They had a way of sticking their heads and necks straight up out of the sea which was slightly suggestive of men treading water. Their heads seemed small for their great bodies and with their big eyes, their beard-like mass of thick bristles about the nose, and their long ivory tusks they had a distinctly human look despite their grotesque ugliness. They lifted their multitudinous voices in gruff, barking roars like so many bulldogs affected with a cold. There must have been 10,000 of them. They paid little attention to the ship. Those on shore remained as motionless as boulders.
"Want to collect a little ivory?" Captain Shorey said with a smile to Mr. Winchester.
"No, thank you, not just now," replied the mate. "I want to live to get back to 'Frisco."
An ivory hunter among those tusked thousands doubtless would have fared disastrously. Walrus are famous fighters. When attacked, they sometimes upset a boat with their tusks and drown the hunters. They are dangerous even in small herds. Moreover they are difficult to kill. Their thick hides will turn a bullet that does not hit them solidly. Though slow and unwieldy on land or ice, they are surprisingly agile in the water and a harpooned walrus will frequently tow a boat at a dizzy clip.
The region about Cape Prince of Wales is a favorite feeding ground for the animals. The coasts swarm with clams, mussels, and other shell-fish upon which the walrus live. Thirteen varieties of edible clams, it is said, have been discovered by scientists about Cape Prince of Wales. The walrus dig these shell-fish out of the sand and rocks with their tusks, crush them with their teeth, eject the shells, and swallow the dainty tidbits. Their tusks serve them also as weapons of defense and as hooks by which to haul themselves upon ice floes.
We did not dare take chances in the boats among such vast numbers of these formidable creatures and soon left the great herd astern. A little higher up the coast we ran into a small herd numbering about a hundred, and Mr. Winchester, armed with his repeating rifle, lowered his boat to have a try for ivory.
When the mate's boat dashed among the animals they did not dive or run away, but held their ground, standing well up out of water and coughing out defiance. Long John darted a harpoon into one of the beasts and it plunged below and went scurrying away. One might have thought the boat was fast to a young whale from the way the line sizzled out over the bow. The walrus dragged the boat about half a mile, and when the animal again came to the surface for air Mr. Winchester killed it with a bullet.
But the blood and the shooting had thrown the remainder of the herd into violent excitement. Roaring furiously, the great beasts converged from all sides in the wake of the chase. By the time Long John had cut off the head of the dead walrus and heaved it aboard and had recovered his harpoon, the animals were swarming menacingly about the boat. Long John, who had been in such ticklish situations before, began to beat a tattoo on the gunwales with his sheath knife, at the same time emitting a series of blood-curdling yells. This was intended to awe the boat's besiegers and had a momentary effect. The brutes stood in the water apparently puzzled, but still roaring savagely. But they were not long to be held off by mere noise. Led by a monster bull, they rushed at the boat in a concerted attack. The sailors belabored them over the head with the sweeps. The mate pumped lead into them from his rifle. Still they came on.
When Captain Shorey, who had been watching the battle from the quarter-deck, saw how serious the situation was becoming, he grew alarmed.