PHIL BECOMES “HIGH LINE”
Just as Serge uttered his terrified scream at the sight of what he
believed to be the schooner about to run them down, he gave a lurch to
one side that sent him clear of Phil and plunged him again beneath the
surface. The swimmer seized him by the collar, and at the same moment
was struck by something on the opposite side that he instinctively
grasped. It was an oar belonging to the boat into which Jalap Coombs
had slid as it towed astern of the schooner, and cutting the painter,
had come to their rescue. As from his position in rowing he was not
able to look ahead, he had not yet seen the lads, when a scream from
under his bows warned him that he was upon them. The boat had appeared
to Serge so suddenly and unexpectedly that to his bewildered eyes she
looked as big as the schooner, and he believed his own fate and Phil’s
to be sealed.
It did not take the chilled and dripping lads long to scramble into the
boat, for though they were so numbed as to be almost helpless, both
they and Jalap Coombs were such experienced boatmen that all three knew
exactly what to do. Relieved from the terrible strain under which they
had labored, they felt so weak that they would gladly have lain down
in the bottom of the boat; but Jalap Coombs said: “No indeed, ye’ll do
nothing of the kind. Set on that thwart, each take an oar, and row for
all you’re wuth to keep up a cirkerlation and get warm. Ef ye don’t,
I’ll have to turn to and give ye both the sound thrashing ye desarve,
though I was brung up a Quaker, and are opposed to fighting on gineral
principles.”
He spoke so sternly that neither of them dared disobey him, and so they
wearily rowed for all they were worth, which was very little indeed
just then, until the returning schooner picked them up, and willing
hands outstretched over her side drew them once more into safety.
In the meantime the lads, whose friendship had been sundered for a
little, only to be welded more firmly than ever by the death struggle
they had just shared, had exchanged a few broken but heartfelt
sentences as they sat side by side on that weary thwart, and now all
was again well with them.
Serge had said, “Oh, Phil! I shall never forgive myself!” And the
latter had answered: “You don’t have to, old man. If you will only
forgive me, it will be more than enough.” After that the mere touching
of their wet shoulders had proved comforting, and given assurance of a
friendship that neither of them believed could ever again be broken.
Youth and health can withstand almost anything, and so in the morning,
after a night between warm blankets, the lads were as fit as ever for
their day’s work. As they started out in their boat in pursuit of
seals, they felt none the worse for the experience of the previous
evening, which was already become a memory, and one not altogether
tinged with sadness. In fact, they were not inclined to regard their
adventure half so seriously as did Jalap Coombs. He said:
“Ef it hadn’t er been for me and old Kite Roberson, the _Seamew_ would
have lost two of her best hands.”
“We know what would have happened if it had not been for you,” replied
Phil, gratefully; “but what had Mr. Robinson to do with it?”
“More’n a little,” answered the mate, shaking his head and gazing
into the remote distance, as he always did when referring to his late
but still venerated friend. “Old Kite uster say: ‘When two friends
has quarrelled, and is trying to make up without knowing jest how to
do it, then watch ’em, for they ain’t responserble for their acts.’
Remembering this as I did, I naturally felt it my dooty to keep an eye
on you two last evening, though it war my watch below, and some would
have said I hadn’t no call to be on deck. Says I to myself, ‘There’s
no knowing what they’ll do.’ Sure enough when I seed fust one plump
overboard and then t’other, I knowed why I had been called, and acted
according. S-s-t! there’s a holluschickie [young male seal] now!”
As the fur-seal when sleeping in the water lies on his back with his
fore-flippers folded on his breast, and as, when in this position
only his nose and the heels of his hind-flippers are exposed to view,
it would be hard to say how even Jalap Coombs’s practised eye could
distinguish a holluschickie, or bachelor seal, from a female, or even
from a seecatch or old bull. His assertion was proved true, however,
when this one was hauled into the boat, after a capital shot by Phil,
and after Serge’s powerful strokes had taken them so quickly to the
spot that the sinking body could be gaffed.
Phil was glad of this, for he hated to kill female seals, such a
proceeding not being at all in accordance with his sportsmanlike
instincts or training. He was often obliged to do this, however, for
the pelagic sealer must shoot quickly if he is to shoot successfully,
and without pausing to discover, even if such a thing were possible,
whether he is firing at a yearling pup, a bachelor, a female, or an
“old wig,” as the seecatchie or veteran bulls are called, on account of
a patch of white hair on their shoulders.
As Jalap Coombs philosophically remarked, “They all count in the day’s
catch, and numbers, not quality, is what we open-water fellows is
after.”
The crew of the mate’s boat worked so well on this day, Phil shot
with such quickness and precision, Serge rowed with such energy, and
Jalap Coombs steered to such a nicety within range of the shy animals
after they were once sighted, that before night a well-earned success
had rewarded their efforts, and their boat was heavily laden with
seal-skins.
Besides those they secured, many seals were shot at and missed, some
were wounded and escaped, and still others sank beyond reach after
being killed. Most of Phil’s shots were made at mere black points that
appeared but for a moment on this side or that as the seals came to the
surface for a breath of air, only to dive again almost immediately.
The whole body was rarely seen, save when the seals were at play, when
they would spring clear of the water with graceful leaps, like so many
salmon. At other times they swam a few feet beneath the surface with
marvellous swiftness, and if one were noted as he came up for breath,
he was too far away to be seen when forced to do so a second time.
With all these difficulties to contend against, the securing of twenty
seals by a single boat was considered by Jalap Coombs a capital day’s
work, and as they approached the _Seamew_ at sunset the heart of the
young hunter beat high with the hope that he had at length scored more
points than either of his rivals. Nor was he disappointed, though, when
a dozen skins had been sent aboard, and no more were seen in the boat,
a derisive laugh was heard from the schooner’s deck. When, however,
Jalap Coombs began to hand out the rest of the skins, which he had
purposely hidden beneath the sail, this laugh was not only silenced,
but was changed into exclamations of astonishment.
Oro Dunn had brought in eighteen skins, and had boastfully declared
that he was “high line” for the day, as no young sport from the East
was likely to beat that score, or even come anywhere near it. When
Phil’s twenty skins were counted out, Mr. Dunn retired to the cabin as
crestfallen a seal-hunter as sailed the Pacific at that moment, and
muttering unpleasant things about some people’s luck.
Serge said he ought to add “Brown” to his name.
Jalap Coombs was triumphant. At the supper-table he boasted so
tremendously of his protégé’s shooting, that although Phil could not
entirely repress his happy smiles, he was forced to remain as silent as
on the previous evening. Even Captain Duff congratulated him in his own
rough way, and said that if this thing were kept up he would soon be
obliged to allow his youngest hunter the same commission as the others.
At the same time Serge was the hero of the forecastle, where the mate’s
crew, and Phil in particular, were praised to the full content of the
young boat-puller.
For ten days longer this exciting business of seal-hunting on the high
seas was continued, with varying success and in all kinds of weather.
Occasionally a day, or at least part of one, would be fair and bright,
but more often the sun was hidden by fog-banks or low-hanging clouds,
while snarling squalls of wind and rain swept above the sullen waters.
Once the sea was lashed into fury for twenty-four hours by so fierce
a gale that the brave little schooner, hove to under a tiny storm
try-sail and the merest corner of her jib, was taxed to her utmost to
ride it out.
By the time that several hundred skins, of which a full third were
credited to Phil’s gun, were safely salted away in the kenches, the
seals suddenly disappeared. Jalap Coombs said that the schooner must be
within one hundred miles or so of the Aleutian Islands, and that the
game they had followed so far had doubtless passed through them into
Bering Sea, where the reunited seal herds were by this time “hauling
out” on the Pribyloff Islands.
“How I should love to see them there!” exclaimed Phil.
“Well, you’re not likely to have a chance on this v’y’ge,” answered
Jalap Coombs, “and if ye did, ye’d be a long ways further from Sitka
than ye be now.”
This set the young hunter to thinking seriously of his original purpose
in taking this cruise. Of course he had often thought of it before,
though not very seriously; but now he began to watch anxiously for the
promised vessel, to which he and Serge might be transferred with a view
to reaching their desired destination. Once he ventured to mention the
subject to Captain Duff, only to receive the gruff reply:
“Ye don’t suppose I’m going hunting schooners just to set you aboard
of, do ye? When we happen to hail one, I’ll see. Meantime you can keep
right on earning the money I’ve already laid out on ye, besides what’s
due for your passage.”
As at the lowest estimate Phil had already earned several hundred
dollars, of which he was not to see one cent, he considered that his
account with Captain Duff was more than balanced, which belief was
equally shared by Serge.
One morning soon after this Phil was surprised to find the _Seamew_ at
anchor. He looked eagerly about for signs of land, but none were to be
seen. “Where are we? and what are we anchored here for?” he asked of
Jalap Coombs, who happened to be on deck at the time.
“Outer edge of the Shumagin Banks, and I s’pose we’re here to fish,”
was the brief answer.
They evidently were there to fish, and all hands were set at it as soon
as breakfast was over. With bits of seal blubber for bait, they hauled
in cod as fast as they pleased. Very soon a portion of the crew were
told off to split and salt these, while the rest continued to add to
the catch. By nightfall a sufficient number of fine large fish to suit
Captain Duff’s purpose had been caught, split, and salted away on top
of the seal-skins already packed in the kenches below-deck. His desire
for the valuable furs had only been increased by the successful issue
of his voyage up to this time, and he had determined upon a bold move
that would secure him as many more seal-skins as he already had if it
could be successfully carried out. He did not disclose his intentions
even to his mate, but merely ordered the anchor up at the conclusion of
that day of fishing, and laid a course to the westward.