The main feeding-ground of the band of seals from which we take our animals is just off Moss Beach, and I was almost certain that I could get a sight of Nab there. Whether I should be able to tell him, floating among the other seals, with only a little, shiny head out of water, I had doubts; but I thought I could make him recognize me.
There was only one fact that made me hesitate about carrying out my plans, and that was the danger of swimming at Moss Beach. Father had warned me two or three times about the strength of the undertow there; but since my whole scheme depended upon getting out among the seals, and I was a good swimmer, I decided to run the risk.
Telling father one night that I should go off in the morning to fish from the rocks, I went early to bed, and was up next day by sunrise. With a hook and line and half the length of an old lasso, I was off for the rocks near Moss Beach.
As it was nearly low tide, I soon had a piece of abalone on my hook, and was fishing.
No seals were in sight, but I kept a sharp lookout for them as I fished. I had just caught a second shad—and it was something I had never done before, to catch a shad off the rocks—when the heads of half a dozen seals appeared on the swells to my left. More heads came in sight as I grabbed up my fishes and hastened to the sandy part of the shore.
I was in high spirits, for shad would tempt Nab as no other fish could. In less than two minutes I had my clothes off, the lariat knotted round my waist, and the short string that tied the fishes together between my teeth.
The seals were still where I had first seen them, out less than two hundred yards from shore.
I waded quickly into the water until the waves began to break over my head, and then swam. Before I had taken three strokes one of the fishes I held by my teeth began to lend assistance, jumping and splashing about so under my nose that I thought best to beat a retreat.
When I turned to gain shallow water again, however, I felt at once the strength of the undertow, which in my excitement I had entirely forgotten. I could make no headway against it until a couple of big waves came up from behind, and sent me far enough in to get a firm footing.
With confidence that my shad would give me no more trouble, I again turned to swim out. The water of the big waves that had boosted me in now began to draw me out in the undertow.