Part 10 (1/2)

”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 coa.r.s.e. Couldn't sell it.

Never kill a cow seal under any circ.u.mstances. 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 pa.s.s.

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-s.p.a.ce, 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 pa.s.s 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 gra.s.s, not a twig of shrubbery of any kind, all had been beaten down and the bare ground was as smooth as though it had been leveled 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 pa.s.s.

”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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULL FUR-SEAL CHARGING THE CAMERA.

_Courtesy of the National Geographic Magazine._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SNAPSHOTTING AN OLD BEACH-MASTER.

This plate was recovered, although the photographer was drowned on the treacherous sh.o.r.es of the Pribilof Islands the very day the picture was taken.

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

”Yearlings of both s.e.xes and males from two years old to five,” the agent answered.