“At first I hopped on Nomie’s island and hopped off again within an hour. Sometimes I took a bale of furs that I thought the other Indians had left there to be sold in the States or Canada. Gee—this story is stretching out and we gotta remember that tide.”
“It was going down,” Roberta told him.
“Yes, I know it. Well then I began to make longer stops and carry bigger loads, and after a while I happened to pick up a magazine with an article and pictures of the Pribilofs. It told about the seal fishing, how there used to be thousands of the beasts killed every year even at mating time. The United States bought the islands from Russia along with Alaska in 1867 and made laws to prevent the seals being exterminated. Before the war, 1911 I think it was, the United States, Japan, Great Britain and Russia made a treaty agreeing that the white men were not to do any more seal slaughtering. The Indians, because they don’t do it in such wholesale lots and because it means the only means of living to a great many of them, are the only people who can kill the migrating seals. They have to do it in canoes with spears or harpoons, can’t use guns or motor boats. It was a mighty interesting article, told how the seals start up in pairs from all over the country to raise their young ones.”
“Why sure, there’s a wonderful story Rudyard Kipling wrote called The White Seal. My mother read it to me when I was a kid, and I always loved it. The White Seal went to an Island called St. Paul’s.”
“That’s it. I liked that story too. Well, I knew radio as well as flying, so by and by I had to relieve the regular chap at that.”
“I’ve wondered if they have a radio.”
“They have, but it isn’t much of one. It’s just used for signals. While I was doing that I discovered that when the seals came up in April and all through the summer, a bunch of them were run through a sort of pen and killed. There aren’t as many of them coming up now as there used to be but the gang goes after them any old way and slaughters two hundred times more than the Indians bring in every season. It was while I was there that Wat was put in charge. I figured he was in the same boat with me; that he had been working for them for a long time before they let him get hep to what was going on, then they’d sunk him so deep he couldn’t do anything but hang on; besides he’s got a kid sister in Saranac trying to get a permanent T. B. cure and that costs a lot of money. I know because he asked me to drop down there one time and pay the bill—it was some bill, and I saw the kid, she’s only about thirteen years old.”
“That’s too bad,” Roberta said.
“Sure. Well, I’m free, white, and twenty-one, and when I figured I was signed up with a bunch of crooks I made up my mind to quit. I got a full-sized fondness for my Uncle Sam, been batting about other countries a lot, so while I don’t think the United States hasn’t room for improvement, it suits me right down to the ground, and I haven’t any hankering to end my brilliant career in a Federal prison while the guy I work for stays hidden and lets me hold the bag. First I thought Pollzoff was the head of the thing, then I heard Wat tell her where to get off at a couple of times for not obeying orders, but she’s got some money invested in the business so does somewhat as she pleases.”
“I wish she hadn’t picked on me,” Roberta said ruefully.