Holluschickie Hauling up from the Sea.
Holluschickie Hauling up from the Sea.
Rare sketch, taken before ever a camera was seen on the Pribilof Islands. This beach, with many others, is now deserted by the depletion of the seal herd.
Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.
Old Bull-Seals Fighting.
Old Bull-Seals Fighting.
Rare sketch, taken on the Gorbatch Rookery, St. Paul's Island, forty years ago. These combats are growing rarer as the seal herd grows smaller and the rivalry between the beach-masters is less intense. The date on the sketch shows it to have been made before the cow-seals hauled up.
Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.
"Why not?"
"He couldn't leave his own harem without getting into the next one. Obviously!" the agent promptly replied. "And he'd have to fight that beachmaster. Evidently! And so on every few feet he went. Besides, the very moment his back was turned a neighboring bull would steal some of his cows. Certainly! Or, an idle bull would try and beat him out."
"Which are the idle bulls?" asked Colin.
"Those fellows at the back who came late or were beaten in the fight for places. They would charge down and take the harem, if he left it."
"Well, then, how does he sleep?"
"Doesn't sleep much," was the reply; "just little catnaps. Five or ten minutes at a time, perhaps. Light sleepers, too. If a cow tries to leave or an intruder comes near he wakes right up. Immediately! He's on the alert, night and day." The agent laughed. "Eternal vigilance is the bull seal's motto, all right!"
"But how can they stand it without food and without sleep?" Colin asked. "That's over three months of fasting. And it isn't like an animalthat's asleep all winter. It seems to be their busiest time, fighting and watching and all that sort of thing!"
"They live on their blubber," the agent explained. "In the spring they haul up heavy and fat. Can hardly move around they're so fleshy. It's the end of June now. You see! Many bulls are loaded with fat still. By the end of next month, though, they'll be getting thin. Some of 'em are like skeletons when they leave the rookeries in August. They'll fight to the end, though."
"But if they leave each other's harems alone," Colin objected, "I don't see any cause for a fight."
"The cows don't all come at the same time. Perhaps for six weeks there are cows coming all the time. Those beachmasters who have harems nearest the water want their family first and there's fighting all along the water's edge, then. Other cows have to make their way inshore; any of the sea-catches may grab them. Wait a minute and watch. You'll see the scramble going on somewhere. There are two bulls fighting there," he added, pointing to a combat in progress some distance off, "and there's another—and another."
"Is that one of the new cows just coming in from the water?" asked Colin, pointing to the shore, where a female seal, quietly and without attracting attention, had landed near one of the large harems.
"Yes," the agent said. "Just watch her a while. You'll see how the fighting begins."
Moving quietly and slowly and making just as little disturbance as possible, the incoming seal made her way through and over the recumbent seals, keeping as far as she could from the beachmasters. Those huge monarchs of the waterside eyed her closely, but the harems were full to the last inch of ground and they let her pass, the cow seal remaining quiet as long as the beachmaster was watching, then creeping on a yard or two.
"She'll get caught by the next one," said Colin. "See, there's just about room enough in his harem for one more."
But the cow managed to make her way past, the old bull being engrossed in watching a neighboring sea-catch whom he suspected of designs upon his home. She had only succeeded in reaching a point about six harems inland, however, when a bull with a small group of only about twelve cows, suddenly reached out with his strong neck, grabbedher by the back with his sharp teeth and threw her on the rocks with the rest of his company. As the sea-catch weighed over four hundred pounds and the cow not more than eighty—the poor creature was flung down most cruelly.
"The brute!" cried Colin.
But for some reason the cow was dissatisfied with her new master and tried to escape. The old sea-catch made a lunge forward and caught her by the back of the neck, biting viciously as he did so, in such wise that the teeth tore away the skin and flesh, making two raw and ugly wounds.
Colin's indignation was without bounds.
"I'd like to smash that old beast!" he said, and if the agent had not been there to stop him the boy would have jumped over the low wall and gone to the assistance of the cow seal.
"That's going on all the time," the agent said. "You can't settle the affairs of ten thousand families. Not offhand that way. You'd be kept busy if you tried to fight the battles of every female that hauls up on St. Paul rookery."
"But see," cried Colin, "he's going after her again!"
This time the sea-catch was evidently angry, for he shook the cow as a dog does a rat andtossed her back into the very center of the harem, standing over her and growling angrily. The agent looked on tranquilly.
"There's going to be trouble," he said. "See that idle bull coming?"
He pointed to the back of the rookery, and Colin saw a sea-catch of good size, though not as large as the bull whose savage attack on the cow had excited Colin's resentment, come plunging down through the rookery with the clumsy lope of the excited seal. The cow squirmed from under the threatening fangs of her captor, but just as he was about to punish her still more severely, he caught sight of the intruder, and, with a vicious snap, he whirled round to the defense. The newcomer, though powerful, showed the dark-brown rather than the grizzled over-hair of the older bull, but while he had youth on his side, he was not the veteran of hundreds of battles.
Both stood upright for a moment, watching each other keenly, but with their heads averted, then the younger bull, with a forward movement so rapid that it could hardly be followed, struck downward with his long teeth to the point where the front flipper joins the body. It was a clever stroke, but the old bull knew all the tricks of warfare and turned the flipper in so that the teeth of his opponent only gashed the skin, and at the same time the old bull jerked his head up and sidewise, and sank his teeth deep into the side of the neck of the younger bull.
"He's got him, what a shame!" cried Colin, whose sympathies were all with the younger fighter.
The old sea-catch, paying no attention to the roaring and whistling of his wounded rival, kept his teeth fast-clenched in a bulldog-like grip and braced himself against the repeated lunges the other made to get free. There could be but one result to this and, with an agonized wrench, the younger bull pulled himself free—tearing out several inches of skin and leaving a gaping wound from which the blood streamed down.
But he was not defeated yet!
Facing his more powerful enemy, roaring unceasingly and with the shrill piping whistle of battle, the younger bull fairly swelled with exertion and rage until he seemed almost the size of his big foe, his head darted from side to side quick as a flash, and the revengeful, passionate eyes—so different from the limpid, gentle glance of the cow seals—flashed furiously as the bloodpoured down and reddened the rocks around him.
Again it was the younger bull who took the aggressive and, after a couple of feints, he reared and struck high for the face, just grazing the cheek of the older bull and pulling out several of the stiff bristles on which his teeth happened to close, springing back in time to escape the double sickle-stroke of the sea-catch. The old bull roared loudly and sprang forward, getting a firm hold of the younger by the skin behind the muscles of the shoulders. But he was a second too late, for as he closed his grip, the smaller fighter shifted and struck down, a hard clean blow, reaching the coveted point and half-tearing the flipper from the body.
Undeterred by the injury, though the pain must have been intense, the old bull threw his weight upon the younger, bending him far over as though to break the spine. Seals cannot move backward, and the smaller fighter was almost overbalanced. Then, seizing his chance, the old beachmaster let go his hold upon the other's back and got in a crashing blow at the same point where he had torn open the neck before, this time sinking his teeth so far in that the muscle of the shoulder showed plainly, and an instant later, although thereseemed scarcely time to strike a second blow, he swept down the body with his long, sharp teeth, catching the younger at the flipper-joint, and inflicting a wound almost exactly similar to that which he had received.
Quick as a flash, the younger combatant gave up the fight. But as he turned, instead of merely crawling away defeated, he made a sudden convulsive sprawl which the older bull was not expecting, and dug his teeth into the cow who had given rise to all the trouble, and lifted her bodily. The old beachmaster, his mane bristling with rage, made after him, but the younger bull, although he was forced to move on the stump of his wounded flipper, held fast to his prize, even when the victor inflicted a fourth fearful wound.
But before the old sea-catch could turn the plucky youngster, he saw two other bulls sidling towards his harem, intending to steal his cows while he was off guard, and he lumbered back to repel the new intruders. In the meantime, the young bull was attacked on his way to his own station by three other bulls near whose harems he had to pass, but he made no resistance and, though bleeding from a dozen wounds, he struggled on, leaving a gory trail in his wake, butgripping with grim determination the cow he had almost given his life to secure. When at last he reached his own station, he was a mass of blood from head to foot, his flesh was hanging from him in strips and one of his fore-flippers was dangling uselessly.
"He put up a plucky fight, anyway," said Colin, "even if he did get licked."
But it was for the poor cow seal that Colin felt the most sympathy. She lay upon the rocks where her second captor had thrown her, absolutely unconscious and seemingly almost dead, wounded in several places and covered with blood and sand, a wretched contrast to the pretty, gentle animal which the boy had seen emerge from the water not fifteen minutes before.
"It's a shame," Colin said, speaking a little chokingly. "I didn't know any animals could be so brutal."
The agent glanced at him quickly.
"The beachmasters are brutes," he said, "but mostly among themselves. Notice. The bull isn't even licking his wounds. He's pretty well used up, too. They're always too proud to show that they feel their hurts. Evidently! Even when they have been almost torn to pieces."
"Then you think he won't die?"
"Not a bit of it," the agent said cheerfully. "He'll be ready for another fight to-morrow."
"But how about the poor cow? She looks about dead now," said Colin.
"Not as bad as it looks! She's all right," his friend replied. "Those wounds don't go down into vital parts. They usually just reach the blubber. There isn't a sea-catch on the rookery that hasn't had from ten to twenty fights already this year. Most of 'em have been at it for several seasons. Yet you can hardly notice a scar on them. As for the mother seal, she will probably have a baby seal to-morrow. In a week the wounds will all have healed over. Cat may have nine lives, but a seal has ninety!"
"That's life on a rookery," the agent said. "Fight! Capture! More fight! But the holluschickie are different. Let's go to the hauling-grounds."
"Is that where the killing goes on?" the boy asked.
"Not quite," was the reply. "The road to the killing-grounds begins there, though. Naturally! We don't take any seals from a rookery."
"Why not?"
"No use! They are all either old bulls, females, or pups," was the answer. "The fur of the old sea-catches is coarse. Couldn't sell it. Never kill a cow seal under any circumstances. That's what all the trouble in killing seals at sea is about. You can't tell a holluschickie from a cow seal in the water. Cruel, too. When a cow seal is on her way to the rookery, she will have a baby seal in a few days."
"The holluschickie, then," said Colin, "don't come on the rookery at all?"
"Never! Absolutely! The bachelors, which are young male seals five years old and under, leave the rookery alone. The old sea-catches look after that. Certainly! It is mutilation or death for a holluschickie to put so much as a flipper on a rookery. They seldom try. Therefore, the hauling-grounds are at a distance. Obviously! Sometimes, though, it is impossible for the holluschickie to get to the sea without having to cross the rough, rocky ground which is suitable for a rookery."
"How can they work it, then?"
"The sea-catches leave a road eight feet wide, no more, no less. This path through the rookery gives just room for two holluschickie to pass. The beachmasters whose harems are on either side of this road watch them. They keep their lookout from a station right beside the road. If one of the holluschickie touches a cow on either side of this clear road-space, he will be attacked savagely."
"But I should think he could get away easily enough," Colin objected, "because the sea-catch can't leave his harem."
"Can't! Old bulls are all the way along," the agent answered. "Every one will attack a holluschickie who has once been attacked. No chance to escape. But the bachelors know that. They pass up and down such a causeway by thousands, night and day. They 'don't turn to de right, don't turn to de lef', but keep in de middle ob de road,'" quoted the agent, laughing.
"And you say that all the furs, then, are taken from among the holluschickie?" queried the boy.
"Every one of them."
"But how do you hunt the bachelor seals?"
The agent stared at him in surprise, and then burst into a short peal of laughter.
"Hunt? How do you hunt pet puppies?" he queried, in reply. "The holluschickie are the tamest, gentlest creatures in the world. Here are the hauling-grounds now. Let's go down. You'll see how tame they are."
"But it's like a dancing-floor or a parade-ground for soldiers!" cried Colin as, reaching the top of the hill, he looked across a stretch of upland plain at least half a mile across. There was not a blade of grass, not a twig of shrubbery of any kind, all had been beaten down and the bare ground was as smooth as though it had beenleveled off and rolled. Upon this bare plain, thousands of the holluschickie were playing, the most characteristic game seeming to be a voluntary march or dance, when the bachelors would roughly gather into lines or groups and lope along at exactly the same speed together for about fifty feet, stopping simultaneously for a few moments, and then going on again, as though obeying the commands of a drill-sergeant.
"They don't seem to play with each other much," commented Colin as the two walked among the holluschickie, who showed neither fear nor excitement, merely shuffling aside a foot or two to let them pass.
"They do in the water," the agent said. "Play 'King of the Castle' on a flat-topped rock for hours together. One seal pushes the other off the coveted post, only to be dislodged himself a minute after. And I have never once seen any sign of ill-humor. They never bite. They never injure one another. They never even growl angrily. It's hard to believe that their tempers can change so quickly when they reach the rookery."
"They seem to be of all ages and sizes," said Colin.
Bull Fur-Seal Charging the Camera.
Bull Fur-Seal Charging the Camera.
Courtesy of the National Geographic Magazine.
Snapshotting an old Beach-Master.
Snapshotting an old Beach-Master.
This plate was recovered, although the photographer was drowned on the treacherous shores of the Pribilof Islands the very day the picture was taken.
Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.
"Yearlings of both sexes and males from two years old to five," the agent answered.
"Do they fast all summer, too, like the sea-catches?"
"No," was the reply. "No need for it. They go to sea every few days. If the sun is out they stay in the sea. They make long journeys, too, just as the mother seals have to do, because a seal needs at least thirty pounds of fish a day to keep in good condition. All the nearby fishing-grounds have been exhausted."
"I suppose the different colors show the different ages?" the boy suggested.
"Exactly," the agent answered. "That's important, too. By law we are only allowed to sell skins weighing between five and eight and a half pounds. That means only those of males two and three years old. The skin of a yearling weighs just about four pounds and that of a four-year-old male eleven or twelve."
"How about the two-year-old cow seals? You said that only the yearlings among the females were here."
"The cow seals never come twice to the hauling grounds," was the reply. "They go for the first time to the rookeries in their second year."
"I should think it would be easy enough then to 'cut out' a herd," the boy said. "I could pretty nearly do it myself."
"Obviously! Without any trouble!" was the reply. "But you've got to go slow."
"Why?" the boy queried.
"If a seal is hurried he gets heated. You remember I told you how little they can stand. If a seal is killed after being heated, fur comes off in patches and the skin is of no value. Let's go on. I have to tally those that are knocked down."
"I thought you were going to drive some!" said Colin in a disappointed tone, as they turned away from the hauling-grounds along a well-beaten road.
"The drive started three hours ago and more," was the reply. "Quarter of a mile an hour is fast enough to make seals travel. You can drive as fast as a mile an hour, but lots will be left on the road to die from the exertion. Yet the same seals will swim hundreds of miles in a day."
"But what can you do, then, on a warm day? Do you drive during the night?"
"No seals here on a warm day," was the immediate answer. "You saw all those thousandsof holluschickie on the hauling-grounds? If the sun were to come out now, in half an hour there wouldn't be a seal on the entire flat. All disappear into the sea. Absolutely!"
"What is that group over there?" asked Colin, pointing to a small cluster a short distance ahead of them, near some rough frame buildings.
"That's the drive," the agent answered. "The killing-grounds are always near the salt-houses. What's that? The smell? Worst smell in the world, I thought, when I first came here. You can't kill seals in the same place year after year and just leave the flesh to rot without having a frightful odor. One gets used to it after a while."
"It seems to me that you're running the risk of starting up a plague or something!"
"No," was the reply, "it has never caused any sickness here. Then the drive is small now to what it used to be. Time was when three or four thousand seals would be driven, where we only take a couple of hundred now. Fallen off terribly! Fifty years ago, every available inch of all the beach was rookery, settled as thick as in the rookery you saw just now. The holluschickie were here in uncounted millions. These hills, now overgrown with grass, show the soil matted withfine hair and fur where the seals shed their coats for hundreds of years. Now a few scattered rookeries are all that remain."
"Do you suppose the seal herd will ever be as big again?" the boy asked.
The agent shook his head.
"I'm afraid not. The governments interested won't keep up the international agreement long enough," he said regretfully. "It would take thirty or forty years. Yet it would be worth it. You see," he continued, "this is absolutely the only place in the world where the true Alaskan fur seal—the sea bear, as it used to be called, because it isn't a seal at all—can be found. The fur seals on the Russian islands are a different species. Those on the Japanese islands are different from both."
"You say a fur seal isn't a seal at all?" asked Colin. "What's the difference?"
"Not the same at all. Different, entirely. Don't even belong to the same group of animal. They look differently. Their habits are unlike. Oh, they're dissimilar in every way."
"Just how?" asked Colin curiously.
"In the first place, the sexes of the hair or common seal are the same size, not like the furseal, where the sea-catch is four or five times bigger than the female. Then they don't breed in harems and the male hair seal does not stay on shore. A fur seal swims with his fore flippers, a true seal with his hind flippers. A fur seal stands upright on his fore flippers, a hair seal lies supine. A fur seal has a neck, a hair seal has practically none. A fur seal naturally has fur, the hair seal has no undercoat whatever. A pup fur seal is black, a pup hair seal is white. Different? Obviously! Pity the old name 'sea bear' died out. It would have prevented confusion between fur seal and true seal."
With this beginning, the agent passed into a detailed description of the anatomy of the two different kinds of seal, and wound up with an earnest panegyric of his fur seal family. By the time the agent had completed his earnest defense of the sea bear, lest it should be confused with the more common seal, the two had reached the killing-grounds, where the natives were awaiting the agent's word to begin their work. He stepped up to the foreman of the gang and with him looked over the first 'pod' of about fifty that had been selected for killing, noting one or two that looked either too young or too old or with fur inbad condition, and these points settled, he gave the word to begin.
The 'pod' of seals was surrounded by eight men, each armed with a club about five and a half feet long, the thickness of a baseball bat at one end and three inches in diameter at the other. Behind him, each of the natives had laid his stabbing-knife, skinning-knife, and whetstone. At the word the killing began. Each native brought down his club simultaneously, the first blow invariably crushing the slight, thin bones of the fur seal's skull and stretching it out unconscious. The six or seven seals that fell to each man's share were clubbed in less than a minute for the lot.
The Aleuts then dropped their clubs and dragged out the stunned seals so that no one of them touched another, and taking their stabbing-knives, drove them into the hearts of the seals between the fore flippers. In no case did Colin see any evidence that the seal had felt a moment's suffering.
"Now," said the agent, "watch this, if you like seeing skilful work. Skinning has got to be done rapidly. Precisely! Else the seal will 'heat' and spoil the fur."
Watching the native nearest to him, Colin noticed that he rolled the seal over, balancing it squarely on its back. Then he made half a dozen sweeping strokes—all so expert and accurate that not a slip was made with the knife, nor was any blubber left on the skin. In less than two minutes, by the watch, he had skinned the seal, leaving on the carcass nothing but a small patch of the upper lip where the stiff mustache grows, the insignificant tail, and the coarse hide of the flippers.
The whole sight was a good deal like butchery, and Colin felt a little uncomfortable. Moreover, he was not hardened to the odor arising from the blubber of the seal. He beat a retreat.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Nagge," he called, holding his handkerchief to his nose, "but that's too much for me."
The agent turned and noticed his departure. He called back to the boy:
"Do you see that low hill? To the right of that ruined hut?"
"Yes," Colin responded.
"Just below that are some sea-lions! Go and take a look at them. I'll join you as soon as we are through here. Won't be long. But you'll have to stalk them to the leeward if you want to get close," he added, "they're shy. I'll meet youthere and we'll go back to dinner. You ought to be hungry by then."
"I will be, then," Colin responded cheerfully, adding under his breath, as he glanced back over his shoulder at the killing-grounds, "but I'm not now!"
A short walk through the long moss a-glitter with wild flowers, poppies, harebells, monkshood, and a host of sub-Arctic species, brought the lad to the top of the hill. There he paused a moment, to look over the island, treeless save for dwarf willows six inches high and a ground-dwelling form of crowberry. Below him, and some distance away, were the sea-lions, but even from that coign of vantage they looked so big and menacing that Colin wondered whether they might not stalk him, instead of his stalking them.
After a little scrambling, however, he found himself at the bottom of the cliff, and made his way as carefully as he could to the sea-lion rookery. But when he did come near and rounded a large boulder in order to get a fair view, he was inclined to think that shyness was the last idea he would have gained from the looks of sea-lions. Near him, almost erect on his fore flippers, was an old bull, a tremendous creature, well over sixfeet in height and weighing not less than fifteen hundred pounds.
Apart from size, he was a much more vicious-looking creature than the sea-catch; the tawny chest and grizzled mane gave him a true lion-like look, and an upturned muzzle showed the sharp teeth glistening white against the almost black tongue, while a small wicked, bulldog eye glittered at the intruder. The female sea-lion, near by, was almost as large as a six-year-old bull seal.
Wanting to see something happen, and realizing from the build of the sea-lion that he could not make much progress on land, Colin threw a stone at a pup sea-lion who was asleep on a rock close by.
But the boy was utterly unprepared for the result, for no sooner did the huge sea-lion realize his advance as he strode forward to throw the stone, than it was smitten with panic. When, moreover, it heard the 'crack' of the pebble as it hit a rock behind him, the cowardly creature went wild with fear, and made convulsive and clumsy efforts to reach the water ten feet away, tumbling down twice in doing so, and finally plunging into the ocean trembling as though with ague. At thealarm, the entire rookery took flight, leaving the pups behind, sprawling on the rocks. The parents ranged up in a line about fifty feet from shore and remained at that safe distance as long as Colin was in sight. He watched the pups for a little while, but they were not nearly as interesting as seals, and he was quite ready to go when his friend hailed him from the top of the hill.
"Sea-lions look sort of human in the water, don't they?" remarked Colin as he rejoined his friend, and turned for a farewell glance at the creatures with their upright heads and shoulders and inquisitive look.
"The Aleuts say they are," his friend replied. "They declare their ancestors were sea-lions or seals. That's a general belief on the north coast of Scotland and in the Hebrides, too."
"That men came from seals?"
"Certainly. What do you suppose started all the mermaid stories? Round head, soft tender eyes, and a fish's tail? Seals! Obviously! And, if you notice old pictures of mermaids the tail is drawn as if it were split in two, just like the two long flippers of the seal."
"I never thought of that before," said the boy.
"You've heard of the Orforde merman, of course, haven't you?"
Colin admitted his ignorance.
"Queer yarn. Quite true, though," the agent said. "Documents show it. It happened off the coast of Suffolk, England. About the end of the twelfth century, I think. Some fishermen caught a creature which they described as being like an old man with long gray hair, but which had a fish's tail. It could live out of the water just as well as in it. They brought it to the Earl of Orforde. In spite of all their efforts they could not teach the merman to speak. Naturally! So the priest of the parish suggested that perhaps the creature had something to do with the devil. Characteristic of the time! So they took the 'merman' to church. But it showed no sign of adoration and didn't seem to understand the ceremonies. So they were convinced that it was an evil thing, and put it to the torture, hoping to extract a confession from—a seal!"
"But there are mermaids!" said Colin. "I've seen 'em. Not alive, of course, but stuffed."
"So have I," the agent said, laughing; "that was a trick the Japanese used and fooled a lot ofpeople. Why, there was one in a museum in Boston for years! It was a fake, of course. Obviously!"
"How did they do it?"
"Head and shoulders of a newly-born monkey fastened to a fish's body. I forget now what fish. Then with incredible pains, they laid rows upon rows of fish scales all over the monkey's shoulders and chest. Wonderful work. Each scale was glued on separately, beginning from scales almost microscopic and shading both in size and color exactly into those of the fish hinder portion. The work was so exquisitely done that its artificiality could not be detected. But live mermaids haven't been put in any aquarium. Not yet!"
"I don't suppose there's even a water-baby left!" the boy said, laughing.
"No," was the reply. "We couldn't give it any milk now, the sea-cows have been all killed off."
"Sea-cows?"
"Big creatures, bigger even than walruses. Lots of them here some time. We find their bones everywhere. Nearly all our sled-runners are made of sea-cow bones. They grazed like cattle belowwater on the seaweeds of the shore and the natives used to spear them at low tide."
Catch of Herring on Beach at Gastineau Channel, Alaska.
Catch of Herring on Beach at Gastineau Channel, Alaska.
Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.
"Are there walruses here, too?"
"I saw three a few years ago, but none since. About two hundred miles north of here, however, on St. Matthew's Island, there used to be scores of them. But I reckon hunters and polar bears, between them, have destroyed most of them."
"Do polar bears come here in winter?"
The agent shook his head.
"The Pribilof Islands are not cold enough for a polar bear. Besides he likes walrus meat better than seal. Bear eats a lot of fish, too."
"I thought they lived almost entirely on seals."
"They couldn't very well," was the reply. "Seal is a better swimmer than a bear, although the polar bear is a marvel in the water for a land animal and can overhaul a walrus. The big white fellows only catch seal when basking on the ice. They get a good many that way. The hunters have left nothing to the Pribilofs except the fur seal and the sea-lion, and not many of those. And unless we can find a way to stop the seal-pirates, those will soon be gone, too."
"Do you have much trouble with that sort of thing?" the boy asked.
"A lot nearly every year. We won't have so much of it now. Great Britain, Japan, Russia, and the United States are united in the desire to prevent pelagic sealing. Good thing, too. A treaty has been signed, forbidding it for fifteen years. So you see, a seal poacher on the rookeries finds everybody against him."
"Wasn't there a lot of trouble some years ago?" Colin asked. "I heard that there was real fighting here."
"Indeed there was, and lots of it! No one, not even the United States Government, ever knew how much. While the islands were leased to a private company the beaches were patrolled by riflemen. Russian and Japanese schooners frequently sent off boatloads of armed men during a fog, to kill as many seals as possible, protecting their men by gunfire. But that was before the Bureau of Fisheries took hold!"
"Has there been any of that lately?"
"Not recently. The last was in 1906, when seven men were killed. The two schooners, theTokaw Maruand theBosco Maru, were seized and confiscated. Promptly! The men were taken to Valdez. They were convicted and sent to prison."
"Well, that's desperate enough," the boy said, "but, after all, there's something daring about it. It's the pelagic sealing that seems so mean to me."
"It may be daring enough," the agent admitted. "The way I feel about it, though, is that it seems worse to kill a cow fur seal than a human being. There are lots of people in the world. The human race isn't going to die out, but the small remnant of fur seals on the Pribilof Islands is absolutely the last chance left of saving the entire species from extinction. So," he concluded with a laugh, as they went into the village, "don't let your enthusiasm for a piece of daring tempt you to turn seal-pirate."
Colin laughed, as he nodded to his host, and went to see after one of his new pets, a blue fox pup which had been given him that morning by one of the natives.
Evening seemed to come early because of the dense fog, the damp mist which had been present all day settling down heavily. Colin was thoroughly tired, but not at all sleepy, and he wandered aimlessly through the village for a while after supper.
"I wonder if there's a storm coming?" hesaid to the agent. "I have a sort of feeling that something's going to happen."
"It may blow a little fresh," was the reply. "That's all. The barometer doesn't seem disturbed."
"I must be wrong then," said Colin, suppressing a yawn, "but I have a queer sort of excited feeling."
"Better take it out in sleep," was the advice given him. "We're all going to turn in soon. Even if you did get a nap this afternoon, you ought to be tired after last night."
The boy could see nothing to be gained by arguing the point, and there was nothing special to do, so he waited a few minutes and then went up to his room, though he had never felt less like sleeping. He got into bed, however, but tossed about uneasily for hours, the distant roaring of the seals on the rookery and other unaccustomed noises keeping him awake. And ever, through it all, Colin was conscious of this presentiment of some trouble on hand. Suddenly, this feeling rushed over him like a flood and, impelled by some force he could not resist, he sprang from bed and hurried to the window.
The fog had thinned considerably, but it wasstill so misty that he could only just see the edge of the bleak shore where the little waves rolled in idly, looking gray and greasy under the fog. He leaned his arms on the sill, but aside from the seal-roar, everything seemed peaceful and the lad was just about to turn away from the window in the feeling of miserable anger that comes from being tired but not able to sleep, when he saw a flash of light.
Startled, and with every nerve stimulated to alertness, he watched, and again he saw the light. Straining his eyes Colin could just distinguish the figure of a man with a gun on his shoulder and a lantern in his hand, making his way to the coast end of the village.
"Some one who has been making a night of it!" the boy muttered to himself with a short laugh, and got back into bed.
But the figure of the man with the gun and the lantern in his hand had impressed itself on his mind, and though he tried to dismiss the idea and go to sleep, every time he closed his eyes he seemed to see the man go walking silently through the village. Presently he sat bolt upright in bed.
"The native huts are all at the other end of thevillage!" he said half aloud, with a surprised suspiciousness. "Why was he going that way?"
The boy rose and went back to the open window. It seemed to him that there was more tumult from the rookery than when he had listened half an hour before, but it occurred to him that this was probably the result of the silence of the hour and his own restlessness. Then, not loudly, but distinctly, in spite of its being muffled by the fog, the sound of a rifle-shot came to his ears.
That settled it for Colin. If there was anything going on in the way of sport he wanted a share in it, and as he was wide awake, he decided to follow up and see what was going on. He slipped into his clothes as quickly as possible and tiptoed his way down the rickety stairs. But before he had gone many steps an unaccustomed thought of prudence struck him, and he walked back to a house three or four doors from where he had been staying, the home, indeed, of the villager who had given him the pet fox, and in which Hank had taken up quarters. He knocked on the window and immediately Hank appeared.
"What is it?" he queried. "Oh, it's you, Colin. Why aren't you in bed?"
"I was," the boy answered, and in a few words he told how he had seen the native go by with a gun and a lantern and had heard the shot fired a few minutes ago.
"Sounds like smugglin'," the old whaler said, after a minute's thought. "Well, there's no great harm in that. That is, I don't think so, though the gov'nment chaps might say different."
"Smuggling?" queried Colin; "poaching. Do you mean seal-poaching? Oh, come along, Hank, and let's find out."
"What's the use of huntin' trouble?" said the old man. "Go back to bed."
"Not much," retorted the boy; "if you don't want to come, I'll go, anyway."
"If you're goin' anyway," grumbled the old whaler, "I reckon it's no use my sayin' anythin' to stop you. But I s'pose," he added, and he was secretly as curious as the boy, "I'd better go along with you to see that you don't get into any more mischief than you have to."
"You're coming, then?" asked Colin impatiently.
"I'll be right out," the other answered, and he had hardly disappeared from the window when he appeared at the door. He slipped a revolver into his pocket and handed another to Colin.
"I've got a gun," the boy said.
"All right," responded Hank, "I'll pack this one along, too," and he slipped it into one of the pockets of his big reefer.
They walked in silence for a few minutes until they had passed the end of the village, and then Hank put his hand on the boy's arm.
"You've got a right hunch," he said abruptly, in a low voice. "There's somethin' in the wind."
"What makes you think so?" asked Colin.
The other pointed vaguely to sea.
"There's a ship out there," he said.
Colin did his utmost to pierce the gloom, but the fog had settled down again, the night was dark, and the boy could scarcely see the waves breaking on the shore not twenty feet away.
"I can't see anything," he said. "Whereabouts?"
"I don't know just where," the old sailor replied, "but I know she's there. I feel it."
"Let's hurry!" said the boy.
"Better go slower," warned Hank, pulling him back gently; "we're not far from the rookery."
"I don't see why we should be so careful, andI don't see why we should whisper," Colin objected, whispering nevertheless; "the seals are making noise enough to drown a brass band."
"Listen!" said Hank.
The boy put his hand to his ear, trying to distinguish sounds in the continuous roar.
"Voices?" he queried with a puzzled look.
"I thought so," the whaler nodded. There was a pause, while both listened, then the gunner said:
"It isn't English and it doesn't sound like Aleut or Russian."
"Japanese?" queried the boy at a guess.
The man grasped the boy's shoulder with a grip that nearly dislocated it.
"Japanese raiders!" he said. "Can you run?"
"You bet," said Colin, growing excited; "I'm a crack runner."
"Get back to the agent's house as fast as you know how an' wake him up. He'll know what to do."
"What are you after, Hank?" asked the boy, tightening his belt.
"Whatever comes along," was the terse reply.
Colin pitched off his heavy coat and started. Itwas over a half-mile run, but the boy was in good condition and the path was smooth, so that two minutes saw him at the agent's bedroom door.
"Eh? What's that? Japanese raiders! You've been dreaming, boy. Go back to bed."
"Do I look as if I'd been dreaming?" Colin said indignantly. "How do you suppose I could run myself out of breath in a dream? Hank was with me. He heard them, too, and sent me back to tell you."
But the agent was already up and busy.
"Wake the village!" he said shortly.
Without waiting to find out how this should be done, Colin started off at a run, and picking up a killing club that lay handy, he sped down the village street, hitting a resounding 'whack' on every door as he passed. As he came back, up the other side of the street, the natives were streaming out of their houses and Colin told them all to go to the agent, whereupon those who understood English started immediately, the rest following. The agent was ready and had all his plans made, some of the men were sent to the boats, and arms for others were laid out.
"They were right on Gorbatch rookery?" the agent asked.
"Yes, sir," Colin replied, "at the Reef Point end."
The party was swinging along at a fast half-run over the sands that lay between the edge of the village and the beginning of the rookery, and with the rising of the moon the fog seemed to thin.
"I had rather we were a little nearer before it gets too light," the agent said, "but we'd better make the best use we can of our time."
On reaching the wall, the agent vaulted lightly over it, the rest following suit, and to Colin's surprise the official led the way behind the rookery, threading in and out between idle bulls, who made a display of great ferocity but never actually attacked. The agent paid not the slightest heed to any of them, merely keeping out of reach of their teeth.
As they turned a corner, a cloud which had partly obscured the moon passed and showed them an unexpected sight. Magnified into gigantic forms by the fog were the figures of six men, apparently all armed, facing Hank, the old whaler, who, with both revolvers, was keeping them at bay. He was close to the shore, standing behind two old, wicked-looking beachmasters, who, in the unnatural light, appeared to be twice their natural size. Hank let out a hail as soon as he saw the government party coming to his assistance, but he did not relax his vigilance.
"I've got this bunch covered," he said, "an' they can't get to their boat. One load did get off."
Hearing his shout the invaders turned quickly, but found themselves overpowered, for a dozen rifles were leveled at them. They knew, too, that natives who are trained to shoot fur seal in the water—as most of those men had done before pelagic sealing was stopped—could be counted on as good shots.
The agent, who spoke sufficient Japanese for simple needs, demanded the surrender of the raiders and asked which was the officer of the party. This question they refused to understand.
"I suppose he went off in the other boat," hazarded the agent. "That's a pity. He stands a good chance of being shot!"
Colin looked up inquiringly.
"How do you expect to catch him now?" he asked.
"The fog is clearing away. Obviously!" the agent answered.
"Quite a lot," the boy admitted.