had averaged about 1,800 -pounds of baleen, which that year was quoted at $6.50 a pound. We had -tried out all our whales except the last one and our casks were filled -with oil. Our entire catch was worth over $50,000. The officers and -boatsteerers made a pretty penny out of the voyage. The captain, I was -told, had shipped on a lay of one-sixth--and got it. The sailors had -shipped on the 190th lay--and didn't get it. That was the difference. -At San Francisco, the forecastle hands were paid off with the "big iron -dollar" of whaling tradition. - -The homeward voyage was not a time of idleness. We were kept busy a large -part of the time cleaning the bone of our last three whales--the bone from -our first whale had been shipped to San Francisco from Unalaska. As we had -at first stowed it away, the baleen was in bunches of ten or a dozen slabs -held together at the roots by "white horse," which is the whaler name for -the gums of the whale. These bunches were now brought up on deck and each -slab of baleen was cut out of the gums separately and washed and scoured -with cocoanut rind procured for the purpose in the Hawaiian Islands. Then -the slabs were dried and polished until they shone like gun metal, tied -into bales, and stowed under hatches once more. - -A little south of King's Island in the northern end of Behring Sea, -Captain Shorey set a course for Unimak Pass. We ran down Behring Sea with -a gale of wind sweeping us before it and great billows bearing us along. -When we bore up for the dangerous passage which had given us such a scare -in the spring, we were headed straight for it, and we went through into -the Pacific without pulling a rope. It was another remarkable example of -the navigating skill of whaling captains. We had aimed at Unimak Pass when -700 miles away and had scored a bull's-eye. - -Again the "roaring forties" lived up to their name and buffeted us with -gale and storm. The first land we sighted after leaving the Fox Islands -was the wooded hills of northern California. I shall never forget how -beautiful those hills appeared and what a welcome they seemed to hold -out. They were my own country again, the United States--home. My eyes -grew misty as I gazed at them and I felt much as a small boy might feel -who, after long absence, sees his mother's arms open to him. The tug that -picked us up outside of Golden Gate at sundown one day seemed like a long -lost friend. It was long after darkness had fallen, that it towed us into -San Francisco harbor, past the darkly frowning Presidio and the twinkling -lights of Telegraph Hill, to an anchorage abreast the city, brilliantly -lighted and glowing like fairyland. I never in all my life heard sweeter -music than the rattle and clank of the anchor chain as the great anchor -plunged into the bay and sank to its grip in good American soil once more. - -My whaling voyage was over. It was an adventure out of the ordinary, an -experience informing, interesting, health-giving, and perhaps worth while. -I have never regretted it. But I wouldn't do it again for ten thousand -dollars. - - -THE END - - - - - * * * * * - - -Transcriber Note - -Hyphenation of boat-steerer vs. boatsteerer was not changed as there were -approximately equal number of each version. Other words were changed to -match the most used version. Minor typos were corrected. 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