The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries Part 9

"Why not?"

"He couldn't leave his own harem without getting into the next one.

Obviously!" the agent promptly replied. "And he'd have to fight that beachmaster. Evidently! And so on every few feet he went. Besides, the very moment his back was turned a neighboring bull would steal some of his cows. Certainly! Or, an idle bull would try and beat him out."

"Which are the idle bulls?" asked Colin.

"Those fellows at the back who came late or were beaten in the fight for places. They would charge down and take the harem, if he left it."

"Well, then, how does he sleep?"

"Doesn't sleep much," was the reply; "just little catnaps. Five or ten minutes at a time, perhaps. Light sleepers, too. If a cow tries to leave or an intruder comes near he wakes right up. Immediately! He's on the alert, night and day." The agent laughed. "Eternal vigilance is the bull seal's motto, all right!"

"But how can they stand it without food and without sleep?" Colin asked.

"That's over three months of fasting. And it isn't like an animal that's asleep all winter. It seems to be their busiest time, fighting and watching and all that sort of thing!"

"They live on their blubber," the agent explained. "In the spring they haul up heavy and fat. Can hardly move around they're so fleshy. It's the end of June now. You see! Many bulls are loaded with fat still. By the end of next month, though, they'll be getting thin. Some of 'em are like skeletons when they leave the rookeries in August. They'll fight to the end, though."

"But if they leave each other's harems alone," Colin objected, "I don't see any cause for a fight."

"The cows don't all come at the same time. Perhaps for six weeks there are cows coming all the time. Those beachmasters who have harems nearest the water want their family first and there's fighting all along the water's edge, then. Other cows have to make their way insh.o.r.e; any of the sea-catches may grab them. Wait a minute and watch. You'll see the scramble going on somewhere. There are two bulls fighting there," he added, pointing to a combat in progress some distance off, "and there's another--and another."

"Is that one of the new cows just coming in from the water?" asked Colin, pointing to the sh.o.r.e, where a female seal, quietly and without attracting attention, had landed near one of the large harems.

"Yes," the agent said. "Just watch her a while. You'll see how the fighting begins."

Moving quietly and slowly and making just as little disturbance as possible, the incoming seal made her way through and over the rec.u.mbent seals, keeping as far as she could from the beachmasters. Those huge monarchs of the waterside eyed her closely, but the harems were full to the last inch of ground and they let her pa.s.s, the cow seal remaining quiet as long as the beachmaster was watching, then creeping on a yard or two.

"She'll get caught by the next one," said Colin. "See, there's just about room enough in his harem for one more."

But the cow managed to make her way past, the old bull being engrossed in watching a neighboring sea-catch whom he suspected of designs upon his home. She had only succeeded in reaching a point about six harems inland, however, when a bull with a small group of only about twelve cows, suddenly reached out with his strong neck, grabbed her by the back with his sharp teeth and threw her on the rocks with the rest of his company. As the sea-catch weighed over four hundred pounds and the cow not more than eighty--the poor creature was flung down most cruelly.

"The brute!" cried Colin.

But for some reason the cow was dissatisfied with her new master and tried to escape. The old sea-catch made a lunge forward and caught her by the back of the neck, biting viciously as he did so, in such wise that the teeth tore away the skin and flesh, making two raw and ugly wounds.

Colin's indignation was without bounds.

"I'd like to smash that old beast!" he said, and if the agent had not been there to stop him the boy would have jumped over the low wall and gone to the a.s.sistance of the cow seal.

"That's going on all the time," the agent said. "You can't settle the affairs of ten thousand families. Not offhand that way. You'd be kept busy if you tried to fight the battles of every female that hauls up on St. Paul rookery."

"But see," cried Colin, "he's going after her again!"

This time the sea-catch was evidently angry, for he shook the cow as a dog does a rat and tossed her back into the very center of the harem, standing over her and growling angrily. The agent looked on tranquilly.

"There's going to be trouble," he said. "See that idle bull coming?"

He pointed to the back of the rookery, and Colin saw a sea-catch of good size, though not as large as the bull whose savage attack on the cow had excited Colin's resentment, come plunging down through the rookery with the clumsy lope of the excited seal. The cow squirmed from under the threatening fangs of her captor, but just as he was about to punish her still more severely, he caught sight of the intruder, and, with a vicious snap, he whirled round to the defense. The newcomer, though powerful, showed the dark-brown rather than the grizzled over-hair of the older bull, but while he had youth on his side, he was not the veteran of hundreds of battles.

Both stood upright for a moment, watching each other keenly, but with their heads averted, then the younger bull, with a forward movement so rapid that it could hardly be followed, struck downward with his long teeth to the point where the front flipper joins the body. It was a clever stroke, but the old bull knew all the tricks of warfare and turned the flipper in so that the teeth of his opponent only gashed the skin, and at the same time the old bull jerked his head up and sidewise, and sank his teeth deep into the side of the neck of the younger bull.

"He's got him, what a shame!" cried Colin, whose sympathies were all with the younger fighter.

The old sea-catch, paying no attention to the roaring and whistling of his wounded rival, kept his teeth fast-clenched in a bulldog-like grip and braced himself against the repeated lunges the other made to get free. There could be but one result to this and, with an agonized wrench, the younger bull pulled himself free--tearing out several inches of skin and leaving a gaping wound from which the blood streamed down.

But he was not defeated yet!

Facing his more powerful enemy, roaring unceasingly and with the shrill piping whistle of battle, the younger bull fairly swelled with exertion and rage until he seemed almost the size of his big foe, his head darted from side to side quick as a flash, and the revengeful, pa.s.sionate eyes--so different from the limpid, gentle glance of the cow seals--flashed furiously as the blood poured down and reddened the rocks around him.

Again it was the younger bull who took the aggressive and, after a couple of feints, he reared and struck high for the face, just grazing the cheek of the older bull and pulling out several of the stiff bristles on which his teeth happened to close, springing back in time to escape the double sickle-stroke of the sea-catch. The old bull roared loudly and sprang forward, getting a firm hold of the younger by the skin behind the muscles of the shoulders. But he was a second too late, for as he closed his grip, the smaller fighter shifted and struck down, a hard clean blow, reaching the coveted point and half-tearing the flipper from the body.

Undeterred by the injury, though the pain must have been intense, the old bull threw his weight upon the younger, bending him far over as though to break the spine. Seals cannot move backward, and the smaller fighter was almost overbalanced. Then, seizing his chance, the old beachmaster let go his hold upon the other's back and got in a crashing blow at the same point where he had torn open the neck before, this time sinking his teeth so far in that the muscle of the shoulder showed plainly, and an instant later, although there seemed scarcely time to strike a second blow, he swept down the body with his long, sharp teeth, catching the younger at the flipper-joint, and inflicting a wound almost exactly similar to that which he had received.

Quick as a flash, the younger combatant gave up the fight. But as he turned, instead of merely crawling away defeated, he made a sudden convulsive sprawl which the older bull was not expecting, and dug his teeth into the cow who had given rise to all the trouble, and lifted her bodily. The old beachmaster, his mane bristling with rage, made after him, but the younger bull, although he was forced to move on the stump of his wounded flipper, held fast to his prize, even when the victor inflicted a fourth fearful wound.

But before the old sea-catch could turn the plucky youngster, he saw two other bulls sidling towards his harem, intending to steal his cows while he was off guard, and he lumbered back to repel the new intruders. In the meantime, the young bull was attacked on his way to his own station by three other bulls near whose harems he had to pa.s.s, but he made no resistance and, though bleeding from a dozen wounds, he struggled on, leaving a gory trail in his wake, but gripping with grim determination the cow he had almost given his life to secure. When at last he reached his own station, he was a ma.s.s of blood from head to foot, his flesh was hanging from him in strips and one of his fore-flippers was dangling uselessly.

"He put up a plucky fight, anyway," said Colin, "even if he did get licked."

But it was for the poor cow seal that Colin felt the most sympathy. She lay upon the rocks where her second captor had thrown her, absolutely unconscious and seemingly almost dead, wounded in several places and covered with blood and sand, a wretched contrast to the pretty, gentle animal which the boy had seen emerge from the water not fifteen minutes before.

"It's a shame," Colin said, speaking a little chokingly. "I didn't know any animals could be so brutal."

The agent glanced at him quickly.

"The beachmasters are brutes," he said, "but mostly among themselves.

Notice. The bull isn't even licking his wounds. He's pretty well used up, too. They're always too proud to show that they feel their hurts.

Evidently! Even when they have been almost torn to pieces."

"Then you think he won't die?"

"Not a bit of it," the agent said cheerfully. "He'll be ready for another fight to-morrow."

"But how about the poor cow? She looks about dead now," said Colin.

"Not as bad as it looks! She's all right," his friend replied. "Those wounds don't go down into vital parts. They usually just reach the blubber. There isn't a sea-catch on the rookery that hasn't had from ten to twenty fights already this year. Most of 'em have been at it for several seasons. Yet you can hardly notice a scar on them. As for the mother seal, she will probably have a baby seal to-morrow. In a week the wounds will all have healed over. Cat may have nine lives, but a seal has ninety!"

CHAPTER III

ATTACKED BY j.a.pANESE POACHERS

"That's life on a rookery," the agent said. "Fight! Capture! More fight!

But the holluschickie are different. Let's go to the hauling-grounds."

"Is that where the killing goes on?" the boy asked.