“Is that what makes it so cold?” asked Jim.
“Yes,” replied the skipper, “a sailor can feel ice long before he sees it, and there’s enough ’round us to keep all the whales in the sea in cold storage for a million years.”
All through the day the Narwhal navigated slowly through the berg-filled sea. Throughout the night the boys were constantly aroused by shouts, the creaking of tackle, and the rushing feet of the crew as the schooner turned, and tacked, and picked her perilous course among the mountains of ice. But the next morning only a few distant bergs and scattered masses of honeycombed floe ice were visible, and before noon the gray shores of Labrador were sighted, with the little port of Hebron straight ahead.
To the boys it was a wonderfully novel experience to gaze shoreward at this out-of-the-world village in the Arctic. They cried out in delight when tiny, sharp-ended kayaks came dancing towards the Narwhal, with their Eskimo occupants paddling furiously. But as the tiny, skin-covered craft drew near, the boys were disappointed.
“Oh pshaw!” cried Tom, “they don’t look like Eskimos. They’re not dressed in furs, but are wearing dirty overalls and caps. They look like Chinese dressed up like whalemen.”
“Shure ’tis that they do!” agreed Mike, who stood near. “B’glory they do be wan an’ the same specie with the haythen Chinee, I do be thinkin’.”
“Ye’ll be seein’ plenty on ’em in hides an’ furs afore ye’re done,” declared Cap’n Pem. “These here boys is whalin’ han’s, an’ is sort o’ civ’lized. But ye don’t expect ’em to be a-wearin’ o’ a everlastin’ lot o’ furs in this hot weather, do ye?”
“Hot weather!” cried Jim. “I call it cold.”
The old whaleman chuckled. “Waall, by cricky, ye don’t know what’s a-comin’ to ye, then!” he declared. “This here’s midsummer; but come ’long an’ meet these Eskimo lads.”