The seal is still alive as he comes close. Papik stabs it with his long knife, and it ceases to struggle at last. The seal is a creature that clings to life a long, long time. He ties the seal to the stern of the kayak, rearranges his apparatus, coils his rope, puts his lances in their place, and is ready for another. If he is in luck, he may paddle homeward with four seals, and even more, in his wake.
If a storm comes before he gets to the shore, his watermanship is severely tested. He fights not only to bring his boat and himself through the tumult of the waters: he means to save every one of those carcasses wallowing along behind.
In the midst of his hard fighting with the waves, which turn him over and roll him about, as he stubbornly rights himself after each capsizing and hurls himself through the next curving green hillside of water, he comes upon a helpless comrade.
Ordinarily, the second man, Patuak, could bob up again and go on, like stalwart Papik.
But Patuak's jacket worked loose at the rim of the body-hole of the kayak. The water rushed in. Now he is water-logged. He will lose his boat, his seals, his life, unless Papik can save him.
Is Papik tempted to think only of himself and leave Patuak to his fate? If he is, it does not appear in what he does. He runs his kayak alongside that of his friend: he puts his paddle across both boats, and if he cannot bring in both kayaks, with such help as Patuak is able to give, he may even carry Patuak lying across the prow of his own boat.
It is easier to drown a seal than to drown an Eskimo.
The women stand on the rocks, shielding their eyes with their hands as they gaze eagerly seaward—just as the women of Nantucket stood on the roofs of the houses in olden times watching and waiting for the whaling-fleet.
At the first sign of the approaching hunters a cry goes up: "They are coming!"
Then they begin to count.