After nearly a week of practice with the harpoon the boys decided to commandeer a kayack each and try their luck at sea, along with the Eskimo hunters. Sipsa had begun to pick up some English words, and the boys had managed to master a little Eskimo, so that when the day came for their first try at hunting with a harpoon, there was more of an understanding between them and their Eskimo friend than there had been formerly.
A narwhal had been sighted several times in the vicinity of the seal herd, Sipsa said, and the boys took added interest in the hunt with the promise of such big game as a whale to lead them on.
“I’ll bet I get my harpoon into that narwhal before you do,” sang out Sandy, as they put off shore in the waterproofed kayacks.
“Well, if you do, it may be my lucky day,” Dick came back. “Those narwhals are mean fellows and if you don’t get them in a vital spot they can smash your kayack with their tail or long spear tusk and drown you.”
“I’ll take a chance on that,” Sandy replied, not quite so enthusiastically as he deftly guided his craft toward the hunters at work in the seal herd.
But the boys did not join in the seal hunt. For a time they amused themselves by running races in the kayacks which handled a good deal like canoes. Gradually they drifted further out to sea and away from the Eskimos, busily dodging icebergs and casting and recasting their harpoons into the water to accustom themselves to throwing from a rocking kayack.
About a quarter of a mile from the seal herd Dick paused to rest and to permit Sandy, whom he had outdistanced, to overtake him. The sea seemed to him particularly clear of floating ice at this point, he having noticed but one small fragment of ice about twenty feet ahead of him.
For probably a minute Dick watched Sandy paddling forward, and then he faced the front again only to receive a distinct shock. The low-lying berg had moved by some power other than the ocean current. Eyes widened, Dick watched what he had thought to be an inanimate piece of ice. His heart hammered against his breast. Again the ice moved, and this time it surged upward, the water seething and foaming about it. One glimpse Dick got of a white belly, a long pointed snout, and a huge slashing tail, and then the whole vision vanished in a whirl of waves that rocked his frail craft crazily.
Dick knew now that what he had thought to be a fragment of mottled ice, was the narwhal Sipsa had told them was haunting the vicinity. His hand tightened on his harpoon as he turned to shout the news of his discovery to Sandy.
“The narwhal! The narwhal!” cried Dick.