A NARWHAL
Certain, now, through the chance discoveries of Dick and Sandy, that
Corporal Thalman was alive somewhere in the frozen land, the policemen
hastened to prepare for another venture into Mistak’s outlaw fastnesses.
The nearness of the polar winter, or period of complete darkness, also
served to hasten them in their work, for without the sun to light the
trail and under the terrible cold that accompanied the long night, they
could not hope to accomplish anything.
Two days after pulling into their base of supplies from their first long
and unsuccessful man hunt, the policemen once more set out in the
direction they had lost Mistak, leaving Dick and Sandy with plenty of
good advice and many precautions for them to avoid the dangers which
they had fallen into when first left to take care of themselves.
Dick and Sandy put in the first twelve hours following the departure of
the officers, in cleaning and oiling extra rifles from the supplies, to
replace those taken by Mistak, and in practicing with a harpoon. Sipsa
proved a willing teacher in the art of handling this death dealing
weapon effectively, and while the boys could not begin to equal the
accuracy of the life-time trained natives, they were attentive students
and soon became fair marksmen.
After nearly a week of practice with the harpoon the boys decided to
commandeer a kayack each and try their luck at sea, along with the
Eskimo hunters. Sipsa had begun to pick up some English words, and the
boys had managed to master a little Eskimo, so that when the day came
for their first try at hunting with a harpoon, there was more of an
understanding between them and their Eskimo friend than there had been
formerly.
A narwhal had been sighted several times in the vicinity of the seal
herd, Sipsa said, and the boys took added interest in the hunt with the
promise of such big game as a whale to lead them on.
“I’ll bet I get my harpoon into that narwhal before you do,” sang out
Sandy, as they put off shore in the waterproofed kayacks.
“Well, if you do, it may be my lucky day,” Dick came back. “Those
narwhals are mean fellows and if you don’t get them in a vital spot they
can smash your kayack with their tail or long spear tusk and drown you.”
“I’ll take a chance on that,” Sandy replied, not quite so
enthusiastically as he deftly guided his craft toward the hunters at
work in the seal herd.
But the boys did not join in the seal hunt. For a time they amused
themselves by running races in the kayacks which handled a good deal
like canoes. Gradually they drifted further out to sea and away from the
Eskimos, busily dodging icebergs and casting and recasting their
harpoons into the water to accustom themselves to throwing from a
rocking kayack.
About a quarter of a mile from the seal herd Dick paused to rest and to
permit Sandy, whom he had outdistanced, to overtake him. The sea seemed
to him particularly clear of floating ice at this point, he having
noticed but one small fragment of ice about twenty feet ahead of him.
For probably a minute Dick watched Sandy paddling forward, and then he
faced the front again only to receive a distinct shock. The low-lying
berg had moved by some power other than the ocean current. Eyes widened,
Dick watched what he had thought to be an inanimate piece of ice. His
heart hammered against his breast. Again the ice moved, and this time it
surged upward, the water seething and foaming about it. One glimpse Dick
got of a white belly, a long pointed snout, and a huge slashing tail,
and then the whole vision vanished in a whirl of waves that rocked his
frail craft crazily.
Dick knew now that what he had thought to be a fragment of mottled ice,
was the narwhal Sipsa had told them was haunting the vicinity. His hand
tightened on his harpoon as he turned to shout the news of his discovery
to Sandy.
“The narwhal! The narwhal!” cried Dick.
Sandy redoubled his efforts at the thrilling words, but Dick suddenly
had other business to attract his attention. For the narwhal had again
come to the surface near his canoe.
Holding his breath until the great mammal turned broadside to him, Dick
waited heedless of Sandy’s repeated cries for him to wait until he had
joined him. The right moment came as the huge, grayish body rolled with
the waves. Dick cast with all the strength of his right arm. The harpoon
darted across the water with a hiss, the coil of thong attaching it
securely to the kayack paying out after it. The cast had not missed. Not
far back of the head the heavy harpoon imbedded itself in the narwhal
and with a swiftness surprising in so cumbersome an animal, the great
body went into action.
The harpoon line had been tied securely to the kayack and as the narwhal
lunged forward, the stout thong tightened with a snap. Dick and the
kayack shot completely out of the water, and when the boat landed it was
traveling at the rate of about thirty miles an hour.
Grim and white-faced, Dick hung on. He could have severed the harpoon
line with a stroke of his keen hunting knife, yet this he did not intend
to do while the kayack still remained afloat.
Spray flying in all directions, the narwhal headed due northeast, toward
the open sea. Had it not been for the submarine-like build of the kayack
and the waterproofed jacket enclosing its passenger, the craft might
have sunk in the first hundred yards of that swift dash. As it was, Dick
experienced a sensation much like that felt by a bather riding a
surfboard which is being towed by a gasoline speed-boat.
Every minute during the breath-taking ride behind the harpooned narwhal,
Dick hoped the monster might either weaken from his wound, or change his
course and swim to a point where Sandy or the Eskimo hunters might lend
a hand in finishing the battle with their harpoons. If the narwhal took
a notion to dive, Dick knew all was lost, and his only means of saving
himself that of quickly severing the harpoon line.
Dick had almost lost hope and was about ready to cut the line, when the
narwhal changed his course suddenly. The line slackened as the huge gray
and black body propelling the kayack swerved in a shower of spray, and
doubled on its course. The kayack shot on by its own momentum, until
with a powerful jerk the line hauled it about. The sudden turn tipped
the kayack over as if it had been a feather, then the same force righted
it again, while Dick blew the water out of his mouth and nose.
Maddened by his wound, the narwhal seemed not to know or care where it
went. Like a mighty propeller his fan-like tail lashed the water to a
frenzy, as it headed straight toward Sandy’s bobbing kayack.
“Let him have your harpoon as he goes by,” Dick screamed to Sandy
through a cupped palm.
Sandy shook his harpoon in the air in reply, and Dick could see him
settle for a cast as he rushed on.
At first the narwhal seemed to be headed at an angle that would bring
him past Sandy’s kayack across the prow at a distance of about ten
yards, close enough for a good cast with the harpoon. But, less than a
hundred yards from Sandy’s kayack, the big mammal changed course
slightly, and with a hoarse shout of dismay, Dick saw that if the
narwhal kept on he would ram Sandy’s kayack squarely in the middle.
“Get out of the way!” shouted Dick frantically.
But Sandy was already making all haste with his paddle, and so well did
he handle his kayack that the rushing sea-giant failed to run him down
by several inches. As the big body whizzed by, Sandy made a quick throw
with his harpoon, but missed, his line dropping over Dick’s taut one,
narrowly escaping entanglement as Dick’s kayack collided with it.
“Hang on, Dick!” Sandy shouted as his chum shot past him. “You’re headed
straight toward Sipsa and the other hunters.”
Dick had already foreseen this and his hopes were rising when, without
any warning whatsoever, the narwhal dived. Had he gone far down Dick
would, no doubt, have been dragged under water and drowned before he
could slash free the harpoon line. As it was, the narwhal dived up and
down alternately, drawing the prow of the kayack under water with a rush
and bringing it up again with giddy speed.
Choking and gasping as the icy water trickled into his parka above the
waterproof covering on the kayack, Dick had almost given up hope while
blindly slashing at the harpoon line, when the narwhal ceased diving and
began darting this way and that over the surface of the water. Desisting
in his attempts to sever the line, Dick saw that the Eskimo hunters were
paddling fast toward him and that they would soon reach a point where
their harpoons could finish the narwhal.
Completely maddened by the pain of his wound, and the constant drag of
the kayack, the narwhal seemed to have lost all fear of man, for when
his short-sighted eyes caught sight of the Eskimo hunters he made
straight toward them, his great mouth wide open and revealing a
frightful toothless cavern under the long sword-like tusk.
But the hunters did not give way save to give the narwhal room to pass
between them. Seven harpoons impaled the narwhal as he dashed in among
the kayacks, and his speed was lessened by half. Soon the monster was
floundering about in a welter of blood, growing weaker and weaker.
As soon as the Eskimos had the situation well in hand, Dick cut away his
harpoon line and made all haste to paddle to shore. The icy water that
had splashed into his shirt through his hood was already numbing him
with cold. Before he got to shore his nose lost all sense of feeling,
then suffered a burning sensation as if it had come in contact with a
hot iron. Dick knew then that he had frozen his nose. Beaching the
kayack, he grabbed up his mittens full of snow and buried his face in
this frost absorbing application as he ran for the igloo and an oil
stove.
A half hour later Sandy burst through the round door of their igloo to
find his chum nursing a badly frosted face. Dick’s nose and cheeks were
as white as tallow and he was writhing with pain as the blood commenced
to circulate again in the frozen tissues.
“Gee, you got it bad, didn’t you,” Sandy sympathized. “But, say, when
you see that big narwhal laid out on the shore, you’ll think it was
worth it. It was sure game of you to hang on to that fellow when you
could as easily as not cut loose your line.” Dick smiled bravely through
his burning pains. “I don’t know as I deserve all that flattery, Sandy.
When that whale started to dive, I’d have slashed the rope if I could
have located it. But the water blinded me.”
The following day Dick’s face was well enough for him to go out into the
outside air, so long as he kept bundled up to his eyes. He walked down
to the beach with Sandy where the narwhal had been towed in.
Though not nearly so large as the common species of whale inhabiting the
seas further south, the narwhal was fully sixteen feet long, not
including the six-foot tusk of twisted ivory that extended from his
blunt nose, and must have weighed several thousand pounds. The Eskimos
had already begun to cut up the enormous masses of blubber and to
extract the whalebone from the jaws. Dick procured a small piece of the
bone as a keep-sake, though for the present his frosted nose was enough
to keep the episode in his memory for several weeks to come.
Dick felt that his face was in no condition for him to stay out long
that day, and so after the mid-day meal Sandy ventured out alone with
his rifle to see if he could not knock down a few eider ducks and gather
more of their eggs.
Sandy wandered along the sea shore in the direction of the cairn they
had erected near the meteorite. He shot two eider ducks and located a
dozen fresh eggs in the nests, which he collected in a leather bag. This
done, he walked down to the shore ice and sat down upon a lump, his feet
hanging over the lapping water.
He had sat there idly gazing to sea for about five minutes when he
noticed a queer object bobbing about in the water about twenty feet from
shore. It was dark and round, attracting Sandy’s curiosity immediately.
After considerable maneuvering he managed to fish it out with the muzzle
of his rifle.
What Sandy picked up in his hands was a large canteen or thermos bottle,
used on expeditions in the polar regions. It was covered with sodden
leather and evidently had been afloat for a long period of time.
Slowly turning the bottle over in his hands, Sandy found carved in the
leather this inscription:
“Look Inside
C. T.
R.N.W.M.P.”
An ejaculation of amazement and of triumph burst from Sandy’s lips, and
forgetting all about his ducks and eggs, he set out at a run for the
camp, the canteen hugged tightly under one arm.