The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries | Page 5

a column of mixed water and air, the roar sounding like steam from a pipe of large size.
"Stand by the line, Scotty!" shouted Hank, as he raised the clumsy harpoon-gun to his shoulder.
The sailor who had been standing near the barrel nodded, as he drew his sheath-knife from its sheath, holding it between his teeth, ready to cut the line should a tangle occur, but keeping his hands free to attend to the coils of rope. To Colin the seconds were as years while the old whaler held the gun raised and did not fire. It seemed to the boy as if he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the exact moment, and just as the whale was about to 'sound' the back heaved up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining that it was a devil-whale in truth; at that instant Hank fired.
With the sudden pang of the harpoon the whale gave an upward leap for a dive and plunged, throwing the flukes of the tail and almost a third of his body out of water, and sounded to the bottom, taking down line at a tremendous speed. The line ran clear, Scotty watching every coil, and though the heavy rope was soaking wet, it began to smoke with the friction as it ran over the bow.
[Illustration: WHALE HARPOON GUN LOADED AND BEING TURNED SO AS TO POINT AT THE WHALE.
Photograph by permission of Mr. Roy C. Andrews.]
[Illustration: FINBACK WHALE BEING STRUCK WITH THE HARPOON; THE INSTANT OF DISCHARGE.
A remarkable photograph, scores of plates having been used in the effort to catch the exact moment. Note the wadding in the air, the smoke, the head of the harpoon, and the slick on the water as the whale sounded.
Photograph by permission of Mr. Roy C. Andrews.]
"Fifty fathom!" cried Scotty, as the line flew out.
"Sixty!" he called a moment later, and then, immediately after,
"Seventy--and holding!"
As the pressure of the brake on the line tightened, the boat began to tear through the water, still requiring the paying out of the rope. For an instant it slackened and the winch reeled in a little line. There was a sudden jerk and then the line fell slack. Working like demons, the men made the winch handles fairly fly as the line came in, and within another minute the whale spouted, blowing strongly and sounding again. He sulked at the bottom for over twenty minutes, coming up suddenly quite near the boat. Scotty had lost no time, and not more than thirty-five fathom of line was out when the monster rose.
"He's a big un, Hank!" called Scotty. "Want the other line?"
"Got it!" was the brief reply, and Colin saw that the harpoon-gun had been reloaded.
"Sounding again!" called Scotty as the rope fell slack.
"No!" yelled Hank. "Stand by, all!"
Then suddenly:
"Back oars! Back, you lubbers! Hard as you know how!"
The oars bent like yew-staves.
"Back starboard! Hard!"
With the blood rushing to his brain, Colin, who was on the starboard side of the boat, threw his whole energy into the back stroke, and the boat spun round like a top into what seemed to be the seething center of a submarine volcano, for, with a roar that made the timbers of the boat vibrate, the gray whale spouted not six feet from where the boy was sitting. Dimly he saw the harpoon hurtle through the spray and the sharp crack of the explosion sounded in his ear.
Catching his breath chokingly, Colin was only conscious of the fact that he was expected to pull and he leapt into the stroke as the six oars shot the boat ahead.
Not soon enough, though! For, as the boat plunged from the crest of a wave the whale swirled, making a suction like a whirlpool into which the craft lurched drunkenly. Then the great creature, turning with a speed that seemed incredible, brought down the flukes of his tail in the direction of the boat, snapping off the stroke oar like a pipe-stem. Avidsen, the oarsman, a burly Norwegian, though his wrist was sharply and painfully wrenched by the blow, made no complaint, but reached out for one of the spare oars the boat always carried.
Colin was not so calm. Despite his courage, the shock of that tremendous tail striking the water within arm's-length of the boat had shaken his nerve, and the sudden drenching with the icy waters of Behring Sea had taken his breath away. But he was game and stuck to his oar. Looking at Hank, he saw that the old fighter of the seas had dropped the harpoon-gun and was holding poised the long lance.
This was hunting whales with a vengeance!
The monster had not sounded but was only gathering fury, and in a few seconds he came to the surface