AN ADVENTURE OF JACK'S.
"What's that yonder, uncle?" asked Tom.
It was the morning after the adventure with the walrus and the
_Northerner_ was steaming steadily on toward Valdez, her next port of
call on her voyage north. At that place she would take on coal for the
final stage of her journey to St. Michaels near the mouth of the
Yukon, where the party would be left after the small steamer had been
put together.
Tom was a great boy to lean against the rail scanning the sea in
search of something that might prove exciting. He had been gazing
steadily against the far horizon for some minutes. Mr. Dacre hastened
to his cabin and came back with a pair of binoculars.
He raised them and looked fixedly in the direction that Tom had
indicated.
"It's a whale," he declared, "or rather a whole school of them, if I'm
not mistaken. They are dead ahead of us. If we keep on this course, we
shall run almost squarely into them."
He hastened off to inform the captain and Mr. Chillingworth while Tom
set out to find his chums. He found them in the wireless room
practicing on the key. At his news they speedily jumped up and joined
him in the bow.
Within an hour they came into plain sight of what appeared at first to
be so many giant logs rolling about in the sea. All at once, among the
"logs," which of course were the whales, appeared splashes of white
water. The leviathans swam swiftly here and there as though in fear.
"What's the matter with them?" wondered Tom.
"Maybe it's the ship's coming that has scared them," suggested Jack.
"It's the totem at the bow, mon," declared the Scotch boy solemnly.
The captain leaned over the bridge rail and shouted to them.
"There's a school of killers in among them."
"Killers?"
"Yes, the killer whales. They are the enemies of the other kind and
just naturally take after them when they meet. Watch close now!"
The boys needed no second bidding. Strangely fascinated by the
turbulent scene below, they leaned far out to watch the thrashing
water. It was a strange combat of the sea. The monster fish appeared,
in their panic at the advent among them of the killers, not to notice
the oncoming steamer.
"Look close now and you'll see tall, upright fins moving about among
'em," sung out the captain.
"I see them!" cried Tom. "Are those the killers?"
"That's what. Sea tigers, they ought to call 'em. They're as bad as
sharks," was the reply.
Mr. Dacre joined the boys. One of the biggest of the whales appeared
to be an especial target for the "killers." They pursued it
relentlessly in a body.
"Wow!" cried Tom suddenly, "look at that!" The big whale had leaped
clear out of the water, breached, as the whalers call it. Its body
shone in the sunlight like a burnished surface. They saw its whole
enormous bulk as if it had been a leaping trout.
"He's as big as a house!" cried Jack.
"I've seen houses that were smaller!" laughed Mr. Dacre; "your
bungalow, for example."
Down came the whale again with a splash that sent the spray flying as
high as the _Northerner's_ mast tops.
"How do they fight the whales?" Tom wanted to know, when their
excitement over this episode had subsided.
"They tear them with their teeth," replied his uncle. "They get round
them like dogs worrying a cat. They literally tear the poor creatures
to bits piecemeal."
"Looks like one of the whale hunts that old 'Frozen Face' here must
have had a hand in," said Jack. "Here, old sport, take a look for auld
lang syne."
He loosened the lashings that held the totem in place in the bow, and
while they all laughed, he tilted the old relic till "old Frozen
Face," as they called him, actually appeared to be gazing at the
conflict raging about them.
"See, the big fellow is acting kind of sleepy!" cried Jack suddenly.
"Yes, he must have got his death warrant," declared Mr. Dacre.
"Look! He's coming right across our bows!" yelled Sandy.
"Hey! Look out, captain, you'll hit him!" roared out Tom.
But even as he spoke, there came a heavy jar that almost stopped the
sturdy steamer. Her steel bow had struck the whale amidships with
stunning force. The craft appeared to quiver in every rib and frame.
The party on the fore deck, taken by surprise, went over like so many
ninepins. They recovered themselves in a jiffy.
"Goodness! Don't run into any more whales! You'll have the ship stove
in the first thing you know," cried Mr. Dacre. "I don't think----"
But a shout from Tom checked him.
"Jack! Where's Jack?"
"He was there a minute ago. By the totem."
"I know, but the totem has gone!"
"Great Scott, it must have gone overboard when that shock came and
carried the boy with it."
They darted to the rail where Jack had last been seen. The next
instant they set up a mingled cheer and groan. The cheer was in token
that Jack was alive, the groan was at his precarious position.
Clinging to the totem as if it had been a life buoy, the lad was
drifting rapidly astern, and toward him was advancing the mad turmoil
of waters that signified the battle royal raging between the killers
and their huge awkward prey.
As he saw his friends, the boy on the floating totem waved his hand in
a plucky effort to reassure them. He shouted something encouraging
that they could not catch. But the peril of his position was only too
plain.
Only a short distance separated the killers and their frightened
quarry from the drifting boy. Once in the midst of that seething
turmoil his life would be in grave danger.
It was a moment for action, swift and decisive. Within a few seconds,
although to Jack's excited friends it appeared infinitely longer, a
boat had been lowered and the steamer's way checked. This latter was
the more easy to accomplish for the huge carcass impending at her bow
had almost brought her to a standstill.
Manned by two sailors, the boat flew toward the imperiled boy. In the
stern, with pale faces, stood Tom and Sandy, side by side with Mr.
Dacre and Mr. Chillingworth. All carried rifles. Jack's position was a
grave one as the school of whales, pursued by their remorseless foes,
rushed down upon him. But those in the boat were in equal danger. One
flip of those giant tails or a chance collision, and the stout boat
would inevitably be sent to the bottom with a slender chance of its
occupants being saved.
No wonder that little was said as they rowed swiftly toward Jack and
that many anxious glances were cast at the waters astern, which were
boiling like a maelstrom as the huge bodies of the whales and their
foes dashed blindly hither and thither!