The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries | Page 3

Greenland
an' in the Atlantic."
"What difference does that make?" queried Colin. "Isn't a whale the
same sort of animal all the world over?"
"There's all kinds of whales," the gunner said, as though pitying the boy
for his lack of knowledge, "some big an' some little, some good an'
some bad. Now, a 'right' whale, f'r instance, couldn't harm a baby, but
the killers are just pure vicious."
"You mean the orcas?" the boy queried. "Only just the other day
Captain Murchison was talking about them. He called them the wolves
of the sea, and said they were the most daring hunters among all things
that swim."
"Sea-tigers, some calls 'em," the other agreed, "an' they're fiercer than
any wolves I've ever heard about, but I never saw any of 'em attackin' a
boat. I have seen as many as twenty tearin' savagely at a whale that was
lyin' alongside a ship an' was bein' cut up by the crew. The California
gray whale--the devil-whale is what he really is--looks a lot worse to
me than a killer. He's as ugly-tempered as a spearfish, as vicious as a
man-eatin' shark, as tricky as a moray, an' about as relentless as a
closin' ice-floe."
"There she blo-o-ows!" came the cry again from the crow's-nest.
Hank, looking over the side, caught sight of the spout and, with a twist
of the shoulder, walked aft to the first boat.
"I'm going, too," Colin reminded him.

The old whaler looked at him thoughtfully and disapprovingly.
"Orders is orders," he said at last, "an' if the skipper said you could go,
why, I reckon that ends it. An' if you're goin' anyway, you're safer in
the big boat than in the 'prams.' Tumble in."
Colin clambered into the double-ended boat with its high prow and
stern and settled himself down excitedly.
"I never really believed I'd get the chance to see any whale-spearing,"
he said. "Whaling with a cannon is only a make-believe. Now, this is
something like!"
"Foolishness I calls it," put in one of the younger sailors. "Why don't
the skipper put in somewhere an' get the gun put to rights? An' Hank is
just as likely to fix that gun so as he'll blow some of us up with it when
he does get it goin'."
"Always croakin', Gloomy," said the old gunner. "Blowin' you up
would be no great loss. You'd ought to be glad to see what whalin' was
like when your betters was at it."
"I'm glad," said Colin, as he pulled steadily at his long oar, "that we did
wrench the gun-frame when that heavy sea came aboard."
"I don't see it," said the gunner; "mebbe you'll think presently that you'd
ha' done better to be satisfied with readin' about whalin' in those books
of yours."
"Well, it got me the chance to see the fun!" responded Colin.
"That wouldn't have been enough to start this business a-goin' if it
hadn't been that the Gull was an old whalin'-ship before they put steam
into her. The little bits of whalin'-steamers they build now only carry a
little pram or two, nothin' like this boat you're in now. The Gull's one of
the old-timers."
"She hails from New Bedford, doesn't she?"

"She took the Indian Ocean whalin' in the sixties an' came round the
Horn every season in the seventies," Hank replied; "an' there's not
many of her build left. Easy with that oar, Gloomy," he added, speaking
to the melancholy sailor, who was splashing a good deal in his stroke,
"an' avast talkin', all."
Swiftly, but with oars dipping almost noiselessly, the boat slipped up to
where the two whales were floating whose spouts had been seen from
the ship. The sea was tinged with pink from the masses of shrimp-food
which had attracted the whales, and the great creatures were feeding
quietly. The surface was not rough, but there was a long, slow roll
which tossed the boat about like a cork. Presently Hank, who was in the
stern, held up one hand.
"Hold your starboard oars," he said quietly; "we'll back up to this
largest one."
This near approach to the whales was too much for Gloomy's nerves.
Instead of merely holding his long sweep steady in the water so that the
stroke of the port oars would bring the boat around, he tried to make a
long backward drive. As he reached back, the boat mounted sidewise
on a swell, leaving Gloomy clawing at the air with his oar; then, the
boat as suddenly swooped down with a rush, burying the oar almost to
the row-locks; it caught Gloomy under the chin and all but knocked
him overboard. The splash and the shout distracted Hank's attention for
a second, and when he looked round a swirl