"Wesharkoopsi was not expecting a fight at such close quarters, and he got badly rattled. Instead of throwing his harpoon he dropped it, yelled madly, and began to spit in the monster's face. It is needless to state that we never again took Wesharkoopsi walrus-hunting in a whale-boat.
"The others were shouting, swearing in English and Eskimo at Wesharkoopsi, the walrus, and everything in general; some were trying to hit the brute, others to back water.
"I was not eager just then to test the soundness of one arctic explorer's dictum: 'If a walrus gets his tusks over the side of the boat, you must not hit him, as such a course would induce him to back water and upset you; but gently grasp the two-thousand-pound monster by the tusks and drop him overboard'—or words to that effect. If this one had got his tusks a quarter inch further my way, he would have had them clear over the gunwale; so I held my rifle at port arms, stuck its business end into the visitor's face, and let him have it—which settled his account.
HOISTING A WALRUS TO THE DECK OF THE ROOSEVELT
"That walrus had tried to upset us, but almost immediately another one tried a new variation of the game, an almost successful effort to sink us—a regular dive-tackle.
"He was a large bull that an Eskimo had harpooned. He showed what he was made of by promptly attacking the float and putting it out of commission, then he proceeded to make off with the harpoon, float, and all. He happened to come near my end of the boat, and I shot at him; but whether I hit the mark or not I do not know. Anyhow, he dived, and while we were all looking over the side for him to appear, our craft was hit a tremendous whack by something under the stern—so hard that it upset the bosun, who was standing there peacefully sculling.
"Our friend was getting a little too strenuous; but he dived before I could shoot again, and came up fifty yards off. Then I hit him with a bullet, and he disappeared. Maybe we were not an anxious crowd in that boat for the next few minutes, as we knew that that submarine earthquake was due for another blow-up at any instant—but when and where! We stared at the surface of the water, to see if possible from what direction the next attack would come.
"One more such scrimmage as the last and we would be all in—both literally and metaphorically; for he had put a big hole through the bottom of the boat, and as she had a double bottom we could not check the leak, and one man had to bale rapidly. We always carried along a lot of old coats to stop holes in the boats, but in this case they might as well have been pocket handkerchiefs.