Part 6 (1/2)

”Do you hear that noise?” he asked.

”Of course I hear it,” the boy answered; ”that's what woke me up. But what is it?” he continued, as the roar swelled upon the wind.

”What does it sound like?” the gunner asked him.

The boy listened carefully for a minute or two and then shook his head.

”Hard to say,” he answered. ”It sounds like a cross between Niagara and a circus.”

Scotty, who had overheard this, looked round.

”That's not bad,” he said; ”that's just about what it does sound like.”

”But what is the cause of it, Hank?” the boy queried again. ”I never heard such a row!”

”Fur seals!” was the brief reply.

”Seals?” said Colin, jumping up eagerly. ”Oh, where?”

”Sit down, boy,” interrupted the captain sternly; ”you'll see enough of seals before you get home.”

”All right, Captain Murchison,” Colin answered; ”I'm in no hurry to be home.”

In spite of his recent loss the captain could not help a grim smile stealing over his face at the boy's readiness for adventure, no matter where it might lead. But he had been a rover in his boyhood himself, and so he said no more.

”Why, there must be millions of seals to make as much noise as that!”

Colin objected.

”There aren't; at least, not now,” was Hank's reply. ”There were tens of millions of fur seals in these waters when I made my first trip out here in 1860, but they've been killed off right an' left, same as the buffalo. The government has to protect 'em now, an' there's no pelagic sealin' allowed at all.”

”What's pelagic sealing?” asked Colin.

”Killing seals at sea,” the whaler answered. ”That's wrong, because you can't always tell a young male from a female seal in the water, an' the females ought never to be killed. But you'll learn all about it. Beg pardon, sir,” Hank continued, speaking to the captain, ”but by the noise of the seals those must be either the Pribilof or the Commander Islands?”

”Pribilof, by my reckoning,” the captain answered. ”Do you hear anything of the third boat?”

”No, sir,” answered the old whaler, after shouting a loud ”Ahoy!” to which but one answer was returned, ”but we'll see her, likely, when the fog lifts.”

”Doesn't lift much here,” the captain said. ”But with this offsh.o.r.e wind, they ought to hear the seals three or four miles away.”

In the meantime the whale-boat was forging through the water slowly and the noise of the seals grew louder every minute. The sun was rising, but the fog was so dense that it was barely possible to tell which was the east.

”Funny kind of fog,” said Colin; ”seems to me it's about as wet as the water!”

”Reg'lar seal fog,” Hank replied. ”If it wasn't always foggy the seals wouldn't haul out here, an' anyway, there's always a lot of fog around a rookery. Must be the breath of so many thousands o' seals, I reckon.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPEARING SEALS AT SEA.

Pelagic sealing by Aleut natives now forbidden by the governments of the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and j.a.pan.

_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]