“Didn’t I tell ye it’d blow a rip-snorter?” exclaimed Cap’n Pem triumphantly, as, with sails once more spread, the Narwhal turned back on her course. “I knowed it,” he continued, “drat that there cat!”
“B’gorra thin we’ll be afther havin’ foine luck fer the rist av the cruise,” declared Mike. “Shure, the poor puss is gone entoirely. Didn’t Oi see her with me own eyes—washed clane overboarrd whin the old schooner wuz afther thyrin’ for to do the lay-me-down-to-slape stunt back there.”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” cried Tom. “Couldn’t you save her?”
“Save her, is it!” exclaimed Mike. “Shure yez wuz there and ’tis well yez arre afther knowin’ ’twas a-savin’ av our own souls we wuz thinkin’ av—and divvil a bit av the cat’s.”
“Derned ef I ain’t glad,” declared Pem. “Mebbe we’ll be gittin’ on a mite better now.”
Mike grinned, winked an eye at the boys and, as he turned away, remarked, “Shure, ye ould croaker, Oi’d not be afther countin’ av me chickens afore they do be hatched, thin. ’Tis noine loives a cat does be afther havin’ and b’gorra by the same token she’ll be a-comin’ back and be a-drowndin’ eight toimes yit, loike as not.”
“Shet up, ye dumb fool!” shouted the old whaleman. “We’re consarned well rid o’ her.”
“Well, we’ve still four cats aboard,” Jim reminded him teasingly. “And two of them are black.”
Cap’n Pem glared at the boy and stumped off without another word.
Slowly the Narwhal beat back to the northward. Two days later she entered Rowe’s Welcome and came to anchor in the sheltered bay within a short distance of the shore. Close to the spot, near the mouth of a river, were a score or more of Eskimo skin tents, and upon the shingle at the river’s mouth were drawn dozens of kayaks. Before the Narwhal’s chains roaring from the hawse holes had roused the echoes of the hills, the Eskimos were paddling towards the schooner. At their first glance the boys saw that here at last were the Eskimos they had always pictured. Clad in garments of skin and fur they came scrambling over the Narwhal’s rail, laughing and grinning, copper-faced and slant-eyed, but far cleaner than those at Hebron or Disko, and with something about them which at once marked them as true primitive people untouched by civilization. Their spears, harpoons, and arrows were tipped with ivory or bone, their faces were tattooed and their garments were highly decorated with beads and skin embroidery.