"Riches," said Donegal. "If ye can catch wan often enough, and, by the token, the Americans who leased those islands yonder made more out av them than their Government paid the Russians for them and the whole of Alaska. How many years was they doing it, Stickine?"
"'Bout two years," said the Canadian. "There was more seals crawling round there then, but they got kind of tired of being clubbed and shot at."
"We don't know what a holluschack is yet," said Appleby.
"Well," said Stickine, "it's just a bachelor seal, so young that the bulls don't have no use for it hanging around, and that's why you find the holluschackie by themselves, which is fortunate, anyway, because it's only them one wants to catch. The cows go free—that is, mostly—and the bulls are that chewed up they're not worth killing."
"What with?" asked Appleby.
"Fighting," said Stickine. "The bull he comes up first and crawls out on St. George there, to look for a nice place for his cows to lie down in. Just as soon as he finds it another bull comes along and wants to take it from him. If he's got grit enough he hangs on to it, and when the cows crawl out of the sea the circus begins. Every bull has to fight for those that belong to him, and for six weeks anyway you can hear them roaring."
"I can't fancy that thing roaring," said Niven, pointing to the holluschack.
Stickine laughed softly.
"Well," he said, "when the bull stiffens up he can do most anything but sing, and you can hear him quite as far as a steamer's whistle. Time we were getting a move on, Donovitch."
The Indian said something the lads did not understand in the Chinook idiom, and they clipped the oars again. For an hour they pulled shorewards, and now and then the sound of a rifle reached them faintly, but the boats were seldom visible, for a filmy greyness was crawling across the sea. Once Appleby had a momentary glimpse of the schooner, a blur of slanted canvas against a patch of hazy sky, but she faded next moment and was not seen again.