“I’ll be——” ejaculated the skipper. “Reckon you’re proud of yourselves. Whoppin’ big fellow, too. Give you a tussle, didn’t he?”
“Oh, not so much,” replied Tom nonchalantly. “But he had us scared. The line fouled and he towed us every which way and then went for us. And say, you ought to have seen Jim get him! Lanced him as he went scooting by the kayak full speed.”
“Darned lucky he did!” declared Mr. Kemp who had joined the group. “If he hadn’t the blamed critter’d have turned and drove his horn through that kayak and through you too, like as not.”
“Well, we didn’t know,” laughed Jim, “or we wouldn’t have tackled him. But I’m not sorry now. Just the same, we’ll know better next time. I’m not a bit anxious to catch another narwhal.”
“I don’t know as we really did, this time,” said Tom. “Seems to me the narwhal caught us and we didn’t have much to say about it.”
“H’lo!” exclaimed Unavik strolling up. “Ugh! me say bimeby you feller be big hunter. Gimme t’bac!”
CHAPTER XII
FROZEN IN
On the morning after their capture of the narwhal, the boys came on deck to find the weather completely changed. Above stretched a dull gray sky, great flakes of snow were drifting down, the land was already hidden under a thin coat of white and, at the first touch of the biting wind, the two dodged back to their cabin to reappear clad from head to foot in their Eskimo garments.