“There she blows!”

Colin Dare, who was sitting beside the broken whale-gun and who had been promised that he might go in the boat that would be put out from the ship if a whale were sighted, jumped to his feet at the cry from the ‘barrel’ at the masthead.

“Where?” he shouted eagerly, rushing to the rail and staring as hard as he could at the heaving gray waters of the Behring Sea.

“There she blo-o-ows!” again cried the lookout, in the long echoing call of the old-time whaler, and stretching out his hand, he pointed to a spot in the ocean about three points off the starboard bow. Colin’s glance followed the direction, and almost immediately he saw the faint cloud of vapor which showed that a whale had just spouted.

“Do you suppose that’s a whalebone whale, Hank?” asked the boy, turning to a lithe Yankee sea-dog with a scraggy gray beard who had been busily working over the mechanism of the whale-gun.

“No sayin’,” was the cautious reply, “we’re too fur off to be able to tell yet a while. How fur away do you reckon we be?”

“A mile or two, I suppose,” Colin said, “but we ought to catch up with the whale pretty soon, oughtn’t we?”

“That depends,” the gunner answered, “on whether the whale’s willin’ or not. He ain’t goin’ to stay, right there.”

“But you usually do catch up?”

“If it’s a ‘right’ whale we generally try to, an’ havin’ steam to help us out makes a pile o’ difference. Now, in the ol’ days, I’ve seen a dozen whales to wind’ard an’ we couldn’t get to ’em at all. By the time we’d beaten ’round to where they’d been sighted, they were gone.”

“Well, I hope this is a ‘right’ whale,” Colin said with emphatic earnestness.

“Why this one ’specially?” the old sailor asked.

“I heard Captain Murchison say that if we came up with a whale while the gun was out of order, rather than lose a chance, he would send a boat out in the old-fashioned way.”

“An’ you want to see how it’s done, eh?”

“I got permission to go in the boat!” the boy answered triumphantly, “and I just can’t wait.”

“It’s the skipper’s business, I suppose, but I don’t hold with takin’ any chances you don’t have to,” was the gruff comment, “an’ if you’ll take the advice of an old hand at the game you’ll keep away.”

“But I want to go so much, Hank,” came the reply.

“What for?”

“I’m trying to get Father’s permission to join the Bureau of Fisheries,” explained the boy, “and when Captain Murchison started on this trip, I begged him to let me come. The captain is an old friend of his.”

“I’d rather you went in somebody else’s boat than mine, then,” was the ungracious response.

“Why, Hank!” exclaimed Colin in surprise, “what a thing to say!”

The old sailor nodded sagely.

“The skipper don’t know much more about boat-whalin’ than you do,” he said, “that was all done away before his time. He’s willin’ to tackle anythin’ that comes along, all right, but a whalin’ boat is just about the riskiest thing that floats on water.”

“How’s that, Hank?” asked the boy. “I always thought they were supposed to be so seaworthy.”

“They may be seaworthy,” was the grim reply, “but I never yet saw a shipwright who’d guarantee to make a boat that’d be whaleworthy.”

“But I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that whales never attacked boats,” persisted Colin.

“Mebbe,” rejoined the gunner, “but I don’t believe that any man what writes about whalin’ bein’ easy, has ever tried it in a small boat.”

“Well,” said the boy, “isn’t it true that the only time a whale-boat is smashed up is when the monster threshes around in the death-flurry and happens to hit the boat with his tail?”

“Not always.”

“You mean a whale does sometimes go for a boat, in spite of what the books say?”

“I never heard that whales cared much about literatoor,” the sailor answered with an attempt at rough humor, “an’ anyway, most o’ them books you’ve been readin’, lad, are written about whalin’ off Greenland an’ in the Atlantic.”

“What difference does that make?” queried Colin. “Isn’t a whale the same sort of animal all the world over?”

“There’s all kinds of whales,” the gunner said, as though pitying the boy for his lack of knowledge, “some big an’ some little, some good an’ some bad. Now, a ‘right’ whale, f’r instance, couldn’t harm a baby, but the killers are just pure vicious.”

“You mean the orcas?” the boy queried. “Only just the other day Captain Murchison was talking about them. He called them the wolves of the sea, and said they were the most daring hunters among all things that swim.”

“Sea-tigers, some calls ’em,” the other agreed, “an’ they’re fiercer than any 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 that had spouted from a whale close by. He looked at Hank expectantly, hoping to hear him spur the crew to a new venture, but the old whaler looked grave.

“Finback?” the boy queried.

“Gray whale, I reckon,” answered the gunner.

“Devil-whale? Oh, Hank!” the boy cried, his eyes shining with excitement. “I hope it is!”

“That shows how little you know,” the other replied.

“Are you going to harpoon him?”

Hank looked at the boy, smiling slightly at his utter fearlessness.

“I wish you were aboard the ship,” he said, “an’ I would. But I reckon it’s wiser to keep out of trouble.”

“But I don’t want to be on the Gull,” Colin protested; “at least not when there’s anything going on out here. And,” he added craftily, “I didn’t think you were really afraid!”

“Wa’al,” the old whaler said, his jaw setting firmly, “I don’t want anybody to think I’m backin’ down, just because I’m in a boat again. But I tell you straight, I don’t like it. Gloomy,” he continued, “an’ the rest of you, stand by your oars. That’s a gray whale an’ I’m goin’ after him.”

“How do you know it’s a California whale, Hank?” asked the boy, as they waited for the creature to reappear.

“By the spout,” was the prompt reply. “It’s not as high an’ thin as a finback’s, it’s not large enough for the low, bushy spout of a humpback, an’ it goes straight up instead of at a forward angle so it can’t be a sperm. Must be a gray whale, can’t be anythin’ else.”

For a few minutes the men rested on their oars, and Colin grew restless.

“Why doesn’t he come up again?” he said impatiently. “First thing we know he’ll be out of sight!”

The old whaler smiled again at the lad’s eagerness.

“While the gray is the fastest swimmer of all the whales,” he said, “you needn’t be afraid that we’ll lose sight of him. Most whales swim very slow, not much faster than a man can walk.”

“There he is,” called another of the sailors, pointing to a spout three or four hundred yards away.

“All right, boys,” Hank said, “he’s makin’ towards the shore.”

The long oars bit into the water again and Colin was glad to feel the boat moving, for it rolled fearfully on the long heaving swell. But with six good oars and plenty of muscle behind them, the little craft was not long in reaching the place where the ‘slick’ on the water showed that the whale had come up to breathe and then dived again. Acting under the gunner’s orders the crew rested on their oars a short distance beyond the place where the whale had sounded. Presently, a couple of hundred yards from the boat, on the starboard side, the whale came up to spout, evidently having turned from the direction in which it had been slowly traveling, and the rowers made for the new objective. This time there was another long wait.

“How long do they stay down, Hank?” asked the boy.

“No reg’lar rule about it,” the whaler answered; “sometimes for quite a while, but I reckon ten to fifteen minutes is about the usual. Some of ‘em can stay down a long while sulkin’ when they’ve got a harpoon or two in ’em, but I reckon three-quarters of an hour would be about the limit.”

Again the boat sped onward, this time without any order from Hank, for all hands had seen the whale not more than fifty yards away, and Hank grasped the shoulder harpoon-gun. But before the boat could reach the whale and turn stern on so as to give the gunner a good chance for a shot, the whale had ‘sounded’ or dived.

“Next time,” said Hank quietly, and told Scotty, one of the sailors, to clear away the first few coils of the rope in the barrel and make sure that it was free from tangles.

Colin noticed that the three places where the whale had spouted formed a slight arc and that Hank was directing the boat along a projection of this curve, so he was quite ready when a command came to stop rowing. Then, at the whaler’s orders, the boat was swung round and the men held their oars ready to back-water.

The place could not have been picked out with greater accuracy if the whaler had known the exact spot where the big cetacean was going to appear. Within thirty feet of the boat the water began to swirl and boil.

“He’s right there!” said Colin with a thrill of expectation not wholly devoid of fear.

In obedience to a wave of the old whaler’s hand, the boat went astern slowly and fifteen seconds later the great back appeared near the surface and the monster ‘blew,’ his pent-up breath escaping suddenly when he was still a foot below the surface, and driving up a column of mixed water and air, the roar sounding like steam from a pipe of large size.

“Stand by the line, Scotty!” shouted Hank, as he raised the clumsy harpoon-gun to his shoulder.

The sailor who had been standing near the barrel nodded, as he drew his sheath-knife from its sheath, holding it between his teeth, ready to cut the line should a tangle occur, but keeping his hands free to attend to the coils of rope. To Colin the seconds were as years while the old whaler held the gun raised and did not fire. It seemed to the boy as if he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the exact moment, and just as the whale was about to ‘sound’ the back heaved up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining that it was a devil-whale in truth; at that instant Hank fired.

With the sudden pang of the harpoon the whale gave an upward leap for a dive and plunged, throwing the flukes of the tail and almost a third of his body out of water, and sounded to the bottom, taking down line at a tremendous speed. The line ran clear, Scotty watching every coil, and though the heavy rope was soaking wet, it began to smoke with the friction as it ran over the bow.

“Fifty fathom!” cried Scotty, as the line flew out.

“Sixty!” he called a moment later, and then, immediately after,

“Seventy and holding!”

As the pressure of the brake on the line tightened, the boat began to tear through the water, still requiring the paying out of the rope. For an instant it slackened and the winch reeled in a little line. There was a sudden jerk and then the line fell slack. Working like demons, the men made the winch handles fairly fly as the line came in, and within another minute the whale spouted, blowing strongly and sounding again. He sulked at the bottom for over twenty minutes, coming up suddenly quite near the boat. Scotty had lost no time, and not more than thirty-five fathom of line was out when the monster rose.

“He’s a big un, Hank!” called Scotty. “Want the other line?”

“Got it!” was the brief reply, and Colin saw that the harpoon-gun had been reloaded.

“Sounding again!” called Scotty as the rope fell slack.

“No!” yelled Hank. “Stand by, all!”

Then suddenly:

“Back oars! Back, you lubbers! Hard as you know how!”

The oars bent like yew-staves.

“Back starboard! Hard!”

With the blood rushing to his brain, Colin, who was on the starboard side of the boat, threw his whole energy into the back stroke, and the boat spun round like a top into what seemed to be the seething center of a submarine volcano, for, with a roar that made the timbers of the boat vibrate, the gray whale spouted not six feet from where the boy was sitting. Dimly he saw the harpoon hurtle through the spray and the sharp crack of the explosion sounded in his ear.

Catching his breath chokingly, Colin was only conscious of the fact that he was expected to pull and he leapt into the stroke as the six oars shot the boat ahead.

Not soon enough, though! For, as the boat plunged from the crest of a wave the whale swirled, making a suction like a whirlpool into which the craft lurched drunkenly. Then the great creature, turning with a speed that seemed incredible, brought down the flukes of his tail in the direction of the boat, snapping off the stroke oar like a pipe-stem. Avidsen, the oarsman, a burly Norwegian, though his wrist was sharply and painfully wrenched by the blow, made no complaint, but reached out for one of the spare oars the boat always carried.

Colin was not so calm. Despite his courage, the shock of that tremendous tail striking the water within arm’s-length of the boat had shaken his nerve, and the sudden drenching with the icy waters of Behring Sea had taken his breath away. But he was game and stuck to his oar. Looking at Hank, he saw that the old fighter of the seas had dropped the harpoon-gun and was holding poised the long lance.

This was hunting whales with a vengeance!

The monster had not sounded but was only gathering fury, and in a few seconds he came to the surface with a rush, charging straight for the boat.

“Stand by to pull,” said Hank quietly.

The two forward oars, watching, dipped lightly and moved the boat a yard or two, then waited, their oars in the water and arms extended for the stroke. Colin would have given millions, if he had possessed them, to pull his oar, to do something to get away from the leviathan charging like an avenging fury for the little boat. But Hank stood motionless. Another second and Colin could almost feel the devil-whale plunging through the frail craft, when Scotty suddenly yelled,

“Pull!”

As Scotty yelled, Colin vaguely for everything seemed reeling about him saw Hank lunge with the long steel lance. The suction half whirled the boat round, but the whale sounded a little, coming up to the surface forty feet away and spouting hollowly. Even to the boy’s untrained ear there was a difference, and when he noticed that blood was mixed with the vapor thrown out from the blowhole, his hope revived. The second rush of the whale was easily avoided, and Hank thrust in the lance again. Then, for the first time, the old whaler permitted himself to smile, a long, slow smile.

“That’s the way it used to be done in the old days!” he said, with just a shade of triumph in his voice. “Pull away a little, boys, to be clear of the flurry. Have you a buoy ready, Scotty?”

The sailor nodded.

“There won’t be much of a flurry, Hank,” he said; “you got the lungs with the lance both times.”

The old whaler looked at Colin, who was a little white about the lips.

“Scared you, I reckon?” he said. “You don’t need to feel bad over that. Any one’s got a right to be scared when a whale’s chargin’ the boat. I’ve been whalin’ for nigh on forty-five years an’ that’s only the second devil-whale I’ve ever killed with a hand-lance. He pretty near caught us with his flukes that first time, too!”

“Guess that’s the end of him,” said Scotty, as the big animal beat the air with his tail, the slap of the huge flukes throwing up a fountain of spray.

“That’s the end,” agreed Hank.

Almost with the word the great gray whale turned, one fin looming above the water as he did so, and sank heavily to the bottom, the buoy which had been attached to the harpoon-line by Scotty showing where he sank, so that the ship could pick up the carcass later.

“How big do you suppose that whale was?” queried the boy as they started to pull back to the ship.

“‘Bout forty-five foot, I reckon,” was the reply, “an’ we ought to get about twenty barrels of oil out of him.”

“That ought to help some,” said Colin, “and you see my coming didn’t hurt anything. Just think if I had missed all that fun!”

“It turned out all right,” the old whaler said, “but I tell you it was a narrow squeak. They’ll have been worryin’ on board, though, if any one has been able to see that we were hitched up to a gray whale.”

“Isn’t there any danger with other whales?”

“Wa’al, you’ve got to know how to get at ’em, of course. But all you’ve got to do is to keep out o’ the way. There’s no whale except the California whale that’ll charge a boat. I did know one chap that was killed by a humpback, but that was because the whale come up suddenly right under the boat and upset it they often do that an’ when one of the chaps was in the water the whale happened to give a slap with his tail an’ the poor fellow was right under it.”

Colin was anxious to start the old whaler on some yarns of the early days, but as the boat was nearing the ship he decided to wait for an opportunity when there would be more time and the raconteur would have full leeway for his stories.

“Forty-five-footer, sir,” called Hank, as they came up to the ship. “Gray devil, sir.”

The captain lifted his eyebrows in surprise, for he had not thought of a California whale so far north, but he answered in an offhand way:

“More sport than profit in that. Did you have a run for your money, Colin?”

“I certainly did, Captain Murchison,” the boy answered.

“All right, tell me about it some time. Hank, you’re on board just in the nick of time. I found out what the trouble was with the carriage of the gun and repaired it while you were amusing yourselves out there. Get in lively, now, there’s work to do.”

The men scrambled on board rapidly, and the boat was up in the davits in less than a minute, while the yards were braced round, and under sail and steam the Gull headed north.

“There’s four whales in sight, Hank,” said the captain; “humpbacks, I think, and two of them big ones.”

“If they’ll bunch up like that, sir,” the gunner said, “we may make a good trip out of it yet.”

“I hope so,” the skipper answered, and turning on his heel, he went to the poop. Thither Colin followed him and told him all the story of the whale. The captain, who was an old friend of Colin’s father when they both lived in a lumbering town in northern Michigan, was greatly taken aback when he found how dangerous the boat-trip had been, but he did not want to spoil the boy’s vivid memories of the excitement.

“I suppose,” he said, “that you want to go out as gunner next time.”

Colin shook his head.

“I’m generally willing to try anything, Captain Murchison,” he replied, “but I’m content to let Hank look after that end.”

“Hank’s an unusual man,” the captain said quietly. “I rather doubt if any other man on the Pacific Coast could have won out with a gray whale. I’d rather have him aboard than a lot of mates I know, and as a gunner, of course, he’s a sort of petty officer.”

The canvas began to shake as the boat turned on its course after the whales, catching the skipper’s eye, and he roared out orders to shorten sail.

“Clew up fore and main to’gans’ls,” he shouted; “take in the tops’ls. Colin, you go and furl the fore to’gans’l, and if the men are still busy on the tops’l yards, pass the gaskets round the main to’gans’l as well.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the boy answered readily, for he enjoyed being aloft, and he clambered up the shrouds to the fore-topgallant yard and furled the sail, taking a pride in having it lie smooth and round on the top of the yard.

“What’s the difference between a ‘finback’ and a ‘humpback,’ Hank?” asked the boy, after the canvas had been stowed, the vessel under auxiliary steam having speed enough to keep up with the cetaceans, “are they ‘right’ whales?”

“Neither of ’em,” the gunner replied: “there’s two kinds of right whale, the bowhead and the black, and both have fine whalebone, an’ that, as you know, is a sort of strainer in the mouth that takes the place of teeth. Humpbacks an’ finbacks are taken for oil, an’ they look quite different. A humpback is more in bulk an’ has only a short fin on the back, it’s a clumsy beast an’ throws the flukes of the tail out of the water in soundin’. Now, a finback is built more for speed an’ has a big fin on the back that’s where it gets its name. The big sulphurbottom is a kind of finback, an’ is the largest animal livin’. I’ve seen one eighty-five feet long!”

“Where does the sperm whale come in?” asked Colin.

“It’s got teeth, like the gray whale,” was the reply, “but you never find it in cold water. Sperm whalin’ is comin’ into favor again. But those two over there the ones we’re after, are finbacks. You can tell by the spout, by the fin, by not seein’ the flukes of the tail, an’ by the way they play around, slappin’ each other in fun.”

Three hours were spent in the fruitless chase after this little group of whales. Then Hank, who had been standing in the bow beside the gun, watching every move of the cetacean during the afternoon, suddenly signaled with his hand for “full speed astern,” by this maneuver stopping the ship squarely, as a whale a medium-sized finback came up right under the vessel’s bow. The reversed screws took the craft astern so as to show the broad back about twenty-five feet away, and Hank fired.

The crashing roar of the harpoon-gun was followed by a swirl as the whale sounded for a long dive, but a moment later there came a dull, muffled report from the water, the explosive head of the harpoon, known as the ‘bomb,’ having burst. For a minute or two there was no sound but the swish of the line and the clank of the big winch as it ran out, while the animal sank to the bottom. There was a moment’s wait, and then Hank, seeing the line tauten and hang down straight, called back:

“We can haul in, sir; I got him just right.”

Compared to the excitement of the chase in the open boat this seemed very tame to Colin, and he said so to the captain, when he went aft, while the steam-winch gradually drew up the finback whose end had come so suddenly.

“My boy,” was the reply, “I’m not whaling for my health. Other people have a share in this, besides myself and the crew, and what they’re after is whales not sport. The business isn’t what it was; in the old days whale-oil was worth a great deal and whaling was a good business. Then came the discovery of petroleum and the Standard Oil Company soon found out ways of refining the crude product so that it took the place of whale-oil in every way and at a cheaper price.”

“But I thought whalebone was what you were after!” said Colin in surprise.

“It was for a time,” the captain answered, “after the oil business gave out. But within the last ten years there have been so many substitutes for whalebone that its value has gone down. There’s a lot of whalebone stored in New Bedford warehouses that can’t be sold except at a loss.”

“Well, if the oil is replaced and whalebone has no value, what is to be got out of whaling now, then?” the boy queried.

“Oil again,” was the reply; “for fine lubricating work there’s nothing as good. It’s queer, though, how things have changed around. Fifty years ago, New Bedford was the greatest whaling port in the world, ten years ago there wasn’t a ship there, they had all gone to San Francisco. Now ’Frisco is deserted by whalers, and the few in the business have gone back to the old port.”

In the meantime, while Colin had been telling the story of the adventure with the gray whale, and the captain had been bemoaning the decay of the whaling industry, the work of bringing the dead whale to the surface had been under way. Letting out more slack on the rope attached to the harpoon a bight of it was passed through a sheave-block at the masthead, thus giving a greater purchase for the lifting of the heavy body. The winch was run by a small donkey-engine, and for about ten minutes the line was hauled in, fathom after fathom being coiled on the deck. Presently, as Colin looked over the rail, the dark body of the whale was seen coming to the surface, and as he was hauled alongside a chain was thrown around his flukes, and the body was made fast to the vessel, tail foremost.

Just as soon as the whale was secured a sailor jumped on the body, carrying with him a long steel tube, pierced with a number of holes for several inches from the bottom. To this he attached a long rubber tube, while the other end was connected with a small air-pump. The ever-handy donkey-engine was used to work the pump, and the body of the whale was slowly filled with air in the same way that a bicycle tire is inflated.

“What’s that for?” asked Colin, who had been watching the process with much curiosity.

“So that he will float,” the captain answered. “You can’t tow a whale that’s lying on the bottom!”

“But I thought you were going to cut him up!”

“And boil down the blubber on board?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very seldom done now,” the captain explained. “In the old days, when whaling-ships went on three and four year voyages they ‘fleshed’ the blubber at sea and boiled it down or ‘tried it out,’ as they called it, into oil. They always carried a cooper along, too, and made their own barrels, so that after a long voyage a ship would come back with her hold full of barrels of whale-oil.”

“What’s the method now, Captain Murchison?” asked Colin.

“Nearly all whaling is done by steamers and not very far from the coast, say within a day’s steaming. We catch the whales, blow them out in the way you see the men doing now, and tow them to the nearest ‘trying out’ factory. These places have conveniences that would be impossible on shipboard, they get a better quality of oil, and they use up all the animal, getting oil out of the meat as well as the blubber. Then the flesh is dried and sold for fertilizer just as the bones are. The fins and tail are shipped to Japan for table delicacies. Even the water in which the blubber has been tried out makes good glue. So, you see, it pays to tow a whale to the factory. And besides, the smell of trying out on one of the old whalers was horrible beyond description.”

During this explanation the huge carcass of the whale had been distended to almost twice its natural size, and now it floated high out of the water. The steel tube was pulled out and a buoy with a flag was attached to the whale, which was then set adrift to be picked up and towed to the factory later.

Almost immediately the “tink-tink” of the bell of the signaler to the engine-room told that the ship was headed after another whale. The sea was rising and the wind was beginning to whistle through the rigging. Colin felt well satisfied that the canvas was stowed and that he would not have to go aloft during the night. The evening light, however, was still good enough for a shot, and Hank, at the bow, was swinging the heavy gun from side to side on its stand to assure himself that it was in good condition.

Owing to the approaching darkness, there was no time to wait for an exact shot, and Hank fired at the big finback on the first opportunity. The ship was rolling and pitching, however, and the harpoon, instead of striking the big whale, went clear over her and into the water beyond, crashing into the side of a little calf whale not more than sixteen feet long, the weapon going almost through him.

Apparently unconscious of what had happened to her baby, the mother whale sounded and sounded deep, not coming up for nearly twenty minutes. When she rose, she was at least a quarter of a mile away, and Colin, who was standing by Hank in the bow, wondered why the ship did not go in pursuit.

“Why don’t we chase her up?” he asked.

“She’ll come lookin’ for her calf,” the old whaler answered, “an’ as long as we stay near that she’ll come up to us. Lots of whalers shoot the calves a-purpose, makin’ it easier to get the old whales, but I don’t hold with that. I’ve never done it. Shootin’ this one was just an accident, but as long as the little chap is dead anyhow, we might as well make use of him.”

Just as the old whaler had predicted, in less than five minutes the mother whale spouted, coming in the direction of the vessel. In less than five minutes more she spouted again, just a little distance from the calf. Not understanding what had happened, she swam around as though to persuade the little one to follow her, and as she circled round the calf she came within range of the harpoon-gun. It was far too dark to see clearly, but Hank chanced a shot. The sudden roar startled Colin.

“Did you get her?” he asked anxiously.

“I hit her, all right,” the gunner answered with a dissatisfied air, “but not just where I wanted.”

The boy thought it wonderful that he should have been able to hit the monster at all, so small a portion of the body was exposed and so heavily was the Gull pitching. The whale, instead of sounding directly, dived at a sharp angle and the line ran out like lightning.

“What’s that, Hank?” asked Colin in a startled voice, pointing over to the water just below the little calf, which had been hauled in by hand alongside the ship.

“Killers, by all that’s holy!” ejaculated the whaler. “They’ll get every blessed whale we’ve landed to-day. Did you ever see such luck!”

“What are they after?” asked Colin, “the calf whale?”

“Yes, or any other of ’em. See, the mother has smelt ’em and knows they mean harm for the baby.”

It was growing dark and Colin leaned over the rail to see. Suddenly up from the deep, with a rush as of a pack of maddened hounds, ten or a dozen ferocious creatures, from fifteen to twenty feet in length, snatched and bit and tore at the body of the baby whale. A big white spot behind each eye looked like a fearful organ of vision, their white and yellowish undersides and black backs flashed and gleamed and the big fins cut the water like swords. The huge curved teeth gleamed in the reddened water as the ‘tigers of the sea’ lashed round, infuriated with lust for blood.

Then with a violent gesture of reminder, as though he had forgotten that which was of prime importance, Hank took a few quick steps to the rope that held fast the baby whale to the ship and cut it with his sheath-knife.

“What’s that for?” said Colin.

“Let’s get away from here,” Hank replied, and signaled to go ahead.

As he did so, the mother whale caught sight of the remains of the body of the little one sinking through the water and dashed for it. Colin could have shouted with triumph in the hope that vengeance would be served out upon the orcas, but he was not prepared for the next turn in the tragedy. Like a pack of ravening wolves the killers hurled themselves at the mother whale, three of them at one time fastening themselves with a rending grip upon the soft lower lip, others striking viciously with their rows of sharp teeth at her eyes. The issue was not in doubt for a minute. No creature could endure such savage ferocity and such united attack. The immense whale threshed from side to side, always round the vessel, which seemed still to carry to her the scent of the baby whale.

“Has she any chance?” the boy asked, full of pity for the victim of such rapacity.

“Not the ghost of a chance,” the whaler answered.

For a minute or two the whale seemed to have thrown off her demon foes and turned away, but scarcely a moment was she left alone, for up in front of her again charged five or six killers, rending and tearing at her head, and the whale, blinded, gashed in a thousand places and maddened by fear and pain, fled in the opposite direction.

Colin heard the captain give a wild cry from the poop and felt the engines stop and reverse beneath him. He cast one glance over the rail and like every man on board was struck motionless and silent. In the phosphorescent gleams of the waves churned up by the incredible muscular power of the killers, the old whale sixty feet in length at least, and weighing hundreds of tons was rushing at a maddened spurt of fifteen or even twenty miles an hour straight for the vessel’s side, where a blind instinct made her believe her calf still was to be found. There was a death-like pause and then a shock.

Almost every man aboard was thrown to the deck, and the vessel heeled over to starboard until it seemed she must turn turtle. But she righted herself, heavily and with a sick lurch that spoke of disaster. The ship’s carpenter ran to the pumps and sounded the well.

“Four inches, sir!” he called.

A moment later he dropped the rod again.

“Five and a half inches, sir,” he cried, “an’ comin’ in fast.”

It hardly needed the carpenter to tell the story, for the ship had a heavy list to starboard. In a minute or two the stokers came up from below and close upon their heels, the engineer.

“The water is close to the fire-boxes, Captain Murchison,” he said.

“I know, Mr. Macdonald,” the captain answered. “Boat stations!” he cried.

“I’m thinkin’,” the engineer said quietly, looking at the windy sky and stormy sea, the last streaks of twilight disappearing in the west, “I’m thinkin’ it may be a wee bit cold. Are we far from land, Captain?”

“We’re none too close,” the skipper said shortly. “Cook,” he called, “are the boats provisioned?”

“Yes, sir,” was the reply.

“Water-casks in and filled?”

Every boat reported casks in good condition.

“Sound the well, carpenter.”

The sounding-rod was dropped and the wet portion measured.

“Nine inches, sir.”

“You’ve got time to get what you want from below, boys,” said the captain, as soon as the boats were all swung out on the davits; “she won’t go down all of a hurry. Slide into warm clothes, all of you, and get a move on. Stand by to clear.”

He waited a minute or two, then noticed one of the sailors busy on deck.

“What are you doing there, Scotty?” he called out.

“Putting a buoy on the line, sir; she’s our whale.”

“Looks to me more as though the whale had us, than we had the whale,” the captain said grimly. “Are you all ready?” he added as the men came up from the fo’c’sle in oilskins and mittens. “No, there’s only fifteen of you!”

“I’m here, Captain Murchison,” spoke up Colin, emerging from the companion hatch with a heavy pilot coat. “I thought you’d need something for the boats, too.”

The captain nodded his thanks.

“Lower away the whale-boat first,” the captain said. “Never mind me, I’ll come along presently. Look alive there! That’s the idea, Hank! All right? Cast off. Lower away the big pram! All right. Get busy on that small pram, there. Here you, Gloomy, if I have to come down there ! All ready? Lower away. If you don’t manage any better than that you’ll never see land, I can tell you. Cast off.”

The Gull was rolling heavily with an uneven drunken stagger that told how fast she was filling, and the starboard rail was close to the water’s edge. The captain ran his eye over the boats and counted the men to see that all had embarked safely.

“Don’t bring her too close, Hank!” he cried warningly, as he saw the old whaler edge the boat toward him, and stepping on the poop-rail, he jumped into the sea. But the gunner, judging accurately the swell of the waves, brought the boat to the very spot where the captain had struck the water and hoisted him on board. Without a word he made his way to the stern and took the tiller.

The boat pulled away a score of strokes or so and then the men rested on their oars. The sunset colors had faded utterly but a dim after-glow remained, and overhead a young moon shone wanly through black wisps of scudding cloud. The Gull sank slowly by the bow.

“She’s one of the last of the old-timers,” said the captain sadly. “This was her seventieth whaling season and that’s old age for ship as well as man. I wish, though ”

“What is it, Captain Murchison?” asked Colin.

“Ah, it’s nothing, boy,” was the reply. “Only we’re foolish over things we love, and the Gull was all that I had left. It’s a dark and lonely death she’s having there. I wish ”

“Yes, sir?” the boy whispered.

“I wish she’d had her lights,” the captain said, and his hands were trembling on the tiller, “it’s hard to die in the dark.”

For a moment Colin had a wild idea of leaping into the sea and swimming to the sinking craft, and blamed himself bitterly for not having looked after the port and starboard lights at sundown, as he often did when the watch on deck was too busy to see to them. He would have given anything to have done it, rather than to have to sit beside the captain with his eyes fixed on the desolate unlighted ship! Boy though he was, he nearly broke down.

“Good-by, Gull, good-by,” he heard the captain whisper under his breath.

Then, as if the ache in the boy’s heart had been a flame to cross the sea, it seemed that a tiny spark kindled upon the sinking ship, and the captain, speechless for the moment, pointed at it.

“Is that a light, boy?” he said hoarsely, “or am I going mad?”

Like a flash, Colin remembered.

“It’s the binnacle, sir,” he cried; “I lighted it for the man at the wheel myself.”

Solemnly the captain took off his hat.

“It’s where the light should be,” he said at last, “to shine upon her course to the very end.”