Jalap Coombs was triumphant. At the supper-table he boasted so tremendously of his protégé’s shooting, that although Phil could not entirely repress his happy smiles, he was forced to remain as silent as on the previous evening. Even Captain Duff congratulated him in his own rough way, and said that if this thing were kept up he would soon be obliged to allow his youngest hunter the same commission as the others.
At the same time Serge was the hero of the forecastle, where the mate’s crew, and Phil in particular, were praised to the full content of the young boat-puller.
For ten days longer this exciting business of seal-hunting on the high seas was continued, with varying success and in all kinds of weather. Occasionally a day, or at least part of one, would be fair and bright, but more often the sun was hidden by fog-banks or low-hanging clouds, while snarling squalls of wind and rain swept above the sullen waters. Once the sea was lashed into fury for twenty-four hours by so fierce a gale that the brave little schooner, hove to under a tiny storm try-sail and the merest corner of her jib, was taxed to her utmost to ride it out.
By the time that several hundred skins, of which a full third were credited to Phil’s gun, were safely salted away in the kenches, the seals suddenly disappeared. Jalap Coombs said that the schooner must be within one hundred miles or so of the Aleutian Islands, and that the game they had followed so far had doubtless passed through them into Bering Sea, where the reunited seal herds were by this time “hauling out” on the Pribyloff Islands.
“How I should love to see them there!” exclaimed Phil.
“Well, you’re not likely to have a chance on this v’y’ge,” answered Jalap Coombs, “and if ye did, ye’d be a long ways further from Sitka than ye be now.”
This set the young hunter to thinking seriously of his original purpose in taking this cruise. Of course he had often thought of it before, though not very seriously; but now he began to watch anxiously for the promised vessel, to which he and Serge might be transferred with a view to reaching their desired destination. Once he ventured to mention the subject to Captain Duff, only to receive the gruff reply:
“Ye don’t suppose I’m going hunting schooners just to set you aboard of, do ye? When we happen to hail one, I’ll see. Meantime you can keep right on earning the money I’ve already laid out on ye, besides what’s due for your passage.”
As at the lowest estimate Phil had already earned several hundred dollars, of which he was not to see one cent, he considered that his account with Captain Duff was more than balanced, which belief was equally shared by Serge.
One morning soon after this Phil was surprised to find the Seamew at anchor. He looked eagerly about for signs of land, but none were to be seen. “Where are we? and what are we anchored here for?” he asked of Jalap Coombs, who happened to be on deck at the time.