Although the long line of bidarkies of which Phil Ryder and his Aleut companion had started in pursuit were apparently moving very slowly, as seen from a distance of two miles, they were in reality skimming the water with swiftness and in perfect silence. Their occupants, while wielding their double-bladed paddles without a splash, and keeping the canoes well abreast of each other at intervals of a few hundred feet, maintained a keen watch for the slightest token of a sea-otter’s presence.
Suddenly one man makes a silent signal that is flashed in an instant along the entire line. He has caught a glimpse of one of the coveted animals apparently asleep. Although no word is spoken, and no sound comes from end to end of the little fleet, the sharp-witted animal takes the alarm almost at the moment of discovery, and dives like a shot to the very bottom of the sea, leaving only a bubbling wake to mark his descent.
A few powerful strokes bring the bidarkie of the discoverer to the spot. There it is abruptly halted, and the hunter holds his paddle aloft while the others skim over the water like a flight of birds, until they have ranged themselves in a great circle half a mile in diameter about him. The otter must come up to breathe within fifteen or twenty minutes, and when he does so some one of the thirty pairs of keen-sighted eyes so eagerly watching for him is sure to detect the act, even though he should show only the tip of his nose. A wild yell announces the discovery; the hunted animal again dives; another bidarkie, with uplifted paddle, marks the spot, and again the circle is formed. Thus the unfortunate otter, coming to the surface at shorter and shorter intervals, is made to dive and dive again, never being allowed to draw a full breath, until at the end of two or three hours he floats on the surface completely exhausted, and falls an easy victim to the nearest spear.
To an uninterested observer it is a pitiful sight to see a defenceless and harmless creature thus hunted to its death. At the same time the pursuit is possessed of the fascination that always attends the matching of human skill against animal cunning and powers of endurance. Then, too, there is the excitement of ever-present danger in thus venturing into the open sea, almost beyond sight of land, in such cockle-shells as Aleutian bidarkies. In that region of sudden squalls and fierce gales, dense fogs that settle over the water like vast smothering blankets almost without warning—huge whales and other sea-monsters that are always rising to the surface, and whose slightest touch would overturn a bidarkie as though it were a feather—the uncertainties of an otter-hunter’s life are many and constant.
Two surrounds and captures had been made by the hunting-fleet in which we are interested ere, some time in the afternoon, it was finally overtaken by the bidarkie containing Phil Ryder and his Aleut companion. They were just in time to participate in a third surround, every movement of which the white lad watched with lively interest.
This was the longest chase of the day, and the sun was disappearing behind an ominous-looking cloudbank before it was concluded. During its continuance there was no opportunity to communicate with the hunters. The moment the capture was effected the entire fleet was headed towards a distant island, barely discernible to the eastward, and was urged with all speed in that direction.
Under the circumstances there was nothing for our friends to do but to follow them, and it is doubtful if Phil could have induced Kooga to do otherwise even had he been so inclined. He was not, however, for he realized that it would now be impossible to regain their starting-point of the morning before dark. Besides, he had not yet gained the information concerning the schooner’s movements for which he had set out. So he must spend a night with the otter-hunters, and with the first streak of daylight he would set forth on his return journey to Oonimak and Serge.
“Poor Serge! what a lonely night this will be for him,” reflected Phil, remembering his own brief experience of the evening before. “It can’t be helped now, though, and I’m awfully glad it isn’t my fault.” In spite of this the lad’s conscience insisted on whispering, “You know you came out to see the otter-hunt rather than to gain information, for Serge could have done that much better than you.”
“Pshaw!” muttered Phil, “that’s not true, to begin with; and even if it were, what difference will a single night make, anyway? I guess Serge can stand it, for he is more used to such things than I am. Then, too, I am certain the schooner has not gone back yet, for she couldn’t have passed without me seeing her.”
When the little fleet finally made a landing by the last of the twilight, and after a wearisome paddle of many miles, it was on the small outlying and terribly rugged island of Saanak, the favorite haunt of the sea-otter and the point at which the bulk of the world’s supply of this immensely valuable fur is obtained.