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

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 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