“Well, I see we’ve a lot to learn yet,” laughed Tom. “What about guns and things for shooting the seals and bears?”
Cap’n Pem guffawed. “Lor’ love ye!” he exclaimed. “They don’t scarcely never shoot seals—jes knock ’em over the head same as we did them there sea el’phunts. But they’ll be guns aboard fer huntin’ musk ox an’ reindeer an’ b’ars, an’ a lot o’ ol’ muskets fer to trade to the Eskimos.”
“Well, we’re taking our own rifles,” said Jim, “but I don’t see any heavy clothes or overcoats in the stores.”
“Ain’t none,” declared the old whaleman. “Plenty o’ warm woolens an’ mitts an’ sea boots an’ sou’westers though. Don’ never take no overcoats along. Jes git fur clothes from the Eskimos. They’re a heap sight warmer an’ cheaper.”
So, with the boys constantly plying the old sailor with questions, and daily learning more and more about the outfitting and the coming cruise, the work of loading and storing the pile of supplies went on, until at last, to the boys’ amazement, the stevedores and sailors managed to find a place for everything.
Finally the final package was aboard. The Narwhal’s deck was littered, the cabin was choked with boxes, half the galley was filled with coal, and even the spare boats were filled with stores. Still the Narwhal showed plenty of freeboard and rode buoyantly on the water.
Then came trucks carrying huge rolls of new white canvas, a crowd of men swarmed up the rigging and over the yards, the great sails were bent on and stretched. The Narwhal was ready to start on her long cruise to the frozen north.
It only remained to get the crew together, and when the two boys finally stepped on to the schooner’s decks on the day of leaving, they felt as if they were once more aboard the old Hector. There was Cap’n Edwards, with his merry blue eyes, white hair and leatherlike face. Cap’ Pem stumped back and forth with a frown on his face and his old cap at a rakish angle on his grizzled head. Mike was bawling orders and punctuating quaint commands with his Irish wit, and Mr. Kemp, longer and lankier than ever, grinned at the boys with his mouth twisted by the ghastly scar received when his ship was sunk by a German U-boat. From the galley door, the ebony-faced cook bobbed his woolly head in greeting, and, with a mallet in one hand and wooden wedges in the other, the dried-up, chin-whiskered Irish carpenter was busy battening down hatches with the help of big, raw-boned Ole Swanson, the cooper. Even one-eyed Ned and deaf-and-dumb Pete were there, and so the only faces the boys missed from the Hector’s crew were those of the pop-eyed boy and the big gorilla-like black sailor.
“Why, you got all the old men back!” cried Tom delightedly, as he recognized one after the other. “Even Pete!”
Cap’n Pem grinned. “Yep,” he replied, “that there old fool Mike jes’ nat’rally did like ye told of him. But, arter all, they ain’t sech an all-fired bad lot o’ han’s, an’ they knows me and the skipper an’ Mr. Kemp, an’ ol’ shipmates is ol’ shipmates—spite o’ their bein’ mos’ly derelic’s. An’ I reckon Pete’ll be a sort o’ mascot—Eskimos is so dumb they allers thinks dummies is big med’cine an’ is supe’stitious ’bout ’em. ’Sides, we had sech everlastin’ luck las’ v’yage, mebbe we’ll be lucky ’long o’ this, seein’s we’ve got the hull crowd ag’in.”