About 1768 the Russian sea-otter hunters, who had discovered the Aleutian Islands, that wonderful chain of volcanic rocks that divides Bering Sea from the North Pacific, first noticed the annual migration of countless millions of fur-seals northward through the passes between the islands in the early summer, and southward in the autumn. For eighteen years they sought in vain to discover where these seals went to, and at length a Muscovite fur-trader named Gerassin Pribyloff solved the mystery. For three years he had braved the terrors of Bering Sea, cruising over its length and breadth in a little old sloop named St. George. At length on a certain July day, when the fog was so dense that it hid one end of his vessel from the other, he heard the roar of a vast concourse of seals, and at the same time there was wafted to him through the sodden air the unmistakable odor of their rookeries.
With the lifting of the fog Pribyloff discovered the group of rocky islets that bears his name to this day. The nearest or most southerly of these he named St. George, after his vessel, while a much larger one some thirty miles to the north he called St. Paul. Two other insignificant islets named Otter and Walrus complete the group.
From these islands, which are enveloped in fog for half the year, and lashed by winter storms during the remainder, comes to-day the bulk of the world’s supply of seal-skin. While they were owned by the Russians, the annual slaughter of seals upon them was something incredible, amounting to many hundreds of thousands. It sometimes happened that a hundred thousand skins would be cast into the sea and destroyed, in order to keep up the market price, and the utter extermination of the fur-seal appeared inevitable. Since 1867, however, when the Pribyloffs, together with the rest of Alaska, became the property of the United States, wise laws have so restricted the killing that the preservation of the seal herds is assured just so long as the laws can be enforced. Under these laws only one company, which pays handsomely for the privilege, may kill seals on these islands, and even it may only kill a specified number of young males between one and six years of age. Thus the old bulls, the females, and the pups are never molested.
On this little group of fog-enshrouded islands does the fur-seal breed, and to them the vast herds return year after year with the regularity of the seasons themselves. They arrive in June and depart in October, when they move southward into the Pacific, spreading themselves over all its limitless area, between the coasts of North America and Japan, but never landing or leaving the water until they again return to their chosen home in Bering Sea.
In their annual northward journey the seals divide into two great herds, one of which follows the North American coast-line, and the other that of Japan, keeping as close to shore as do the schools of fish on which they feed, which is anywhere from one to two hundred miles. During this journey they are harassed and pursued by what is termed “pelagic” or open-water sealers, both American, who outfit at San Francisco or Seattle, and British, who sail from Victoria. Heretofore these pelagic sealers, who are said to kill and lose from five to ten seals for every one that they obtain, and who annually bring in several hundreds of thousands of skins, have been unrestrained by law. For some years they hunted in the waters of Bering Sea, as well as in the open ocean. Finally the Americans claimed the exclusive control of the sea, and the British denied that they possessed the right to do so. While the question was in dispute, both parties agreed that Bering Sea should be closed to all pelagic sealers, and both nations maintained war vessels in those waters to capture or drive away any sealers violating this agreement. In 1893 the vexed question was settled by arbitration, that gave to the Americans exclusive control of Bering Sea waters within a radius of sixty miles of the Pribyloff Islands, forbade the killing of fur-seals in any waters between the first of May and the last of July, and prohibited the use of rifles in seal-hunting at any time.
As the year of our story was before that of this settlement by arbitration, Bering Sea was closed by law to all sealers, though certain of them still dared the risk of entering it for the sake of the rich prizes they might bring out if undetected by any of the patrolling war-ships. At the same time pelagic sealing was briskly carried on outside of the protected waters, and the north-bound herds were harassed on all sides by swift sailing-vessels and even steamers fitted out for their destruction. Some of these attempted to pass themselves off as fishermen, and as such ventured inside the forbidden limits, trusting to their disguise to protect them.
It was on board one of these pelagic sealers, owned in Victoria and clearing as a fisherman from that port, that Phil Ryder now found himself shipped as a hunter. In this position he hoped and expected to make a speedy voyage to Sitka, in Alaska, which was at the same time one of the very last ports in which Captain Duff would have cared to find himself under the circumstances.
Most of the foregoing information concerning fur-seals was imparted to Phil by Serge on the morning of the first day out, and before the lesson was concluded the former’s eyes were opened to many things. He had been awakened very early that morning by a startling crash, which for a moment caused him to imagine that the Seamew had struck a rock. At the same time the cabin was filled with the roar of Captain Duff’s fierce voice. Reassured as to the safety of the schooner, Phil smiled as he recalled Jalap Coombs’s theory of the necessary lung exercise indicated by the latter sound. The burly master of the Seamew seemed to have been entirely restored to his wonted state of mind by his night of seclusion, and to have decided to continue his practice of loud-mouthed bullying in spite of the surprising setback it had received the evening before. Consequently the moment he emerged from his state-room he glanced about him to see whom he might first devour. Just then the form of the schooner’s black cook, Ebenezer by name, who was called “Ebb” for short, and sometimes “Slack Ebb” or “Low Ebb,” as the nautical fancy of the crew suggested, appeared at the entrance of the narrow passage leading from the galley.
Snatching a plate from the table, and flinging it at the cook’s head to emphasize his remarks, the captain roared out a query as to why breakfast was not ready.