Both boys roared with laughter as they tried on the suits while the Eskimos gathered about and joined in the merriment.
“Gosh, if you wear that and any one sees you, they’ll take you for a bear and shoot you,” declared Jim.
“And if they see you they’ll think you’re a new kind of walrus,” retorted Tom.
“Hello, been getting outfits, eh?” exclaimed Captain Edwards who now appeared. “But come along, we’re getting off within the hour.”
A dozen Eskimos had been obtained at the village, and in addition, the skipper had secured several bales of valuable furs, nearly two hundred pounds of walrus ivory, and a quantity of whalebone.
“Guess you’ll have a chance to hunt walrus, boys,” remarked Captain Edwards as the boat pulled towards the Narwhal. “We’ll run across to Baffin Island. These Eskimos tell me there’s a herd of walrus over about Cape Hewitt. Then we’re off for Hudson Bay, after dropping these chaps here again.”
“Well, if hunting walrus isn’t any more sport than sealing, I’ll not care for it,” announced Tom.
“You’ll find it very different,” the skipper assured him. “No knocking walrus over the head. Not a bit of it—they’re tough propositions and show fight. You’ll have all the excitement you’re looking for.”
A number of the Eskimos had come off to the schooner in their kayaks, some of which were large boats with double apertures in their skin-covered decks to accommodate two men. These were all hoisted on to the Narwhal’s deck, Mr. Kemp explaining to the boys that much of the walrus hunting was done by the Eskimos in their frail boats.
Once more under way, the Narwhal headed westward across Baffin Bay. As usual the lookouts were constantly searching the sea for whales. Tom and Jim, anxious to test their skill and having nothing else to amuse them, also went aloft and relieved the men, for Captain Edwards had already had a demonstration of the boys’ keen vision when on the Hector in the Antarctic. For a long time the two boys swept the broad expanse of sparkling water in vain. Here and there floating ice broke the blue-green surface, rafts of big eider ducks floated lightly on the waves, cormorants, gulls, and other birds sailed and wheeled about and occasionally a round black head, which the boys recognized as a seal, would break through the surface, stare curiously at the schooner and with a splash and a flirt of the back flippers, disappear in the depths. But no great, shiny, black expanse of glistening skin, no tiny fountain of spray, rose above the rippling water and the boys drowsed at their posts.