“More’n a little,” answered the mate, shaking his head and gazing into the remote distance, as he always did when referring to his late but still venerated friend. “Old Kite uster say: ‘When two friends has quarrelled, and is trying to make up without knowing jest how to do it, then watch ’em, for they ain’t responserble for their acts.’ Remembering this as I did, I naturally felt it my dooty to keep an eye on you two last evening, though it war my watch below, and some would have said I hadn’t no call to be on deck. Says I to myself, ‘There’s no knowing what they’ll do.’ Sure enough when I seed fust one plump overboard and then t’other, I knowed why I had been called, and acted according. S-s-t! there’s a holluschickie [young male seal] now!”
As the fur-seal when sleeping in the water lies on his back with his fore-flippers folded on his breast, and as, when in this position only his nose and the heels of his hind-flippers are exposed to view, it would be hard to say how even Jalap Coombs’s practised eye could distinguish a holluschickie, or bachelor seal, from a female, or even from a seecatch or old bull. His assertion was proved true, however, when this one was hauled into the boat, after a capital shot by Phil, and after Serge’s powerful strokes had taken them so quickly to the spot that the sinking body could be gaffed.
Phil was glad of this, for he hated to kill female seals, such a proceeding not being at all in accordance with his sportsmanlike instincts or training. He was often obliged to do this, however, for the pelagic sealer must shoot quickly if he is to shoot successfully, and without pausing to discover, even if such a thing were possible, whether he is firing at a yearling pup, a bachelor, a female, or an “old wig,” as the seecatchie or veteran bulls are called, on account of a patch of white hair on their shoulders.
As Jalap Coombs philosophically remarked, “They all count in the day’s catch, and numbers, not quality, is what we open-water fellows is after.”
The crew of the mate’s boat worked so well on this day, Phil shot with such quickness and precision, Serge rowed with such energy, and Jalap Coombs steered to such a nicety within range of the shy animals after they were once sighted, that before night a well-earned success had rewarded their efforts, and their boat was heavily laden with seal-skins.
Besides those they secured, many seals were shot at and missed, some were wounded and escaped, and still others sank beyond reach after being killed. Most of Phil’s shots were made at mere black points that appeared but for a moment on this side or that as the seals came to the surface for a breath of air, only to dive again almost immediately. The whole body was rarely seen, save when the seals were at play, when they would spring clear of the water with graceful leaps, like so many salmon. At other times they swam a few feet beneath the surface with marvellous swiftness, and if one were noted as he came up for breath, he was too far away to be seen when forced to do so a second time.
With all these difficulties to contend against, the securing of twenty seals by a single boat was considered by Jalap Coombs a capital day’s work, and as they approached the Seamew at sunset the heart of the young hunter beat high with the hope that he had at length scored more points than either of his rivals. Nor was he disappointed, though, when a dozen skins had been sent aboard, and no more were seen in the boat, a derisive laugh was heard from the schooner’s deck. When, however, Jalap Coombs began to hand out the rest of the skins, which he had purposely hidden beneath the sail, this laugh was not only silenced, but was changed into exclamations of astonishment.
Oro Dunn had brought in eighteen skins, and had boastfully declared that he was “high line” for the day, as no young sport from the East was likely to beat that score, or even come anywhere near it. When Phil’s twenty skins were counted out, Mr. Dunn retired to the cabin as crestfallen a seal-hunter as sailed the Pacific at that moment, and muttering unpleasant things about some people’s luck.
Serge said he ought to add “Brown” to his name.