“Hard luck, isn’t it?” said Joe, who noticed his excitement. “Tell you what, we’ll get ready for a strike ourselves. There’s likely to be more than one bowhead about, and we’ll get up some gear in case they want more of it. Here, Billy,”—this to one of the Kanakas on deck,—“get up a couple of tubs of that extra line.”
“There’s no knowing how soon we’ll want another boat away. I’ll get up another bomb gun and a supply of ammunition. Then we’ll be heeled, as they say in Frisco.”
Harry handled the bomb gun when it arrived,—a short, ponderous weapon of brass, clumsy indeed to one accustomed to handle an ordinary rifle or shotgun, but very efficient in the service for which it is intended. Joe showed him how it was used, and even loaded it, placing it carefully against the rail. The two boats, zigzag fashion, approached the whale through the floes, the captain’s much in advance, and finally came up with him. Cautiously they glided on till the bow of the foremost just grazed the black back. Then the harpooner, with a mighty thrust, sent the iron deep into the blubber, and the boat backed rapidly away.
“The gun missed fire! The gun missed fire!” shouted Joe excitedly; “they’ll lose him!”
So it seemed, for there was no sound of an explosion, only the welt of the whale’s flukes on the water as he sprang into action at the thrust of the harpoon. With this one great splash he went below the surface, sounded, as the whalemen say, and there was no sign of his presence except the two boats and the rapidly whizzing line as it ran out through the chock.
“They’re heading this way,” said Harry; and so they were, the captain’s boat standing bow on beside a floe, with the line whizzing against the edge of the ice, and the first mate’s men pulling with all their strength toward the ship. Then they heard the warning shout from the captain,—
“Watch for him, we’ve parted.” The rough edge of ice had cut the line, and the whale was free.
The bowhead’s chances for getting away were good. He would come to the surface again only for a breath, and then continue his flight to safety in the distant ice fields. But now came one of those happenings which prove how wise it is to be prepared for any emergency. Joe, in getting up that extra gear and the gun, had unwittingly saved the day. As both boys stood by the rail gazing toward the boats, there came a crash in the weak ice just alongside, a black bulk crushed up through it, and with a gasp like that of a steam exhaust a puff of vapor shot up right in their faces.
“There he is! There he is!” yelled Joe frantically; “give it to him!”