“Shoot!” cried Phil, forgetting all about the necessity for whispering. “Shoot what? Fish?”
“Shoot up, and stow yer jaw tackle,” growled the sleepy voice of the forecastle wit from an upper berth.
“Shoot fish! of course not,” whispered Serge. “You will shoot seals and sea-otter, if we have the good-luck to run across any. Oh! I am so glad you have got that berth, for I’ve been wondering and fretting over how you’d get along as a foremast hand; but now it will be all smooth sailing.”
“But I don’t understand yet,” protested Phil. “This is the first mention I have heard of seals or sea-otter. I thought this was a fishing schooner.”
“So she is,” replied Serge, a little impatiently; “but on this coast all fishermen are pelagic sealers as well whenever they get a chance, and they generally try to ship two or three good shots among the crew to act as hunters. The regular sealers, who go over on the Japan coast, fix for the business, and carry six or seven hunters. On this side, though, and especially if there is a chance of going into the sea, they generally clear as fishermen. It makes it easier to explain, you understand, if they happen to get nabbed by the cutters. We gathered in two or three hundred skins coming up the coast, and I heard Captain Duff say that if he could get hold of a first-class hunter he’d like to ship him. Strange that I never thought of you for that position, when I knew what a good shot you are, too. That must be why he changed his mind so suddenly about taking you along, for at first he declared he couldn’t think of such a thing. I do wonder, though, how he happened to know that you could shoot.”
Phil thought he knew, for he remembered the crowd of sailormen who were gathered about the shooting-gallery in Victoria the day before, and who had applauded his score; but he was too full of questions just now to waste time on explanations.
Where did people shoot seals and how? Out at sea or on land? With rifles or shot-guns? What did Serge mean by “pelagic sealers”? What did he mean by going into the sea? What did he mean by getting “nabbed”?
As our young traveller, to whom a new world of strange men, strange animals, and strange scenes was about to be opened, poured forth these questions concerning it, Serge, to whom the whole business of sealing was an old story, laughed.
“It would take several hours to tell you the whole thing,” he said, “and I’ve only two left in which to sleep before going on watch at midnight. So if, like a good fellow, you will turn in now, and restrain your curiosity till morning, I will then do my best to answer all your questions.”
Apologizing for his thoughtlessness, Phil accepted his friend’s suggestion; and making his way back to the cabin, took possession of the bunk Jalap Coombs had said was to be his. As he lay there listening to the gurgle of waters on the other side of the thin plank separating him from them, he could not help contrasting his present position with that of only twenty-four hours before, and marvelling at the wonderful changes that may be made in one’s surroundings, circumstances, and whole plan of life in the brief space of a single day.