Part 15 (1/2)

”As we did not then know anything about the habits of the seals in this respect, I was very much surprised one day, while walking over ice that was everywhere apparently very solid, to find one of my feet suddenly break through. I was carrying, at the time, our great narwhal horn, which had already been used for so many purposes; and when I had got my foot, as quickly as possible, out of the water, I pounded with the heavy horn all about the place, and found that there was a large round hole there that had evidently been made by some animal; and I could think of nothing else as likely to have made it but a seal. The reason why I had not seen it was because the snow had drifted over it in a hard crust, and through this crust the seal kept open with his nose a small orifice for breathing, that was not larger round than a silver dollar.

”This discovery made us very glad and very curious,--for, having concluded what it was, we concluded also that there must be more like it, and we went in search of them immediately. Our search was soon rewarded, for these seal-holes were very numerous.

”How to catch a seal was the question which now most occupied our thoughts. The difficulty was very great, for we had no weapons of any sort for such a purpose. Once more, however, we fell back upon our narwhal horn. To this horn we had already become much attached, and, as if to express our grat.i.tude, we had bestowed upon it several names,--as, for instance, 'Life-preserver,' 'Crumply Crowbar,' 'The Castaway's Friend,' and the like of that; but the t.i.tle which finally stuck to it was 'Old Crumply,'--not that it was exactly a crumply horn, like the one that grew on the head of the cow that tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that killed the rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built,--for it was not crumply at all in that sense, but, on the contrary, was as straight as an arrow, and was no further crumply than crumply means wrinkled and twisted; and, indeed, the old horn looked as if it might have been once red-hot, and had been twisted several times around before it had cooled off.

”Besides this 'Old Crumply,' we made another weapon, in quite an ingenious way, as we thought, though at a great expense of time and labor. This was called by several names, like the other; but generally I called it the 'Dean's Delight,' for it was made after the Dean's idea, and he used to flourish it about at a great rate, and was very proud of it. It was simply a kind of spear made by las.h.i.+ng together (after carefully cutting with our knife, and fitting and overlapping) a great many pieces of bones. The las.h.i.+ng was the same string or thong we had before used for the duck-traps. It was very strong, though not half so heavy as 'Old Crumply.'

”But though we had 'Old Crumply,' and the 'Dean's Delight,' we were apparently just as far off as ever from catching a seal. The 'Delight'

was tipped with hard ivory (a piece of walrus tusk carved into proper shape with the jack-knife), and 'Crumply' was of the very best kind of ivory throughout, yet we could not sharpen either of them so as to be of much use. But, remembering the general shape of the harpoon-heads used in whale-s.h.i.+ps, I managed to cut one of that pattern out of walrus ivory, and this I set on the end of the 'Dean's Delight,' and then, making a hole in the centre of it, I fastened it to the end of one of our long lines. And thus I had obtained all that was needed, in name at least, for catching a seal; but only in name, as was soon proved; for the Dean and I set out at once to try our fortunes in this new line of adventure, and, discovering a seal-hole, we stood near it (on the leeward side, that the seal might not scent us) until the animal appeared, which was not for a long time, and not until we had grown very cold. The seal had evidently been off breathing in another hole. When he did come up, we knew it by a little puff he gave, which threw some spray up through the little orifice in the snow-crust. Quick as thought I plunged the 'Dean's Delight' down into the very centre of the hole, and struck the animal; but the ivory harpoon-head that was on the end of it only glanced off, without penetrating the skin; and the seal, no doubt very much astonished, got off as quickly as he could, more frightened, probably, than hurt; at least, we heard of him no more. He never came back to the hole, for it was all frozen over next day, and so it remained. We afterwards discovered that when a seal-hole has been once touched, the seal will never go back to it.

”I was now more puzzled than ever to know what to do; but I did not give up trying, determined to succeed, one way or another. Presently it occurred to me that almost anything that was hard would answer to sharpen the edge and point of the ivory harpoon-head, and, since I could not get any kind of metal to make a whole harpoon-head out of, I had to try some other plan. As good luck would have it, I now thought of the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on my coat. Some of these I quickly tore off. Then I hacked my knife with a sharp flint stone until I had made a saw of it, and with this saw I cut a little groove along the tapering point of the ivory harpoon-head; and into this groove, which was about a quarter of an inch deep, I set the b.u.t.tons, which I had squared with the knife, and then wedged them firmly. I had now only to grind all these bits of bra.s.s down even, and to sharpen the whole with a stone, and my work was done.

And a most tedious work it had been too. The next thing was to put it to the test, which we quickly did. A seal-hole being soon found, we had not long to wait before the seal came into it, with a little puff, as before; and, as soon as the noise was heard, I let fly with my harpoon, and, striking through the snow-crust, hit the seal fairly in the neck, and drove the harpoon into him.

”Down sank the seal through the hole, taking the harpoon along with him, and spinning out the line which was attached to it at a furious rate.

Before the seal was struck, and while I was watching for him, the Dean had quietly tied the end of the line that was not fast to the harpoon around the middle of 'Old Crumply,' and when the seal descended into the sea, 'Old Crumply' was whipped along over the snow until it lodged right across the hole, and there the seal was,--'brought up with a round turn,' as the sailors say.

”And now was anybody ever so rejoiced as we? The Dean fairly shouted with delight, and danced around the hole as if he were crazy, crying 'Bravo, bravo!' and 'Hurrah for Crumply' and 'Hurrah for Old Crumply!'

and hurrah for this, and hurrah for that, until he was fairly hoa.r.s.e.

Meanwhile the seal was trying his best to get away. He darted from side to side, and up and down, without any other result than to tire himself out; for the harpoon held firmly in his body, and the line held firmly to 'Old Crumply,' and 'Old Crumply' lay squarely across the hole.

”By and by the seal was forced to come up to breathe; and, since there was no other place for him, he had to return to the hole where he had been struck. But he did not stay more than a second or so, going down as quickly as he had done before. As soon as the line was loosened, however, we drew in the slack, and wound it around 'Old Crumply,' so that the seal did not have so much of it now to play with. Nor did he remain under so long the second time. When he came up again, we got in all the slack of the line that we could, as before.

”It was now clear enough that we should be sure of the seal, if we could only get something to kill him with; and so the quick-witted Dean ran off at once to the hut, and brought a walrus tusk that we had saved.

This was driven into the hard snow not far from the hole, and, while the Dean held it there firmly, I got the line made fast around it. As soon as I saw that this was secure, and that the Dean was holding on bravely, I unfastened the line from 'Old Crumply,' and, when the seal came next time, I gave him a heavy thrust with the sharp end of it. But this did not kill him by any means, nor did he give me another chance for some time. Then, however, he was almost dead with bleeding, and fright, and hard struggling to get away, to say nothing of holding his breath so long; but I wanted him too badly to have any mercy on him, so I worked away as hard as I could to get in all the line, so that the seal could not sink down through the hole any more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ingenuity is rewarded, and ”Old Crumply” distinguished.]

”At last I was successful, and the seal was fast in the hole, and with all his struggling he could not get away. With the aid of 'Old Crumply,'

I now quickly made an end of him. As soon as he was dead, we drew him out on the ice, and rejoiced over him. Such shouting never was before known, at least in that part of the world. If anybody could have heard and seen us, we should have surely been taken up for insane people, especially the Dean, whose joy knew no bounds.

”Having no sledge, we had to drag the dead seal over the ice and snow, for which purpose we made the line fast through his nose. It was no easy task to get him to the hut; and, when we did at last succeed, we found that the seal was partly frozen, so that we were obliged to draw it inside the hut, and then thaw it, before we could get the skin off, which made the hut very disagreeable. After the skin and blubber were removed, we cut off some of the flesh, and made for ourselves a good hot supper,--first cooking a stew in our soapstone pot, and then frying some steaks on a flat stone; and if anything was before wanting to make us perfectly happy over the capture of so great a prize, we had it now, when we discovered what excellent food it was, and what a quant.i.ty there was of it.

”When we had finished butchering the seal, we prepared the skin for making boots; and we put the blubber and flesh away in our storehouses for future use,--the flesh for food, and the blubber for our fire and lamp. Then we slept, and the very next day we set out to catch more seals, without, however, the same success, for we were unfortunate in every attempt; and it was, indeed, almost a week, I think, before we made a second capture. Some time afterward we caught a third, and then a fourth, and by great good fortune on the very same day a fifth; and not long after that we caught another, which made the sixth.

”But it would have been well had we been content with five, without coveting a sixth, as this last had like to have been the ruin of us; for as we were going slowly back to the hut, dragging the seal after us, and all unsuspicious of harm, we were set upon by a great white beast, the like of which we had never seen before, but which we knew must be one of those savage animals called polar bears. He was not coming rapidly, but was rather crawling along cautiously, with mouth wide open, looking very fierce. As soon as we discovered him, we dropped the line with which we were dragging the seal, and ran as fast as our legs would carry us, never stopping until we had reached the hut and crawled into it,--not once having had the courage to look back, for at every step we expected that the bear would be atop of us.

”We had left 'Old Crumply' and 'Dean's Delight' where we captured the seal, intending to go for them the next day; and, having no weapon of any kind, we were in the greatest terror, expecting every moment to hear the bear coming to tear the hut down, and drag us out, and eat us up.

”But, finding that we were not disturbed, we at length fell asleep. Upon awaking the next day, and finding that we had been suffered to go undisturbed thus long, we began to wonder whether we had not been needlessly alarmed, and finally we set to wondering whether we had really seen a bear after all, and at length we grew to feel quite ashamed of ourselves. So we put on a little bravado, like the boy that whistled in the dark to keep his courage up, and went out, cautiously approaching the spot where we had left the seal. Arriving there, we had positive proof enough, if any were wanting, that we had certainly seen a bear. The bones of the seal were all strewn about over the snow, picked as clean as could be. Some foxes were gnawing at them, as we came up; but they all scampered off when they saw us coming.

”Hurrying on, we picked up 'Old Crumply' and 'Dean's Delight,' and then hastened back to the hut, which we reached without any further adventure; but on the day following, upon going out to visit our fox-traps, we came across the bear's tracks, from which it was evident to us that the wild beast was prowling round the island, where he had already obtained one good meal, and was in hopes, no doubt, of getting another; and, as we did not know how soon he might feel disposed to begin upon us, we ran back to the hut with all speed, imagining, as we went along, that every rock and snow-drift that we pa.s.sed was a bear.

”We had now even greater fears than before that we should be attacked and eaten up by the wild beast. It did not once occur to us that the bear would be much more likely to prefer the contents of our storehouses to ourselves, if he came that way, but we thought only of our own safety; and this was perhaps not unnatural, for boys and men alike are everywhere liable to magnify their own importance, even in the eyes of a bear.

”We had not been in the hut more than a couple of hours, I should say, before we heard the tramp of our enemy. We knew it must be the footsteps of the bear, because it could be nothing else. Our fears were now even greater than ever.