He was not a good shot and knew it. He had wandered over the ice-floes of the ocean at times with a rifle under his arm, yet never before had he stalked a seal. Only the grimmest necessity could have induced him to do so now. There was something altogether too human in those bobbing brown heads as they appeared above the water or lifted to gaze about them on the ice. But now his need and the need of the dog demanded prompt action.
Two things made a perfect shot a necessity: The seal was sleeping beside his hole; if he was not killed instantly he would drop into the hole and be lost to the hunter. And this was the last cartridge in the rifle. The two birds had cost him four shots. The seal must be secured by his last one. There seemed a certain irony about a fate which would allow him to waste his ammunition on small birds, then offer him such a prize as this with only one shot to win.
He knew well enough how to stalk a seal; he had watched the Eskimos do it many times. Lying flat on your stomach, you cautiously creep forward. Every moment or two you bob your head up and down in imitation of a seal awakened and looking about. If your seal is awake, since his eyesight is poor he will take you for a member of his own species and will go back to sleep again.
Knowing all this, Phi had dragged himself a hundred feet across the ice, without disturbing the seal. Only fifty feet remained, yet to his feverish brain this seemed too great a distance. Seeing his seal bobbing his head, he bobbed in turn, then, when the seal had dozed off again, continued his crawl.
He had made another six yards when, with a sudden resolve, he slid the rifle forward, lifted it to position, glanced steadily along its barrel, then pulled the trigger.
There followed a metallic snap, then a splash, The rifle had missed fire; the seal had dropped into its pool.
For a moment the boy lay there motionless, stunned by the realization that he was still without food and was now powerless to procure any.
"Well, anyway it was luck for the seal," he smiled uncertainly. "It sure was his lucky day!"
Rising unsteadily, he put two fingers to his mouth and uttered a shrill whistle. From behind a towering ice pile, Rover, gaunt and miserable yet unmistakably a white man's dog, and, by his bearing, a one time leader of the team, came limping toward him.
"Well," the boy said, patting the dog, "it's hard luck, but we don't eat. It's harder for you than for me, for you are old and I'm young, but somehow—somehow, we'll have to manage. If only we knew. If only—"