“But what’s become of Mr. Kemp, do you suppose?” queried Jim. “Do you think anything’s happened to him?”
“Naw, I guess he’s jus’ been towed out o’ sight,” declared Nate. “Anyhow it’s every man for hisself a-goin’ arter whales. Reckon the Old Man kin see him.”
The fluke chain was now fast about the whale’s “small,” as the portion of the creature’s body near the tail is called, and the boat, fastened to it by the stout hemp line, rode as steadily and as easily as though moored to an island. The immense carcass formed a lee, and the oil oozing from his wounds, smoothed the water, making a broad “slick.”
“Purty good-sized critter,” commented Cap’n Pem, as he seated himself and lit his pipe. “Bet ye he’ll turn a hundred bar’ls, an’ nigh half a ton o’ bone. Put up a right smart fight though—blowed if he didn’t. Waall, boys, how did ye like the fun?”
“Fine, now it’s over,” laughed Jim. “But I admit I wished I was on the Narwhal a good many times while that old whale was thrashing around with his flukes.”
“Gosh, but he did come near smashing us!” cried Tom. “Just the same, I’m glad we were here, and that the first time we went in on a whale he was a fighter. Say, won’t the boys back home open their eyes when we tell them about this?”
“Oh, there’s the Narwhal!” exclaimed Jim, who had stood up and was gazing about. “And not a bit where I expected her to be.”
“Waall, if ye could ha’ kep’ track o’ which way was which, ye’d ’a been a heap sight better’n I be at keepin’ my bearin’s,” chuckled Cap’n Pem. “By heck, fer a spell I actooaly did think that there ol’ whale was a-goin’ fer to git the best on us.”
“Would have if ye hadn’t a-fetched him as we run over his back,” declared one of the men. “By glory, Cap’n, that was some stunt ye pulled off. But say, it mos’ made me split, a-seein’ of ye a-diggin’ that lance into the water like as if ye was a-spearin’ eels.”
“Shucks, that weren’t nothin’,” declared Cap’n Pem. “I don’ calc’late to miss a chanct even if the dumb critter do sound jes when I’m a-gettin’ ready fer to lance him.”