The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries | Page 6

with a rush, charging straight for the boat.
"Stand by to pull," said Hank quietly.
The two forward oars, watching, dipped lightly and moved the boat a yard or two, then waited, their oars in the water and arms extended for the stroke. Colin would have given millions, if he had possessed them, to pull his oar, to do something to get away from the leviathan charging like an avenging fury for the little boat. But Hank stood motionless. Another second and Colin could almost feel the devil-whale plunging through the frail craft, when Scotty suddenly yelled,
"Pull!"
As Scotty yelled, Colin vaguely--for everything seemed reeling about him--saw Hank lunge with the long steel lance. The suction half whirled the boat round, but the whale sounded a little, coming up to the surface forty feet away and spouting hollowly. Even to the boy's untrained ear there was a difference, and when he noticed that blood was mixed with the vapor thrown out from the blowhole, his hope revived. The second rush of the whale was easily avoided, and Hank thrust in the lance again. Then, for the first time, the old whaler permitted himself to smile, a long, slow smile.
"That's the way it used to be done in the old days!" he said, with just a shade of triumph in his voice. "Pull away a little, boys, to be clear of the flurry. Have you a buoy ready, Scotty?"
The sailor nodded.
"There won't be much of a flurry, Hank," he said; "you got the lungs with the lance both times."
The old whaler looked at Colin, who was a little white about the lips.
"Scared you, I reckon?" he said. "You don't need to feel bad over that. Any one's got a right to be scared when a whale's chargin' the boat. I've been whalin' for nigh on forty-five years an' that's only the second devil-whale I've ever killed with a hand-lance. He pretty near caught us with his flukes that first time, too!"
"Guess that's the end of him," said Scotty, as the big animal beat the air with his tail, the slap of the huge flukes throwing up a fountain of spray.
"That's the end," agreed Hank.
Almost with the word the great gray whale turned, one fin looming above the water as he did so, and sank heavily to the bottom, the buoy which had been attached to the harpoon-line by Scotty showing where he sank, so that the ship could pick up the carcass later.
"How big do you suppose that whale was?" queried the boy as they started to pull back to the ship.
"'Bout forty-five foot, I reckon," was the reply, "an' we ought to get about twenty barrels of oil out of him."
"That ought to help some," said Colin, "and you see my coming didn't hurt anything. Just think if I had missed all that fun!"
"It turned out all right," the old whaler said, "but I tell you it was a narrow squeak. They'll have been worryin' on board, though, if any one has been able to see that we were hitched up to a gray whale."
"Isn't there any danger with other whales?"
"Wa'al, you've got to know how to get at 'em, of course. But all you've got to do is to keep out o' the way. There's no whale except the California whale that'll charge a boat. I did know one chap that was killed by a humpback, but that was because the whale come up suddenly right under the boat and upset it--they often do that--an' when one of the chaps was in the water the whale happened to give a slap with his tail an' the poor fellow was right under it."
Colin was anxious to start the old whaler on some yarns of the early days, but as the boat was nearing the ship he decided to wait for an opportunity when there would be more time and the raconteur would have full leeway for his stories.
"Forty-five-footer, sir," called Hank, as they came up to the ship. "Gray devil, sir."
The captain lifted his eyebrows in surprise, for he had not thought of a California whale so far north, but he answered in an offhand way:
"More sport than profit in that. Did you have a run for your money, Colin?"
"I certainly did, Captain Murchison," the boy answered.
"All right, tell me about it some time. Hank, you're on board just in the nick of time. I found out what the trouble was with the carriage of the gun and repaired it while you were amusing yourselves out there. Get in lively, now, there's work to do."
The men scrambled on board rapidly, and the boat was up in the davits in less than a minute, while the yards were braced round, and under sail and steam the Gull headed north.
"There's four whales in sight, Hank,"