After reconnoitering the rock on which the two stood and peering at them from every angle, the old bull went back to his warm bed in the sand and was soon sleeping peacefully again.
One day several weeks later when Eiseeyou and Oumauk had occasion to visit an island nearer the mainland, where there were also young seals. They were much surprised to discover Whitie there ahead of them. He was lying in the lee of a rock and was eating something. As they came near, they discovered that it was a seal pup. So even this early he was plying the trade of a full grown polar bear, and killing the young seals.
Oumauk was very indignant and scolded Whitie severely, but Eiseeyou explained to him that this was the way of nature, that the larger fish ate the smaller, all the way down the scale.
The inhabitants of Eskimo Village always saw a great deal of the seals during their summers, so little Oumauk learned all about them. Some of this information he gleaned from watching them himself, but much of it was told him by his father.
He learned that the seals came to the rookeries to breed in May, when for a few weeks it was unlawful to kill them. But in June they were mating again, and each bull seal would select a dozen lady seals for the summer. During this season of courting, the male seals do not partake of any food, so when they finally swim away in October for the Southern seas the bulls are much emaciated and hardly to be recognized for the sleek fellows they were in June.
The seals were always watching the Eskimo fishing boats, and Eiseeyou told his son that they bothered the fisherman further south by taking their fish from the trollers, and also from the nets.
Although the seal is a bulky chap and swims clumsily in comparison to a fish, yet he will catch fish with ease when they could easily swim away from him if they only knew it.
The approach of such a monster seems to strike terror to the heart of the fish, and he falls an easy prey.