The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries Part 6

"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._]

"Pretty things, seals," said the boy.

"Where did you ever see any?" his friend queried.

"Oh, lots of places," Colin answered, "circuses and aquariums and places like that. I even saw a troupe of them on the stage once, playing ball.

They put up a good game, too."

"Those weren't the real fur seals," Hank replied; "what you saw were the common hair seals, an' they're not the same at all. You can't keep fur seals alive in a tank!"

"There are two fur seals in the aquarium of the Fisheries Building at Washington," interposed the captain, "but those are the only two."

"There!" cried the boy, pointing at the water; "there's one now!"

"You'll see them by hundreds in a few minutes, boy," the captain said.

"I think I make out land."

As he spoke, an eddy of wind blew aside part of the fog, revealing through the rift a low-lying island. Within a minute the fog had closed down again, but the glimpse had been enough to give the captain his bearings. The noise from the seal-rookery had grown deafening, so that the men had to shout to one another in the boat and presently--and quite unexpectedly--the boat was in the midst of dozens upon dozens of seals, throwing themselves out of the water, standing on their hind flippers, turning somersaults, and performing all manner of antics.

"Why don't we land?" asked Colin, as he noticed that the boat was running parallel with the sh.o.r.e instead of heading directly for it.

"Land on a seal-rookery?" said Hank. "Haven't you had trouble enough with whales so far?"

"Would seals attack a boat?" asked Colin in surprise.

"No, you couldn't make 'em," was the instant reply, "but I never heard of a boat landin' at a rookery. The row would begin when you got ash.o.r.e."

Gradually the boat drew closer to the land, as close, indeed, as was possible along the rocky sh.o.r.e, and then the land receded, forming a shallow bay flanked by two low hills on one side and one sharper hill on the other. The captain rolled up his chart and headed straight for the sh.o.r.e.

"St. Paul, I reckon," said Hank, as the outlines of the land showed clearly, "but I don't jus' seem to remember it."

"Yes, that's St. Paul," the captain agreed. "It has changed since your time, Hank. There has been a lot of building since the government took hold."

"Why, it looks quite civilized!" exclaimed Colin in surprise, as he saw the well-built, comfortable frame houses and a stone church-spire which stood out boldly from the hill above the wharf.

"When I first saw St. Paul," said the old whaler, "it looked just about the way it was when the Russians left it--huts and shacks o' the worst kind an' the natives were kep' just about half starved."

"It's different nowadays," said the captain as they drew near the wharf, putting under his arm the tin box that held the ship's papers. "The Aleuts are regular government employees now and they have schools and good homes and fair wages. Everything is done to make them comfortable.

I was here last year and could hardly believe it was the same settlement I saw fifteen years ago."

It was still early morning when the boat was made fast to the wharf, and Colin was glad to stretch his legs after having slept in a cramped position all night. The damp fog lay heavily over everything, but the villagers had been aroused and the group of sailors was soon surrounded by a crowd, curious to know what had happened. Hank, who could speak a 'pigeon' language of mixed Russian and Aleut, was the center of a group composed of some of the older men, while Colin graphically described to all those who knew English (the larger proportion) the fight with the gray whale, and told of the sinking of the _Gull_ by the big finback, maddened by the attack of the killers. He had just finished a stirring recital of the adventures when the other two boats from the _Gull_ loomed up out of the fog and made fast to the wharf.

Hearing that the only breakfast the shipwrecked men had been able to get was some cold and water-soaked provender from the boat, two or three of the residents hurried to their homes on hospitable errands bent, and in a few minutes most of the men were thawing out and allaying the pangs of hunger with steaming mugs of hot coffee and a solid meal. So, when the captain came looking for Colin that he might take him to the Fisheries agent's house, he found the lad--who was thoroughly democratic in his ways--breakfasting happily with the sailors and recounting for the second time the thrills and perils of the preceding day.

Rejoining the captain an hour or so later at the house to which he had been directed, Colin was effusively greeted by the a.s.sistant to the agent, a young fellow full of enthusiasm over the work the Bureau of Fisheries was doing with regard to fur seals. A natural delicacy had kept him from troubling Captain Murchison, but as soon as he discovered that Colin was interested in the question and anxious to find out all he could about seals, he hailed the opportunity with delight.

"I've just been aching for a chance to blow off steam," he said. "It's an old story to the people here. Obviously! I don't think they half realize how worth while it all is. I'm glad to have you here," he continued, "not only so that we can help you after all your dangers, but so that I can show you what we do."