THE WALRUS HUNT
Hour after hour the _Narwhal_ sailed steadily on, and ever as she
proceeded, the floating ice and lofty drifting bergs grew larger and more
numerous. When the shores of Baffin Island at last rose above the sea,
the water was only visible as narrow lanes of green amid the wide stretch
of rough ice. How the schooner could ever get through the vast field with
its bobbing close-packed cakes and its towering bergs, was a mystery to
the boys. They watched intently as old Cap’n Pem, now in charge as ice
pilot, bawled out quick, sharp orders, and at his commands, the helm was
shifted, yards were swung and sails trimmed instantly as the _Narwhal_
tacked and turned and twisted and threaded her devious way through the
narrow leads. Often after the schooner’s passage, the ice, disturbed by
her wake, would drift across the channels, and soon the boys, looking
astern, could see nothing but the vast field of ice showing no sign of
the open water by which they had entered.
Here, too, the boys saw why the topsail schooner was such a favorite
with Arctic whalemen. To be sure, Cap’n Pem had already explained it to
them when they had first discussed the _Narwhal’s_ rig, but until they
actually saw it demonstrated they did not fully realize how handy the rig
was amid the ice. Often, as the vessel plunged forward along a narrow
lead, the passage would end in an impenetrable barrier, and the boys held
their breaths as the schooner seemed about to dash into the mass of ice.
But each time the old whaleman’s voice would roar out an order. The men,
ready at sheets and braces, would bend to the ropes and, as the huge
topsail yard swung about, the _Narwhal_ would slow down, hesitate, and at
the very instant the boys expected to hear the splintering of ice and the
crashing of shivered planking, the schooner would begin to move backward.
But at last the leads became so narrow, so tortuous and so choked with
ice that Cap’n Pem declared they could go no farther.
“Reckon we’d better be gettin’ out ice anchors, an’ lyin’ here till she
opens up,” he declared, addressing Captain Edwards. “Soon’s wind or tide
changes, the derned ice’ll begin ter move.”
“Humph, and take us with it, like as not,” responded the skipper. “Never
did see such a lot of ice ’long here this time o’ year. And time’s
flyin’. If she don’t open up mighty quick, we’ll have to put about and
make for the Straits or we won’t be a-gettin’ into the Bay this season.”
“Can’t you run in with the motor?” asked Tom. “Seems to me that’s easier
to handle than sails.”
“By glory! I must be gettin’ old,” cried the captain. “Say, Pem, what
sort of a’ ice pilot are you that you didn’t think of that?”
“How in tarnation’d I think o’ thet there contraption?” demanded the old
whaleman. “Fust time I ever wuz shipmates long o’ one.”
In a few minutes the motor’s exhaust was ringing loudly across the ice
pack, and under half speed, the schooner was cautiously feeling her way
through the zigzagging, winding lanes of water; bumping into floating
cakes, grating against the solid masses on either side, but each moment
getting farther and farther into the vast field and nearer to the gray
rocky coast. Presently, from the lookout came the shout of “Open water
ahead!” An hour later the _Narwhal_ was resting at anchor in a broad
expanse of open sea with only isolated grounded bergs and drifting floes
upon the surface. Seaward, the white barrier through which she had
passed stretched to the horizon to north and south.
Hardly had the schooner come to rest before the Eskimos were launching
their kayaks, and in a few minutes were darting away in various
directions.
“Where are they going?” asked Tom as he and Jim watched the skin boats
leave the vessel’s side.
“Lookin’ for walrus,” replied the captain. “When they sight a herd
they’ll come back and report and like as not get a few to bring along as
samples.”
“I’d love to be with them,” declared Jim. “I’m going to ask Unavik to
take us in a kayak some day.”
“Better start with a real boat,” advised the captain. “If you see a big
bull walrus rearin’ up his head and glarin’ at you with them red eyes of
his, and roarin’ and bellowin’ and heavin’ his tusks up and down, and
rushin’ at you like he’s gone crazy, you’ll be mighty glad you’re in a
whaleboat ’stead of a skin kayak.”
“Whew, are they like that?” cried Tom. “They look so big and clumsy in
the pictures and when they’re stuffed, that I didn’t suppose they could
really do much harm.”
“Wussedest critters I know,” declared Cap’n Pem, “and ye wouldn’t git me
fer to hunt ’em in them there cockleshells o’ kayaks, not fer nothin’.
With a good musket an’ a whaleboat ’tain’t so bad, but a bull walrus
ain’t to be sneezed at, lemme tell ye!”
“All the more excitement,” laughed Tom. “I’m just crazy to go after them!”
“Guess ye mus’ be crazy to wanter,” muttered old Pem. “But long’s ye’re
out fer to git adventure an’ own the consarned ol’ ship, there ain’t a
mite o’ use my tellin’ ye not to.”
Jim laughed. “You know perfectly well you wouldn’t let us go and neither
would Captain Edwards, if there was any real danger,” he said.
“There’s always danger on a whaler in the Arctic,” said the skipper,
“but you two boys know how to shoot and ain’t reckless, and Kemp’s an
old hand, and there ain’t any likelihood of your gettin’ hurt, in a good
boat.”
“But there’s that there cat——” began Pem.
“Oh nonsense!” interrupted Tom. “If we go, we’re going to take that cat
with us as a mascot.”
“Waall, fools _will_ rush in, ye knows,” muttered the old whaleman as he
stumped aft.
While waiting for the Eskimos to return with word as to the whereabouts
of the walrus herd, the boats were lowered, the masts stepped, guns and
other appliances and weapons stowed, and all prepared in readiness for
the hunt. At last, after several hours wait, the boys spied the kayaks
returning. As they drew near, Tom and Jim saw that the two leading craft
were towing some huge object. Grasping the glasses, Tom ran up the
rigging. “They’ve found them!” he cried out an instant later. “They’re
bringing in the ‘sample’ just as the captain said.”
“How they can get a walrus and tow him in with those kyaks gets me,”
declared Jim.
“Trust those boys to do it though,” said Mr. Kemp. “Why, they even get
big bowheads in kayaks. They can handle them canoes to beat all. I’ve
seen ’em flop clean over and come up a smilin’ t’other side.”
Tom laughed. “You must think we’re greener than we are, to swallow that,”
he declared.
The second officer grinned. “All right, I’ll prove it,” he announced, and
calling to a young Eskimo who stood near, he said something to him in the
fellow’s own language.
With a broad grin the Eskimo slipped over the schooner’s rail, settled
himself in the tiny craft, pulled the string of the lacing to the
circular opening about his body, and with a few strokes of his paddle
drew away from the _Narwhal_.
“Now watch him!” exclaimed Mr. Kemp.
Glancing up at the watching boys, the Eskimo waved his hand, gave a
sudden lurch to one side, and to the boys’ utter amazement, the kayak
capsized. The next instant they could see only the smooth rounded bottom
of the canoe.
“Oh, he’ll be drowned!” cried Tom. “He’s laced in and can’t——”
Before he could finish the sentence, the kayak had rotated, and scarcely
believing their eyes, the boys saw the craft bob right side up with its
swarthy occupant still grinning.
“Well, that _is_ a stunt!” cried Jim.
“Yes, I take it all back,” said Tom. “I’ll believe any yarn you tell us
after that.”
Over and over again the Eskimo performed the feat for the boys’ benefit,
and then, the walrus hunters approaching, he darted off and joined them.
As the kayaks came alongside, the boys looked with wonder at the enormous
creature they had in tow—a huge bull walrus, partly supported by
air-filled skin floats, and with gleaming white tusks nearly two feet in
length.
Swarming on to the schooner, the Eskimos all began chattering at once in
a mixture of broken English, Danish, and their own tongue, until Captain
Edwards threw up his hands in despair. “Here, Mr. Kemp,” he called, “come
and get this. I can savvy a bit o’ the lingo, but this is too much for
me. They’re worse nor a flock o’ poll-parrots!”
The second officer pushed his way through the group, uttered a few sharp
words in the Eskimos’ dialect, and instantly all ceased talking. Then,
turning to a man who appeared to be a leader, he asked him a question.
Rapidly and with sparkling eyes the fellow replied, and Mr. Kemp turned
to the skipper. “Says there’s a whoppin’ big herd of walrus over to
Lewis’ Inlet,” he announced. “’Cordin’ to him, must be pretty nigh two
hundred of the critters. Leastwise, he says ‘twenty pair of hands of ’em’
and that’s all the same as two hundred. Says they’re well up on land and
easy to cut off from water. They picked the bull up outside on a cake of
ice.”
“All right,” replied the captain. “Man the boats and get started. Guess
you’ll need pretty near all hands. Swanson’s been after walrus afore, he
tells me, and I guess Pem and Mike and two or three of the men can take
care of the ship. I’ll go along in one boat, you take another, Swanson
can take the third and—hmm, Mr. Chester, you’re to take the fourth boat!”
For a moment Tom did not realize that the captain was addressing him, and
then, as it dawned upon him, “Wha—what’s that?” he stammered. “You don’t
mean——”
“That you’re in charge of the port after-boat,” interrupted the skipper
with a twinkle in his eye. “You can take Mr. Lathrop as mate if you wish.
Might as well learn how to handle a boat now as ever.”
“Gee Whitaker!” exclaimed the dazed boy as he and Jim dashed to their
cabin for their rifles. “I’m as nervous as a cat! Of course I can steer
the boat—with the rudder and under sail; but I don’t know what to do when
we get to the walrus.”
“Oh, just do like the others do,” advised Jim. “Gosh, I’d like to have
your chance! Say, you’ll be a regular boat steerer next! Besides, Captain
Edwards will probably tell you what to do when we get near.”
But despite Jim’s encouraging words, Tom’s knees were shaky as he took
his place in the boat assigned him, slipped the rudder in place, and sat
waiting the captain’s order to cast off.
“When you get near the herd, spread out,” directed Captain Edwards, “and
go in as near the same time as you can. Pick the biggest bulls and aim
for the ear or neck close to the head. Take them that’s near the water
first, and if one of ’em comes for you, keep off and shoot him. Don’t
take no chances—a bull walrus can stave a boat’s easy as a egg shell.”
A moment later the boats were cast off, sails were trimmed, and the
little fleet went dancing across the calm sea, each boat towing several
kayaks with their Eskimo occupants behind it.
Nearer and nearer they approached the shore. The schooner was a mere
speck in the distance, and the captain’s boat, guided by a wrinkled old
Eskimo, swung more towards the south. Presently they passed a jutting,
rocky cape, about whose shores the drift ice was piled high, and entered
a tiny bottle-shaped bay. And at the sight which greeted them, the boys
exclaimed in wonder.
Everywhere upon the shingle and the grounded cakes of ice were the bulky,
dull-brown, clumsy-looking walrus. There were scores—hundreds of the
creatures. Giant bulls with enormous, wrinkled, warty-skinned necks and
gleaming ivory tusks; smaller, light-colored cows, and little seal-like
pups. The pups and cows were some distance from the water’s edge, the
younger bulls were scattered in groups near by and along the shore.
Resting on rocks or ice cakes with their tiny heads raised high, were the
old veterans of a thousand fights, the giant, scarred, elephantine bulls.
Instantly, as with one accord, sails were lowered, the kayaks were cast
off and, under oars and paddles, the fleet of boats and canoes swept upon
the herd. For a moment the bulls stared wonderingly at the unexpected
visitors. Then a low, growling, barking roar echoed across the bay. The
great creatures wheeled about to face the intruders and, shaking their
tusked heads threateningly, prepared to defend the cows and their young.
The next instant, rifles and muskets roared. The boys glimpsed several
big bulls as they swayed and sank lifeless. They heard the shouts of the
excited men, the shriller cries of the Eskimos, and then forgot all else
as their boat approached a gigantic bull walrus who had dragged himself
to the very verge of an ice cake, and was on the point of diving into the
sea. Taking careful aim, Jim fired; but at the very instant he pulled the
trigger, the boat lurched, his rifle wavered, and the bull with a roar
plunged with a tremendous splash into the water.
“Gosh, I missed!” cried Jim.
“There’s another!” screamed Tom. “Get him!”
Once more Jim’s rifle crashed out and a smaller bull sagged like an empty
sack upon the shingle.
“Hurrah!” cried Tom, and then his glad shout died on his lips and he
screamed a warning filled with terror. Within two feet of the boat—so
close he could have touched it with his outstretched hand—a great,
ferocious-looking head had burst from the water, the tiny, wicked eyes
gleaming like those of an enraged elephant, the stiff, horny whiskers
bristling, the two-foot yellow tusks dripping blood from a deep gash
across the forehead where Jim’s bullet had cut its way.
Wounded, mad with fury, the walrus reared its massive neck above the
water and hurled itself at the boat. Frantically Tom yelled. The men
seized the oars and struggled desperately to swing the boat. Jim hastily
reloaded and strove to shoot. But the boat was swaying and tipping to the
men’s efforts and Jim could not aim. Almost before they realized their
peril, the boys saw the maddened creature’s head raised above the edge
of the boat. With a tremendous blow, the long tusks came crashing down,
splintering the thwart, breaking the stout oak rail and bearing the boat
down to the water’s edge.
Instantly the men threw themselves to the opposite side of the craft.
With oars, clubs and whatever they could grasp they rained a shower of
blows upon the animal’s head, but they might as well have struck at a
helmet of steel. With blood pouring from the wounds, but not affected by
them in the least, the bull walrus lashed the water into a maelstrom
of froth, wrenched his head back and forth, bellowed with rage, and
swung the heavy thirty-foot boat from side to side and up and down as
though it were a thing of paper. Excited, rattled, terror-stricken, Tom
was paralyzed with fear, and neither he nor any of his men realized
that their antagonist was striving with might and main to tear free his
tusks wedged in the splintered wood; that, with his head thus held as
in a trap, he could not lift himself high enough to withdraw his tusks,
and that he was in reality almost as terrorized as the occupants of the
boat. Owing to some mistake, none of the old hands were in Tom’s boat.
Not a member of his crew had ever before seen a live walrus, much less
an infuriated wounded one. They were so thoroughly frightened by the
creature’s sudden and savage onslaught, that they completely lost their
heads.
Then, suddenly and with a wild shout, one-eyed Ned leaped forward, seized
a boat spade and, yelling like a fiend and holding the weapon as though
it were a bayonet, he plunged the keen-edged spade time after time
into the thick, wrinkled neck of the walrus. The sea turned crimson,
the walrus lashed the water into scarlet foam. Gradually his struggles
ceased, his eyes closed, and he lay dead, with his tusks still locked
over the boat’s rail.
But the danger was not over. The inert, heavy body tipped the craft until
every wave lapped over the side, and while several men struggled and
heaved and tugged to lift the creature’s head free, the others bailed for
their lives, but seemingly to no purpose. Not only was the buoyancy of
the boat pressing upwards against the weight of the walrus, but the tusks
were driven so firmly through the thwart that they were locked as though
in a vise. Each second it seemed as if the boat would fill and all would
be struggling in the icy water.
Their shouts and cries had attracted the attention of the other boats
and Swanson, who was nearest, had come racing to Tom’s aid. Before his
boat was alongside, the battle was over, however, and seeing the trouble,
the cooper and several of his men leaped into Tom’s boat and with their
weight on the upper side, the water ceased to come in. Then Tom, suddenly
remembering his responsibility, recovered his scattered wits. “Here!” he
shouted. “Get the handle of an oar under his head and pry him loose!” But
even with the stout handle of the heavy ash oar as a lever, the walrus’
head could not be budged.
“Get the hatchet and cut away the thwart!” ordered Tom. As the keen-edged
little ax cut through the splintered wood, the men heaved up on the oar,
and with a splash the animal’s head slipped over the rail into the sea.
Swanson stood up, pulled at his huge mustache, drew his pipe from his
pocket and commenced to fill it with a blunt, blackened forefinger. “Ay
tank you bane have close shave,” he remarked, as he glanced about. “By
yiminy, you bane pretty near cut das fellow head off.”
“I’ll say we had a close shave!” exclaimed Tom. “And if it hadn’t been
for Ned we’d all have been drowned or killed. Gee, I’d have hated to be
overboard with that beast. Ned was the only one who kept his head.”
The big Swede nodded approvingly, squinted his pale blue eyes and turned
his gaze curiously on the ex-soldier.
“Ay tank mebbe das glass eye he got more better as two some fellers got.
He bane gude fellow, Ned,” he declared gravely.
“Aw, forget it!” exclaimed the one-eyed veteran flushing. “I didn’t do
nothin’. The bloomin’ beast’s face was so darned like that of a Hun what
stuck his ugly mug into my dugout over there, that I plumb forgot myself
an’ went at him with a bay’net same’s if he was a Heinie.”
“Well, if that was a sample of the way you went after the Germans, I’m
sorry for them!” laughed Tom.
“Vell, Ay tank Ay bane goin’ back,” remarked Swanson as he scrambled into
his own boat. “Yumpin yiminy! Das bane vun big bull you get!”
Now that the excitement was over, the boys glanced about. No more
walruses were to be seen ashore. The rocks and ice were deserted save for
a half dozen dead bulls and a couple of badly wounded ones. A few cows
could be seen swimming some distance away. The other boats’ crews were
busy working at the kill. The Eskimos, however, were paddling furiously
about and the interested boys saw the forward man in the nearest kayak
lunge forward with his harpoon as a bull walrus broke water.
“Golly, if that fellow goes for ’em they’ll be sunk!” exclaimed Jim.
But the Eskimos gave the stricken and angry creature no chance. As with a
snort of rage he broke the surface and charged the kayak, the tiny craft
whirled as on a pivot, dodged the oncoming creature and, as it passed by
him, the Eskimo in the bow leaned over and drove a long lance into the
animal’s neck. Over and over again the maneuver was repeated. Fascinated
the boys and men watched this battle between the wounded, infuriated bull
walrus and the frail craft of skin, with its Eskimo occupants armed
with their primitive weapons. But, as always, brains and intelligence
triumphed, and presently the grinning natives were paddling toward shore,
towing the carcass of their victim behind them.