Presently, from the waist of the ship, came roars of laughter and good-natured shouts. The boys, glancing up, saw a number of the crew leaning over the bulwarks while others were hurrying to join the group.
“What’n tarnation’s up now?” exclaimed Cap’n Pem as with the boys by his side he hurried forward.
As they reached the crowd of men, Swanson straightened up from the rail over which he was leaning, took his pipe from his mouth and grinned under his big yellow mustache. With a humorous twinkle in his deep-set blue eyes he remarked, “Ay tank das cat bane come back.”
As the old whaleman peered over the ship’s side, his eyes seemed about to pop from his head, his jaw dropped and he stared down at the kayaks below as if he had seen a ghost. Perched on the rounded skin deck of one of the canoes was the black cat!
“Well, I’ll be everlastin’ly keelhauled!” ejaculated the old man and, as a roar of laughter rose from the men’s throats, he jammed his cap over his eyes and stumped aft.
But even the superstitious old whaleman could find nothing in the way of ill luck with which to blame the cat during the next few days. The Eskimos had quantities of walrus ivory, many fine skins and pelts and a goodly amount of whalebone on hand, and this was soon in the Narwhal’s hold while the natives were richer in calico, knives, iron, beads and matches than they had ever dreamed of being.
Old Pem fairly beamed, and he rubbed his calloused hands gleefully as he saw the bales, packages, and bundles being stowed. “Purty nice little nest egg,” he chuckled. “Nigh two thousand dollars wuth o’ stuff I reckon. Swan, if this keeps on if we don’t go sailin’ inter New Bedford full up.”
The boys were far more interested in the Eskimos and their village than in the skins and bone. They spent most of their time ashore, and with Mr. Kemp or Unavik as interpreters they learned much of the Eskimos’ life and ways. They watched them fish in the river, made friends with the Eskimo boys, played with the roly-poly children, and spent hours in the tents watching the women as they chewed the hides to cure them and deftly fashioned the skins and furs into garments.
“Gee, they use bone needles!” exclaimed Jim the first time he saw one of the women sewing a pair of moccasins, “and thimbles made of raw hide and threads of sinew. Say, I wonder how they’d like real needles and thread.”