“Right you are!” was Eric’s answer, laughing the while.
The lad was really so overjoyed to see his brother on his legs again, that he went off into fits of laughter every now and then about nothing at all.
He could not contain himself!
Chapter Twenty Seven.
Sealing.
It was well on in the month of September—the spring of the year in South Atlantic latitudes—when the brothers commenced their crusoe-like life on Inaccessible Island; and, by the time that Fritz had recovered from the effects of his sprained ankle, so far as to be able to hobble about the place, it was nearly the end of October. This was the beginning of the early summer at Inaccessible Island; and, the season being but a short one, not an hour of it could be wasted if they wished to carry out to advantage the special purpose that had taken them away from the haunts of men.
The sealing season would soon begin; and, it behoved them to be ready for it, so that they should lose no chance of securing as many skins as they could get. The amount of oil they might procure from the boiled-down blubber was also a consideration, but only a secondary one in comparison with the pelts; for, owing to the market demand for sealskins and the wholesale extermination of the animal that supplies them that is now continually going on in arctic and antarctic seas alike, the pursuit is as valuable as it is more and more precarious each year—the breeding-grounds now being almost deserted to what they once were, even in the most out-of-the-way spots, the Esquimaux to the north and American whalers in the south having depopulated the whilom numerous herds.
The garden was the first point Fritz aimed for, when he found he could put his foot to the ground; and he proceeded thither slowly, with the aid of a stick to lean upon and with Eric “frisking round him,” as he said, just like old Gelert would have done!