The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries | Page 3

wolves I've ever heard about, but I never saw any of 'em attackin' a boat. I have seen as many as twenty tearin' savagely at a whale that was lyin' alongside a ship an' was bein' cut up by the crew. The California gray whale--the devil-whale is what he really is--looks a lot worse to me than a killer. He's as ugly-tempered as a spearfish, as vicious as a man-eatin' shark, as tricky as a moray, an' about as relentless as a closin' ice-floe."
"There she blo-o-ows!" came the cry again from the crow's-nest.
Hank, looking over the side, caught sight of the spout and, with a twist of the shoulder, walked aft to the first boat.
"I'm going, too," Colin reminded him.
The old whaler looked at him thoughtfully and disapprovingly.
"Orders is orders," he said at last, "an' if the skipper said you could go, why, I reckon that ends it. An' if you're goin' anyway, you're safer in the big boat than in the 'prams.' Tumble in."
Colin clambered into the double-ended boat with its high prow and stern and settled himself down excitedly.
"I never really believed I'd get the chance to see any whale-spearing," he said. "Whaling with a cannon is only a make-believe. Now, this is something like!"
"Foolishness I calls it," put in one of the younger sailors. "Why don't the skipper put in somewhere an' get the gun put to rights? An' Hank is just as likely to fix that gun so as he'll blow some of us up with it when he does get it goin'."
"Always croakin', Gloomy," said the old gunner. "Blowin' you up would be no great loss. You'd ought to be glad to see what whalin' was like when your betters was at it."
"I'm glad," said Colin, as he pulled steadily at his long oar, "that we did wrench the gun-frame when that heavy sea came aboard."
"I don't see it," said the gunner; "mebbe you'll think presently that you'd ha' done better to be satisfied with readin' about whalin' in those books of yours."
"Well, it got me the chance to see the fun!" responded Colin.
"That wouldn't have been enough to start this business a-goin' if it hadn't been that the Gull was an old whalin'-ship before they put steam into her. The little bits of whalin'-steamers they build now only carry a little pram or two, nothin' like this boat you're in now. The Gull's one of the old-timers."
"She hails from New Bedford, doesn't she?"
"She took the Indian Ocean whalin' in the sixties an' came round the Horn every season in the seventies," Hank replied; "an' there's not many of her build left. Easy with that oar, Gloomy," he added, speaking to the melancholy sailor, who was splashing a good deal in his stroke, "an' avast talkin', all."
Swiftly, but with oars dipping almost noiselessly, the boat slipped up to where the two whales were floating whose spouts had been seen from the ship. The sea was tinged with pink from the masses of shrimp-food which had attracted the whales, and the great creatures were feeding quietly. The surface was not rough, but there was a long, slow roll which tossed the boat about like a cork. Presently Hank, who was in the stern, held up one hand.
"Hold your starboard oars," he said quietly; "we'll back up to this largest one."
This near approach to the whales was too much for Gloomy's nerves. Instead of merely holding his long sweep steady in the water so that the stroke of the port oars would bring the boat around, he tried to make a long backward drive. As he reached back, the boat mounted sidewise on a swell, leaving Gloomy clawing at the air with his oar; then, the boat as suddenly swooped down with a rush, burying the oar almost to the row-locks; it caught Gloomy under the chin and all but knocked him overboard. The splash and the shout distracted Hank's attention for a second, and when he looked round a swirl of water was all that remained to show where the whales had been.
"I told you what it would be!" said Gloomy, picking himself up and speaking in an injured tone, as though he blamed everybody else for his own carelessness.
His protests, however, were silenced by a steady stream of descriptive epithet from Hank. The old gunner, without even raising his voice, withered any possible reply on the part of the clumsy sailor, whose inexpertness had caused their failure to get the whale.
"They were only humpbacks, however," added Hank, after Gloomy had been reduced to silence. Indeed, so shamefaced was the luckless sailor, that when he saw a spout a minute or two later he only pointed with his finger, without saying a word.
Noticing the gesture, Colin turned and saw with amazement a tall jet of vapor