Lustily the men roared out the old chantey as the fore and mainsail sheets were hauled in, and the big foretopsail yard swung to the heave of the braces. Then, as the Narwhal turned towards the north and the freshening wind abeam buried her lee rails under the tumbling suds-like froth, the crew swarmed aloft. Presently the foretopgallant sail was thrashing and snapping like a battery of rapid-fire guns, as the men furled the canvas to the rousing chantey:
The schooner headed across the broad Atlantic, and darkness fell upon the sea. Monomoy Light was but a tiny twinkling star astern, and the boys felt their cruise had really begun.
The next morning was fair but almost calm. As the boys came on deck, they were surprised to see a score and more of trim schooners riding easily on the long ocean swell under light canvas.
“It must be a yacht club!” exclaimed Tom, “but I didn’t know they came so far to sea.”
“Fishing fleet from Gloucester,” said Captain Edwards, who heard Tom’s remark. “We’re passing George’s Banks. Don’t you see the dories yonder?”
“Oh yes, I do now,” declared Tom. “But why do they call it a Bank? I don’t see any land.”
“Waall, I swan!” cried Cap’n Pem. “To think o’ ye young scallawags a-bein’ navigators an’ owners o’ a torps’l schooner, and a-havin’ v’y’ged to the Sou’ Shetland’s, an’ not a-knowin’ on a fishin’ smack when ye sees ’em, nor a-knowin’ nothin’ ’bout the Banks. Lor’ love ye, there beint no lan’ here ’bouts ’ceptin’ straight down. Ye see the Banks is ’bout a hundred fathom deep, an’ that’s plumb shaller fer mid-ocean, so they calls on ’em Banks. Ain’t no ’cause to be skeert o’ runnin’ the ol’ Narwhal agroun’!”
“Well, I suppose we are awfully green,” laughed Tom, “but they never told us that in school when we learned about the ocean and the coast in physical geography, and I thought fishing schooners were dirty old boats.”
“Finest little ships afloat,” declared the skipper. “And just as fast as they can be built. Have to be to get the catch to market—price depends on the first to make port. Look there! There goes one of ’em now. She’s got a full catch an’s beatin’ it for Boston.”
As he spoke, he pointed to one of the schooners that had run a flag to her maintopmast head. As the boys looked, the schooner blossomed into a perfect cloud of snowy canvas.
“Gosh, look at her go!” cried Jim delightedly, as the trim black schooner heeled towards them until they could see the full sweep of her deck. With a mountain of foam about her bows, she fairly raced through the oily sea.
“And hardly enough wind to fill our sails,” added Tom. “Say, I wish the Narwhal could go like that!”
“And there goes another and another!” cried Jim. “Golly, it’s like a race.”
“So ’tis a race,” chuckled the captain. “With thousands of dollars to the winner.”
“Jiminy, I’d like to sail on those boats,” declared Tom as the schooners swept by with a hiss and roar. “It must be exciting.”
“Pesky hard work if ye asks me,” declared Cap’n Pem. “An’ no fun, come winter, I tell ye. By gum, I’d ruther be froze up in the Ar’tic.”
“And plenty of danger too,” added the skipper. “Hardly a week passes that fishermen are not lost on the Banks—though it’s on the Grand Banks more than here.”
“I don’t see what’s dangerous about it,” said Tom as they turned to go to breakfast. “Just coming out here in a fine schooner and fishing.”
“There’s not—on a day like this,” agreed Captain Edwards, “but in fog, the schooners or dories are often run down by steamers; the dories get parted from their ships and are lost, and in winter storms they are often swamped or driven to sea by gales. I tell you, boys, if you want to read exciting stories of heroism and hardship, just get the Gloucester papers and read ’em. Why, it’s worse than whalin’—almost.”
By the time breakfast was over, the fishing fleet was a mere group of flashing white specks astern, and the boats which had raced to port were out of sight.
Presently Cap’n Pem called Mr. Kemp and suggested that it was a good day to break in the green hands. For several hours the boys were amused by watching the frightened men, who had never before been to sea, as they were compelled to go aloft. It was a familiar sight to them for they had seen it day after day on the Hector but they could not help being sorry for the fellows, as the two whalemen forced the men into the rigging.
There was no actual brutality—although, judging from the words and looks of Cap’n Pem and the second mate, the men might well have thought they were ready to do murder if they were not obeyed. After a bit, the green hands were allowed to come down, the big yards were swung, the schooner was hove to, and for several hours the “greenies” were put through a grilling boat practice. This they thoroughly enjoyed, and they chaffed and jollied one another whenever they caught a crab with the huge ash oars, or made some similar breaks that brought down a fiery string of comments from the officers. But there was not a great deal of this drilling and breaking in, for the Narwhal’s crew was small and only a very few of the men were raw hands, the captain explaining that the bulk of the work on the “grounds” would be done by the Eskimos who could be taken aboard at Labrador or Greenland.
“Gee, it sounds funny to be talking about going to Greenland!” laughed Tom. “I can’t really believe it yet. How long should it take us to get there, Captain Edwards?”
“Impossible to say,” replied the skipper. “Depends on wind and fog and how much ice we find when we get to the Straits.”
“Oh, there—there she blows!” shouted Jim. “Off the port bow!”
Instantly all eyes were turned in the direction Jim indicated, and Mr. Kemp raced up the rigging. The next moment a dozen little fountains of spray rose above the green surface of the sea, and a number of the huge black bodies rolled sluggishly into view.
“Blackfish!” shouted Mr. Kemp.
“So they be!” echoed Cap’n Pem. “Don’t ye youngsters know whales yit?”
“Aren’t they whales?” demanded Tom. “They look like ’em to me.”
“No, blackfish-grampus,” declared the skipper. “But after all, they are a kind of whale.” Then, after a moment, he exclaimed. “Pem, let’s lower away and go after ’em. Good practice for the men, an’ blackfish ile’s worth takin’. There ain’t no wind an’ we won’t lose ’nough time to count.”
“Stan’ by to lower away the sta’board boats,” roared the old whaleman.
Then, as the yards were swung and the schooner came to a standstill, the boats were lowered, the men tumbled in, and to the pull of the six long ash oars in each, they went racing towards the school of blackfish.
To the boys’ delight, they were allowed to go after the grampus, for they had always longed to go in one of the boats as it dashed across the waves after a whale. To be sure “going on” the blackfish was not the same as attacking a monster cetacean. But it was the nearest thing to it, and both Tom and Jim thrilled with excitement as the ash oars bent to the brawny muscles of the men, and the keen-stemmed boat fairly leaped through the water.
Cap’n Pem was as excited as if he were after a real whale. Standing at the huge steering oar, with his hair flying, he shouted to the straining crew.
“Lift her, lads!” he cried. “Get in on the pesky critters! Don’t let that there swab o’ a secon’ mate git fust! Git arter ’em, ye lubbers!”
Forward the harpoonier or boat-steerer laid aside his oar and unsheathed a keen-pointed harpoon or “iron,” a lighter weapon than the one the boys had seen used for sperm whales. Bracing his knee in the clumsy cleat, he stood ready to strike the blackfish that were now but a few hundred feet distant.
Close behind came Mr. Kemp’s boat, his crew striving their utmost to reach the grampus in time to make a strike before the fish were frightened. Almost side by side the two boats swept upon the unsuspecting creatures.
Nearer and nearer the boat crept. The boat steerer raised his weapon, braced himself, every muscle taut, and was on the point of heaving the iron at a huge grampus a few yards ahead when Tom let out a terrified yell.
Within a few feet of the boat a huge, triangular fin had cut through the water and the next instant an immense body hurled itself into the air and, with a sweep of its stupendous tail, struck the water with a blow like a bursting shell, drenching the occupants of the boat.
“Thrasher!” shouted Cap’n Pem.
The harpoonier picked himself up from where he had stumbled, as the deluge of water almost drowned him. He poised his iron and glanced about. Not a grampus was in sight.
“Dern his everlastin’ hide!” yelled Cap’n Pem. “Look out! There, he’s a-comin’! Strike him, Nat!”
As the old whaleman spoke, the big fin again ripped through the sea and with a grunt the boat-steerer heaved his long weapon. The next second the water was lashed into foam, the heavy manilla whale line was rushing through the chocks like a streak of light, and the heavy boat was tearing through the sea at express-train speed.
“Fast!” screamed Cap’n Pem, as he tugged and strained at his big oar.
Then, “Breachin’!” he cried, as once more the immense creature flung itself clear of the water. The boys, dazed, frightened, and gasping, saw that it was a gigantic shark with an enormously long tail.
Hardly had the thrasher struck the water again when the line ran out a few feet. Suddenly it grew slack and the boat came to a standstill.
“Drew!” exclaimed Cap’n Pem. “Consarn it, reckon we might’s well go back. Nary mite o’ use a-tryin’ fer them blackfish now.”
Crestfallen, the men took to the oars and started to pull back to the ship.
“What is a thrasher?” asked Tom, now that the excitement was over.
“Kind o’ shark,” replied Cap’n Pem. “Biggest nuisance ever was. Jes rush in an’ thresh about and kill a lot o’ fish, and then gobbles of ’em up. That there consarn rascal was after them blackfish, though.”
“Whew, do they kill—Oh, look, Mr. Kemp’s boat’s fast!”
Sure enough, the second mate’s boat was rushing through the sea evidently towed by some creature, and a few moments later the boys saw the officer stand erect in the bow, poise his lance and lunge forward with it.
“Reckon we might jes as well pull over thataway an’ mebbe get a chanct to strike,” remarked Cap’n Pem, swinging the boat’s head as he spoke.
In a few minutes they were within hailing distance of the second mate’s boat.
“Did you get one?” yelled Tom.
“I’ll say so,” shouted back Mr. Kemp. “Come over here and bear a hand to tow this critter to the schooner.”
“Waall I’ll be sunk!” cried Cap’n Pem. “What’s the matter with thet there crew o’ yourn? Ain’t they got beef ’nough for to tow in a consarned leedle blackfish?”
The boats were now close together and the boys saw a huge black body rolling in the swell beyond the second mate’s boat.
“Blackfish?” yelled Mr. Kemp. “You’re a fine whaleman! What’s the matter with your eyes, Pem?”
But the old whaleman had now caught sight of the other boat’s kill and the expression that came over his weather-beaten old face was so ludicrous that the boys roared. His eyes seemed popping from their sockets, his mouth gaped and he looked as if he had seen a ghost.
“By the great red herrin’!” he ejaculated at last. “I’ll be everlastin’ly keelauled if ’tain’t a whale! An’ sparm at thet!”
“I told you they were whales!” exclaimed Tom triumphantly, as the two boats drew side by side, and the men busied themselves getting tow lines fast to the dead whale.
“They wasn’t,” declared Cap’n Pem, “jes or’nary blackfish.”
“But this is a whale,” argued Tom.
“Jes dumb luck o’ Mr. Kemp,” replied the old whaleman. “Jes happened to be ’long o’ them there grampuses. An’ ’tain’t much o’ a whale neither—jes a baby.”
“Well it’s just our luck to be in the boat that didn’t get the whale,” lamented Jim. “Did you have much of a tussle, Mr. Kemp?”
“Nothin’ worth while,” responded the second officer. “Towed us a bit and died with nary a flurry.”
“I didn’t know they had sperm whales ’way up here,” said Tom, as the crews bent to their oars with the whale in tow.
“Don’t, so everlastin’ly often,” Cap’n Pem told him. “Come warm weather, they swims in by the Banks now an’ ag’in—that is, sparm do—an’ times gone there used to was a powerful lot o’ Biscay whales ’roun’ about the New Englan’ coast. Yes, sir, I recollec’ when a ship could v’yage out o’ New Bedford or Nantucket an’ fill up with Biscay ile an’ bone inside o’ six weeks.”
The schooner had now caught a light wind and was bearing down upon the boats. A few moments later, the whale was alongside and the two boats had been hoisted to the davits. Then followed the dirty, busy work of cutting in and boiling, with all of which the boys were familiar from their cruise in the Antarctic. But the whale, as Cap’n Pem had said, was scarcely more than a baby. The work was all over before midnight, with twenty barrels of oil stowed in the schooner’s hold.
“Pretty good beginning—for three days out of port,” chuckled Captain Edwards. “I reckon you boys—ahem, owners—must be mascots. Just hope the luck holds all through.”
“Well, there won’t be any bo’sun birds to bring bad luck, anyway,” laughed Jim. “Although I suppose there must be some bad omen even up here or sailors wouldn’t be satisfied.”
“Plenty on ’em,” declared Cap’n Pem. “But don’t go to talkin’ an’ a-bringin’ o’ it on. Ain’t it bad ’nough to have that there black cat aboard—an’ nary a dod-gasted soul a-knowin’ where she come from?”
The boys roared. “I knew you’d find something,” cried Tom. “Why, I thought the cat belonged to the crew. Why don’t you kill her or something if she’s such bad luck?”
“Kill her!” exclaimed the old man. “By the eternal, don’t ye know no more’n thet? Ye mought jes as well kill a Mother Cary’s chicken or a bo’sun bird. No sirree! Let good enough alone’s my motter.”
“Well, you are the most superstitious old whaleman I ever saw,” laughed Tom. “I’ll bet the cat’s what brought the good luck.”
Cap’n Pem snorted. “Ye mark my words,” he muttered as he strode aft. “We’ll be gittin’ inter some sort o’ mess long o’ that there cat yit.”
But for the next three or four days none on the Narwhal could have asked for better weather. The breeze, though light, was fair and steady. The sea ran in long, easy swells and the schooner, curtseying gently and with every stitch of canvas set, pressed steadily on her course.
Then one night the boys were awakened by the tolling of a bell and the ear-splitting screech of a horn. Hastily throwing on a few clothes, they hurried on deck.
At the first glance about they realized what the trouble was. The man at the wheel was barely visible, although less than a dozen feet distant. The faint light of the binnacle was a mere glow and the sails, spars, and forward part of the vessel melted into nothingness. The Narwhal was enveloped in a dense fog.
From the unseen bows of the ship came the monotonous tolling of the bell. At intervals the raucous horn screeched from the blanket of gray mist. Borne in strangely ghostly fashion from the blackness, came the voices of men.
Tom glanced at his watch and found that it was nearly sunrise but nowhere was there a hint of light or of dawn.
“Gosh, but it’s thick!” exclaimed Tom. “I wonder where we are.”
“Where I wish we wasn’t,” replied a voice so close to the boys that they jumped. “Right plumb on the Grand Banks,” continued the invisible speaker, whom the boys now recognized as Captain Edwards.
“What’s wrong with the Banks?” asked Tom.
“Nothing wrong with them,” replied the skipper who now stepped from the curtain of fog and stood near the boys. “But Lord alone knows when we may be a-knockin’ into a fishin’ smack, or a-bearin’ down on a dory, or gettin’ run down by a liner. I wish to heaven this condemned fog would lift.”
Hardly had he ceased speaking when there was a hoarse shout from forward, a tearing, grating sound, and a vast dark mass loomed alongside as the Narwhal scraped past a fishing schooner, snapping off the smack’s jib boom. A moment later the stranger was lost in the fog and only faint, angry cries told of her whereabouts.
“Sarved the lubbers right!” exploded Cap’n Pem, as he came hurrying aft to see if the Narwhal had been injured. “Never a-blowin’ o’ nary a horn, nor a-ringin’ o’ their bell!”
“Did it hurt us any?” asked Tom excitedly.
“Carried away a couple of backstays,” replied the skipper. “Lucky we was both headed the same way.”
By now the fog was getting lighter with the rising sun. The boys could see the lower portions of the sails, the lower masts, the ship’s deck as far forward as the forerigging, and the dull gray-green sea for a few hundred feet about the schooner. Beyond that, all was a solid wall of gray through which the Narwhal forged slowly ahead, horn and bell constantly sounding warnings, and with men aloft striving to peer into the impenetrable murk.
“I should think they’d stop and anchor, or heave to until it lifts,” remarked Jim.
“Better to keep movin’,” declared Mr. Kemp, who was peering first to one side and then the other. “Long as we’ve steerage way on, we’ve a chance to dodge another ship—if we see ’em in time.”
Presently, from the starboard, came the sound of a bell. Then from ahead came the muffled roar of a horn, and soon, from all directions, there were warnings issuing from the fog.
“Golly, there are boats all around us!” cried Tom. “Look! See there, Jim.”
Jim turned in time to see a ghostly phantomlike shape appear as if by magic—a schooner with all sails set, and seemingly within a dozen yards of the Narwhal. But almost before he could grasp the fact that it was a vessel, it had vanished as weirdly as it had appeared.
For an hour or more the schooner picked her way through the fog, often swinging sharply to port or starboard at the skipper’s hoarsely bellowed orders, a dozen times avoiding collision with a smack by a few feet and twice swerving just in time to avoid running down the tiny bobbing dories.
At last the bells and horns grew faint. The captain breathed more freely and declared he must have left the fleet astern. As the fog began to lift and a wider expanse of sea and the upper sails became visible, the boys decided all danger was over and prepared to go to the cabin and dress properly.
Then, from the lookout, a frightened yell rang out. A shrieking bellow roared from the fog ahead. With a bound Captain Edwards leaped to the wheel. “Hard aport!” he screamed, as he grasped the spokes and strained with the steersman at the helm. Startled, realizing that imminent unknown peril threatened, confused by the shouts, orders and rush of men, the boys stood gazing helplessly about.
Then once more that ear-splitting, terrific bellow thundered from the fog. As the Narwhal’s head swung slowly to starboard, a vast, towering, mountainous shape came tearing, rushing, through the fog. Dimly through the opaque gray mist, the terror-stricken boys saw the tremendous fabric bearing down upon them. Far above the schooner’s crosstrees reared the lofty stem of a gigantic steamship. Within a cable’s length of the Narwhal, the billowing mass of foam about the keen steel stem roared with the sound of surf. Each second the boys expected to hear the crashing blow, to feel the splintering, terrific impact that would spell their doom. Paralyzed with fright, they stood motionless and speechless. Nothing, they felt, could save them. The great, shearing prow of the steamer seemed to overhang their heads. Their staring eyes glimpsed dim, tiny figures leaning over the rails far above, shouting, gesticulating, life rings in hand.
And then, with a hissing roar like a passing train, the huge liner swept by. Endless rows of port holes filled with white faces rushed past the terror-stricken boys. The next second the Narwhal was bobbing and jumping like a cork on the tumbling heaving wake, with only the pall of smoke and the churning foam to mark the liner’s passage.
Leaping upon the schooner’s wildly tossing taffrail, Captain Edwards shook his fist at the spot where the liner had disappeared in the fog. Cap’n Pem, unable to stand on the rail, seized a belaying pin, hurled it after the liner and, throwing his cap on the deck, fairly danced with rage.
“Consarn their everlastin’ hides!” he screamed. “A-tearin’ ’crost these here Banks like a house afire, an’ fog thicker’n cheese. Blasted murderers! A-riskin’ lives o’ honest sailor men jes fer to make time an’ save a few dirty, blasted dollars! I’d like to git at ’em!”
Despite the narrow escape, the seriousness of the situation, and the old whaleman’s earnestness, the boys could not suppress a grin at the old fellow’s towering and thoroughly justified rage at the reckless officers of the liner.
Then, as if the steamship’s passage had been the signal, the fog lifted rapidly. A fresh breeze came up and presently the Narwhal was speeding over a wide clear sea with only a few wisps of whitish vapor to mark the fog which had so nearly brought an end to the schooner and those upon her.
“Didn’t I tell ye that there black cat would a be bringin’ o’ bad luck!” cried Cap’n Pem, as his temper cooled down and the fog disappeared.
“Nonsense!” laughed Tom. “She brought good luck three times now—first the whale, then escaping from that schooner, and then being saved from the steamer. And I shouldn’t wonder if she made the fog lift, too.”
“Humph!” snorted the old man. “’Course ye’ll have it your way, but if she didn’t bring that there fog an’ that consarned pesky liner, what did?”
“And if she didn’t save us and make the fog clear, what did?” responded Jim.
Cap’n Pem pursed his mouth, jerked his cap down over his eyes and stumped off. “No use argufyin’,” he declared. “But ye’ll see! Mark my words.”
Three days after their narrow escape from the liner, the boys saw Cape Breton light. Tacking in long reaches, the Narwhal worked across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and with the thrill of seeing strange lands, Tom and Jim stared through their glasses at the forbidding shores of Newfoundland and at bleak Anticosti.
It was slow, hard work beating against tides, currents and head winds. Late in the season though it was, masses of ice still lingered in the coves of the shores. Once, as they watched the dirty white masses of ice, Tom cried out in delight as he saw a number of sleek brown creatures scramble into the sea when the schooner approached.
“Hurrah, those were seals!” he cried.
“Yep, harbor seal,” said Captain Edwards. “Not worth much. But you’ll see a-plenty of real seals after a bit. Shouldn’t wonder if we’d get some hides up round Belle Isle. Never did see so pesky much ice in the Gulf this time o’ year.”
At last the Straits of Belle Isle were reached, the wind shifted and once more sailing free, the Narwhal made good time through the narrow waterway between Newfoundland and Labrador.
As they passed the lonely, wave-washed Belle Isle, men were sent aloft on the lookout for seals. Nothing but a few herds of the little harbor seals were seen, however, and these were so wary that Captain Edwards vowed it would be a waste of time to attempt to hunt them.
Then, swinging past Cape St. Lewis, the schooner was headed up the coast of Labrador for Hebron where she was to put in for Eskimos.
Two days after passing the Cape, the boys were scanning the ugly green sea with their glasses when a faint, shimmering, cloud-like shape rose upon the horizon.
“Oh, there’s a ship!” exclaimed Jim. “And a big one.”
Mr. Kemp looked up, shaded his eyes with his hand and stared in the direction Jim indicated. “Ship!” he exclaimed. “That’s a berg.”
“A berg!” cried Tom. “You mean an iceberg?”
“Sure,” replied the second mate. “Pretty sizeable one too.”
“Oh, let’s sail over and see it!” exclaimed Jim.
“Less we see of ’em the better it’ll suit me,” said the skipper who had been studying the berg. “But you’ll have a chance to see it all right. We’ll have to go out of our course if we don’t want to bump plumb into it.”
Rapidly the berg rose before the schooner, a massive mountain of ice, its summit carved and melted into spires, pinnacles and huge, overhanging shelves, steep precipitous sides rising from the wide hummocky base just above the waves and gleaming and shimmering with every color of the rainbow.
“Gee, isn’t it pretty!” cried Jim. “I never knew ice was so many colors. And look at those big caves in the sides.”
“And look—oh look, Jim!” exclaimed Tom. “There’s some one on it! See, right in front of that big green cave!”
“What in tarnation ye talkin’ of?” demanded Cap’n Pem. “Here, gimme them glasses.”
Adjusting the glasses, the old whaleman stared fixedly for a moment at the distant iceberg. “Some one on it!” he exclaimed. “Waal, I’ll be blowed if there beint—but ’tain’t no human critter. That there’s a whoppin’ big b’ar!”
“A bear?” cried Tom. “Hurrah! that’s all the better. Oh say, Captain Edwards, can’t we go over and shoot him?”
“Hmm,” muttered the skipper, “I dunno, but I reckon you can. Pem, soon’s ever we get ’bout half a mile from the berg, have the yards swung an’ lower the sta’board quarter boat. White bear skins is worth takin’ and it’ll give the boys—I mean owners—a chance to try their hands. Better let Mr. Kemp go along with ’em.” Then, turning to the boys, he continued. “Now mind you do just as Mr. Kemp tells you. Bergs is mighty pesky things, an’ a gun shot’s li’ble to start a break or a slide or topple the dumb thing clean over. Better to lose the bear than get kilt.”
The boys scarcely heard what he said. Filled with excitement at thoughts of visiting the berg and shooting a polar bear, they dashed to their cabin, hastily got out their rifles and, stuffing their pockets with cartridges, rushed back on deck.
Within half a mile of the berg, the Narwhal was hove to and lay resting motionless, gently rising and falling to the swell. Towering like a mountain peak, the mass of ice shimmered and scintillated like a gigantic gem against the sky.
Rapidly the boat sped towards the ice; and the boys shivered and buttoned their coats and turned up their collars as they drew near the immense ice mountain that chilled the air for a mile or more.
The bear still squatted upon a hummock in front of the deep green cavern in the side of the berg. As they drew close and the men rowed more slowly, the two boys crept to the bow of the boat and loaded their rifles. Nearer and nearer they came. The air was like the interior of a refrigerator. Still the huge white bear sat motionless, as if awaiting the boat, and wondering why he was to receive visitors on his drifting ice home.
Now a scant one hundred yards of open water lay between the boat and the berg. In low tones, Mr. Kemp ordered the men to cease rowing and as the boat lost headway, he spoke to the excited boys. “Aim for his breast and shoot,” he said. “He’s a fair mark and you ought to get him first crack.”
Kneeling in the bow of the boat, Tom and Jim rested their rifles on the gunwale, took steady aim, and pulled triggers. At the dual report a shower of ice splinters flew up from beside the bear. The big creature reared up on his hind legs, roared out a growl that echoed from the cavern behind him, pawed wildly at the air and toppled backwards out of sight.
“Got him,” shouted Mr. Kemp. “Give way, lads!”
“Hurrah!” yelled Jim. “Gee, won’t he make a fine skin for a trophy. Say, I wonder which of us hit him.”
“We can tell when we get him,” replied Tom. “One of us missed and hit the ice; but your rifle’s a .30-.30 and mine’s a .45 so we can tell by the bullet hole in him.”
A moment later the boat grated on the shelving ice. The boys leaped on to the berg, and Jim, being the first to land, rushed up the rough hummocky ice towards where the bear had fallen.
As he reached the spot where the bear had stood, he uttered a terrified yell, leaped back, slipped on the ice and came rolling and tumbling down the slope towards Tom. Rearing gigantic at the summit of the ridge was the bear, his lips drawn back over his huge white teeth, blood dribbling from his mouth, his long neck stretched out, and his wicked-looking head swaying from side to side.
Instantly Tom threw his rifle to his shoulder and took hasty aim at the bear’s breast.
“Hey, look out!” yelled Mr. Kemp. “Don’t——”
But his warning was too late. The roar of the rifle cut his words short. There was a stunning, rending, thunderous crash, the solid ice reeled and tossed like the deck of a ship in a heavy sea, and the boys and Mr. Kemp staggered drunkenly and fell sprawling.
“Wha—what happened?” cried Jim picking himself up with a dazed expression on his face.
“Berg’s goin’ to pieces!” yelled the second officer. “Come on back to the boat! That shot started the darned ice to slippin’! It’s rotten as punk. Come on, the whole blamed thing’s likely to go any minute!”
“But, but, where’s the bear?” gasped Tom, still unable to fully grasp what had occurred.
“Blast the bear!” ejaculated the second mate. “Get a move on!”
Urging the boys forward, Mr. Kemp rushed down the slope. As the boat drew in to the edge of the ice, the three scrambled aboard.
“Lift her, lads!” cried the excited officer as the boat shoved off, and the men bent to the long ash oars with a will. Hardly had they cleared the berg when there was a terrific, ripping, splintering roar. The overhanging summit of the berg moved bodily forward, hesitated an instant and then, with the deafening roar of thunder, came plunging, crashing down upon the spot where the three had been but a few moments before.
“Gosh!” exclaimed Tom. “Gosh! I’m glad we got away.”
“Gee Whitaker! yes,” cried Jim. “That old bear must be squashed flat as a pancake.”
Everywhere about the berg, huge detached masses of ice were floating, bobbing and turning and twisting about. Constantly more and more of the ice mountain was crashing down to the berg’s base, falling with prodigious splashes into the sea. Once started by the reverberations of Tom’s shot, the berg, softened, full of holes, and rotten, was going to pieces before the boys’ wondering eyes. It was a marvelous, fascinating, awe-inspiring sight to see the huge avalanches of gleaming ice, the jewel-tinted spires, the needlelike pinnacles, and the great overhanging precipices rending and tumbling. And as each mass dashed itself to pieces upon the base of the berg, or plunged into the waves, sending great mountains of spray into the air, the vibrations and shock of the blow loosened other masses. Then, as those in the boat gazed upon the dissolution of the mighty berg, Tom uttered an excited cry.
“Look!” he yelled. “The berg’s moving!”
It was true. The towering summit of the iceberg was swaying. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it swung to one side. More and more it leaned and then, with a sudden rush, the mountain of ice toppled over. Vast billows of green sea rose high and, with the noise of a mighty cataract, the berg capsized. Where the sharp, sky-piercing berg had loomed, only a low hummocky stretch of ice tossed and heaved upon the waves.
The boys, overwhelmed with the wondrous spectacle, clung to the boat’s gunwales as the tiny craft bobbed and rocked on the great combers from the berg’s final plunge.
“Whew!” cried Jim when at last the seas subsided and the men pulled towards the schooner. “Wasn’t that a sight though? Say, that was worth seeing.”
“You bet!” agreed Tom. “But just the same I’m mighty sorry we lost that bear.”
Mr. Kemp grinned. “You ought to be glad you didn’t lose your own hides,” he declared. “I never seen a berg so plumb rotten or go to pieces so blessed fast.”
“Jiminy, I’d hate to be drifting south on one the way Eskimo Joe did,” said Tom, “if that’s the way they act.”
“’Twouldn’t be no picnic,” agreed Mr. Kemp, “but even a berg’s a heap better’n nothin’.”
“Thank Heaven you’re all safe!” cried Captain Edwards as the boat reached the Narwhal’s side. “When I saw that first slip, I thought ’twas all over with you.”
“Waall, I reckon a miss’s good as a mile,” commented Cap’n Pem. “But I swan, if you two young scallawags ain’t everlastin’ly gittin’ inter more close shaves than ever I heerd of afore.”
Tom winked at the skipper. “I suppose the black cat started that!” he remarked.
“Drat that there cat!” cried the old whaleman petulantly. “Jes the same I wish t’ blazes she was a-settin’ over to that there berg ’stead o’ on this here ship.”
For several days after the boys’ adventure on the iceberg the Narwhal bore steadily on. Several times she passed tiny rocky islets over which were clouds of screaming sea birds, and through their glasses the boys could make out the thousands and thousands of black and white birds that covered the rocks from sea to summit. There were great white gannets, big gray-and-white gulls, shining black cormorants, acres of swallow-tailed terns, row after row of closely packed auks, puffins, and guillemots. Even though the schooner was a mile or more from the rookeries, the harsh cries and screams of the countless birds came to the boys’ ears in raucous chorus.
“Say, I thought there were a lot of birds down at Tristan da Cunha,” said Jim. “But they weren’t a patch on these.”
“Why, there must be millions of them!” agreed Tom. “Wouldn’t it be fun to climb up there among ’em?”
Constantly in the schooner’s wake also were flocks of birds and many of these were strange to the boys. Some—big gray fellows with pearly white breasts and enormously long wings—Mr. Kemp told them were shearwaters. Others, that seemed constantly attacking the gulls and terns, and that looked like swift-winged hawks with spiked tails, they learned were jaegers and the captain told the boys these lived by robbing the other birds, and a few snowy white creatures that Tom thought were sheathbills were fulmar petrels, he was told.
By now the weather was cold, cheerless, and chilly and the boys were glad to don their winter clothes. Though the sun shone brightly, the wind was raw and had winter’s bite and sting to it and the spray felt like ice water as it dashed into the boys’ faces.
“Whew, but it’s cold!” cried Tom as he came on deck one morning, and buttoned his reefer and oilskins tighter. “Feels like midwinter. I wonder—oh, say, Jim! Look here!”
Fascinated, the two boys gazed about. On every hand, some within a few hundred yards, others a mile or two distant, still others mere ghostly forms upon the horizon, were scores of gleaming, shimmering, rainbow-tinted icebergs.
“Reckon there’s enough bergs to suit you!” exclaimed Captain Edwards. “I never seen so pesky many of ’em so far south this time o’ year. Must ha’ been a mighty cold winter up this way.”
“Is that what makes it so cold?” asked Jim.
“Yes,” replied the skipper, “a sailor can feel ice long before he sees it, and there’s enough ’round us to keep all the whales in the sea in cold storage for a million years.”
All through the day the Narwhal navigated slowly through the berg-filled sea. Throughout the night the boys were constantly aroused by shouts, the creaking of tackle, and the rushing feet of the crew as the schooner turned, and tacked, and picked her perilous course among the mountains of ice. But the next morning only a few distant bergs and scattered masses of honeycombed floe ice were visible, and before noon the gray shores of Labrador were sighted, with the little port of Hebron straight ahead.
To the boys it was a wonderfully novel experience to gaze shoreward at this out-of-the-world village in the Arctic. They cried out in delight when tiny, sharp-ended kayaks came dancing towards the Narwhal, with their Eskimo occupants paddling furiously. But as the tiny, skin-covered craft drew near, the boys were disappointed.
“Oh pshaw!” cried Tom, “they don’t look like Eskimos. They’re not dressed in furs, but are wearing dirty overalls and caps. They look like Chinese dressed up like whalemen.”
“Shure ’tis that they do!” agreed Mike, who stood near. “B’glory they do be wan an’ the same specie with the haythen Chinee, I do be thinkin’.”
“Ye’ll be seein’ plenty on ’em in hides an’ furs afore ye’re done,” declared Cap’n Pem. “These here boys is whalin’ han’s, an’ is sort o’ civ’lized. But ye don’t expect ’em to be a-wearin’ o’ a everlastin’ lot o’ furs in this hot weather, do ye?”
“Hot weather!” cried Jim. “I call it cold.”
The old whaleman chuckled. “Waall, by cricky, ye don’t know what’s a-comin’ to ye, then!” he declared. “This here’s midsummer; but come ’long an’ meet these Eskimo lads.”
The kayaks were now alongside and the Eskimos were clambering over the schooner’s rails. They were a happy, good-natured-looking lot, with broad yellow faces, flat noses, little slant, beady black eyes, wide mouths, made still wider by a constant grin, and lank, stiff black hair hanging to their shoulders. All looked so much alike that the boys could not understand how any one could tell one from another, and all were identical in the matter of dirtiness.
“Whew, but they are dirty!” exclaimed Jim. “I’ll bet they haven’t ever taken a bath!”
“And aren’t they little!” added Tom. “Why, they’re no bigger than boys.”
But if the two boys were interested in the Eskimos, the latter were simply fascinated with the boys, and gathered about them talking and laughing and jabbering in their own tongue.
Mr. Kemp, Cap’n Pem and the skipper were also busy conversing with two of the Eskimos who appeared to be leaders or chiefs. When the second officer addressed one of them in his own dialect, the filthy little fellow fairly beamed with pleasure.
Presently one of the men approached Tom and held out a greasy, soot-blackened paw. “H’lo!” he exclaimed with a broad grin. “Me Unavik, plenty good whaler feller, betcher life!”
Tom laughed and shook hands gingerly. “Glad to know you, Unavik. My name’s Tom. This is Jim, my cousin. You going along with us?”
Unavik shook hands very cordially with Jim—far too cordially to suit him in fact—and rolled his tiny eyes as he looked over the schooner. “Betcher life!” he announced. “Gimme chew t’bac. How much feller you want?”
“Oh, Mr. Kemp, get us some tobacco,” cried Tom, “this boy wants some.”
“Boy!” exclaimed Mr. Kemp, as he tossed over some plugs of tobacco. “He’s an old man—great-grandfather, I expect.”
Unavik bit off a huge chunk of the plug, passed it to his companions, and nodded his big head. “You betcher!” he mumbled. “Me ol’ feller. Got fif’y year mebbe.”
Then the other Eskimos began talking, telling their names—which the boys could not remember or pronounce—jabbering away with their quaint broken English, and surrounding the boys, so that they were thankful when Captain Skinner broke up the party by inviting them to go ashore.
Accompanied by the flotilla of kayaks, the boat pulled to the beach. To the boys’ surprise they found that there were a number of white people in the settlement; which contained several good buildings, a tiny church, a little mission school, a post office, and a police station.
There was also a low, rambling trading-post, presided over by a red-faced, white-whiskered old Scotchman and this proved the most interesting spot to the boys.
Here was exactly the sort of place they had read about in stories—the low-ceiled, big room with shelves piled with blankets, sacks of meal, axes and knives, guns and ammunition, and great bales of furs. Antlers and heads decorated the walls. There was a huge open hearth, snowshoes and dog sledges were stacked in corners, polar bear skins covered the floor and the stocky Eskimos, and even a few tall, grave-faced Indians, were lounging about or dickering over a trade with the clerk.
Here Captain Edwards secured a number of fur garments as well as other supplies. Then with the boys he strolled about the village. The boys had never stopped to realize that Eskimos did not dwell in ice igloos all the time and they were greatly surprised to find them occupying roughly built huts and much-patched tents of old canvas and skin. They saw drying racks covered with thousands of salmon and other fish which the Eskimo women—even more unkempt and dirty than the men—were cleaning and splitting and suspending on the racks. They visited the church and talked with the good-natured, rotund priest. They looked at the school and watched the bright-eyed, broad-faced Eskimo kiddies striving to master the rudiments of English and arithmetic. They even stopped for a chat with the straight, clean-featured, bronzed-faced, military-looking representative of the law.
“Gosh, I never saw so many dogs!” exclaimed Tom as they walked back toward the boat. “They simply swarm here.”
Captain Edwards laughed and the police officer, who was with them, smiled.
“And I’ll warrant you never saw such pure bred mongrels!” he chuckled.
“But they’re mighty useful to the natives—they hunt with them, use them for teams and, if they’re hard up, eat them.”
“Well, they look as if there’d be mighty little to eat on them,” declared Jim.
Taken altogether, there was not much to be seen, while the overpowering smell of fish which filled the entire village almost nauseated the boys, and they were mighty glad to be once more aboard the Narwhal.
In the afternoon the boat again went ashore and returned packed with Eskimo hands who had been signed on. The bundles of garments and other things were hoisted aboard, and with the Eskimos helping the crew at the capstan, the Narwhal’s anchor was hoisted, the sails were spread, and Hebron was left astern.
Steadily, day after day, the Narwhal continued on her way northward. From morning until night—throughout the short night as well—bergs or floe ice were constantly in sight; but the boys had become accustomed to such things and scarcely gave the ice mountains a second glance. They had spent hours searching each berg or ice cake they passed, in the hopes of seeing another bear but, aside from an occasional seal or flocks of birds, not a living creature was seen.
The Eskimos, much to the boys’ surprise, proved splendid sailors. Always at the mastheads men were on the lookout for whales. At times the schooner wallowed slowly through the cold green seas, with barely enough wind to enable the captain to steer clear of jagged cakes or towering bergs. At other times, she tore storming through the tremendous waves under shortened sails, rushing between giant bergs, crashing into masses of drift ice hidden in the foam of breaking waves. Again she would rest motionless, becalmed, shrouded in dense fogs, while resounding through the impenetrable mist came the roar of surf on bergs, the crashing of falling ice masses, and the shrill screams of sea birds. Then every man was on the alert, peering with straining eyes into the blanket of fog. A dozen times the boys’ hearts seemed to skip a beat, as, close at hand, a vast white phantom loomed suddenly from the fog, and the Narwhal rocked and rolled to the backwash of the giant seas breaking upon ice. Again and again, too, the schooner drifted so dangerously close to a berg that boats were lowered and, straining at the oars, the men towed the heavy vessel clear.
“Funny thing, that,” remarked Mr. Kemp, as the Narwhal was thus being dragged from a towering berg. “Put two ships, or a berg and a ship, in the middle of the sea and the blamed things’ll drif’ together—jes as if they loved comp’ny.”
“That is funny, though I never thought of it before,” said Tom. “Don’t you suppose it’s currents or something?”
“Nope,” declared the second officer, “just chuck a couple of matches into a basin of water an’ leave ’em be, an’ you’ll see they’re boun’ to git side of each other.”
“Say, I have noticed that!” exclaimed Jim. “What’s the reason?”
“Give her up,” replied Mr. Kemp. “Mystery to me, but then there’s a heap of mysteries at sea.”
The boys had been greatly surprised too to find that they could see throughout the night, that there was no darkness, and that the sun set like a dull yellow ball, hung at the rim of the sea for a space, and almost before it disappeared, popped up again.
“Gosh, I never realized we were where the sun never sets,” cried Tom the first time he noticed this. “Somehow I can’t believe we’re way up here in the Arctic.”
The boys were vastly interested and fascinated in the Northern Lights, although compared with the midnight sun, they were faint and pale. Captain Edwards told them they would see the sight of their lives when winter came, and the Aurora blazed in all its glory.
But all these things grew tedious, and the boys longed for a whale to be seen, or for some exciting thing to happen. Then one day the shout so long expected rang from the masthead, and at the cry, “She blows!” all was excitement. Leaping into the shrouds, the two boys ran up the rigging. As Captain Edwards’ shout of, “Where away?” was answered by, “Three points off the lee bow!” the boys stared in that direction to see two little fountains of spray rise above the waves, and two immense rounded black objects break the water.
“Hurrah! there’re two of them,” cried Tom. “Oh, Captain Edwards, can’t we go after them?”
“Not a bit of it!” snapped the skipper. “I ain’t riskin’ your lives goin’ on whales!”
“Well, suppose the owners order you to take us?” demanded Jim.
Captain Edwards scowled and tried to look savage. “Have to ’bey orders, I guess.”
“Well, then you’re ordered!” yelled the boys in chorus, and without waiting to hear the skipper’s comment, they raced toward Cap’n Pem’s boat and leaped into it with the men.
“Here, what the tarnation ye doin’ in here?” demanded Cap’n Pem as he saw the two boys. “This here boat ain’t no place fer youngsters.”
“Owners’ orders,” grinned Tom, “come on, Cap’n Pem, or Mr. Kemp’ll get those whales ahead of you.”
“Waall, I’ll be blowed!” exclaimed the old whaleman, as he entered the boat. “Annyhow, mind ye keep still an’ don’t go a-screechin’ or a-talkin’. Bowheads has derned sharp ears.”
“All right, we’ll be as still as mice,” promised Jim.
To the boys’ surprise, the men did not take to their oars, but set up the short mast and spritsail in the boat. With Cap’n Pem at the rudder, they went speeding before the wind toward the two whales.
Mr. Kemp’s boat was also sailing swiftly toward the huge creatures and neck and neck the two little craft danced over the long green seas. Then, shifting the helm slightly, Cap’n Pem swung around and held his course directly towards the heads of the monsters.
“Gee, that’s funny,” whispered Tom. “When they rowed after those whales on the Hector they always went at them towards the tail. They’ll see the boat coming this way, sure.”
A minute later Cap’n Pem raised his hand and the men silently and quickly furled the sail and unshipped the mast. Pulling noiselessly on the oars, the crew drove the boat closer and closer to their quarry. The two whales were swimming slowly along, now and then sinking below the surface until they were almost invisible, and then rising high and blowing. The boys noticed that the little columns of vapor rose from the middle of the creatures’ heads instead of from the tip of the noses as was the case with the sperm whales they had seen.
Tom nudged Jim. “That’s one thing I’ve learned,” he whispered. “You can tell a bowhead whale from a sperm by the blow.”
“Ssh!” muttered Jim. “Cap’n Pem’s scowling at us.”
The boat steerer had now unsheathed his harpoon and was standing in the bow and the boys, glancing towards the other boat, saw that Mr. Kemp’s boat steerer had done the same. Evidently both men would strike at almost the same moment and the boys hardly knew whether to keep their eyes fixed on their own harpoonier or the other. Nearer and nearer to the great black creatures the boat crept. The boys could see the huge curved upper jaws, the gray fringed masses of whalebone in the animals’ mouths and even the rough growth of great barnacles on the whales’ noses. Then, when it seemed as though the boat would bump into the nearest monster, the craft was deftly swung to one side. It slipped past the enormous head and, before the surprised whale could dive or dodge, the harpoonier lurched forward with a grunt, and the immense, heavy, barbed iron struck the whale with a sickening thud. Instantly the men backed water furiously and not a second too soon. With a crash that almost stunned the boys, the whale’s stupendous flukes struck the water within a yard of the frail boat, sending a deluge of water over the occupants, and the next instant the boat was being hurtled through the sea at a terrific pace as the stricken whale strove to escape the stinging iron in its side. White-faced, gripping the gunwale tightly, the boys stole a hurried glance towards Mr. Kemp’s boat and saw that he too was fast. But unlike their own craft, which was being towed at express-train speed, the second mate’s boat was being whirled in circles as the whale milled.
Hardly had the two boys noticed this, when their craft tipped perilously. Green water poured over the rail as the whale altered his course. There was a warning shout from Cap’n Pem and the boys saw that they were headed directly towards Mr. Kemp’s boat.
“Git ready to cut loose!” yelled Cap’n Pem. “Dod gast the critter, we’ll foul Kemp!”
At his cry, one of the men started forward to seize the hatchet. But as he raised it, the whale again turned, the boat almost capsized and the man, in his frantic effort to prevent himself from being thrown overboard, dropped the hatchet which flashed into the sea.
Before he could whip out his sheath knife, the whale had dashed across the line fast to the second mate’s boat. The two crafts careened, rocked, zigzagged wildly and crashed together with a bump that tumbled the occupants from their seats. Then, before the dazed and struggling men could act, the two boats were dashing through the sea with rails together and with the two whales tearing at topmost speed side by side as though having a race.
“Let ’em go, dod gast ’em!” screamed Cap’n Pem. “Never seed nothin’ like it afore. Stand ready to cut loose ef they mill or soun’!”
Onwards the two creatures sped. The schooner was miles astern and then, so suddenly that the skilled steersmen could not swerve their craft one of the whales checked his onward rush and sounded. The next instant he rose within a dozen rods of the terrified boys, and, with thunderous, crashing, terrific blows of his huge tail, strove to demolish the boat and his enemies.
Speechless with deadly fear, the boys cowered in the boat, while seemingly over their heads the great black mass of flukes waved and whipped, striking down to right, to left, in front of the frail cockleshell of a boat, half filling it with water churned up by the fearful, irresistible blows. The men strained and shouted and pulled frantically, grim-faced, wild-eyed and with superhuman efforts dodging the lashing, death-dealing flukes by a hair’s breadth.
To the boys it seemed hours that they were within that awful danger zone. Each second they expected to be tossed high in air, bruised, battered, crushed amid the shattered planks and timbers of the boat.
Then there was a sickening crash as Mr. Kemp’s boat banged into them. For a moment the two craft were locked tight and then the second mate’s boat leaped ahead, dragging Pem’s boat with it. Scarcely had it moved a yard, when the great trip-hammer tail struck a fearful blow where it had been an instant before, and, as the boat sprang into the air on the upflung wave, the second mate’s boat drew free and flew off after the whale to which it was fast.
“Go in!” yelled Cap’n Pem excitedly. “We’ll git him!”
At his words, he dropped the steering oar, scrambled forward and, as the boat steerer reached the stern and seized the big oar, the grizzled old whaleman braced his wooden leg against the knee chock and seized a bomb lance. Then he tossed the weapon down, unsheathed the long, keen-bladed hand lance, and poised it ready to strike. Bobbing on the water, still being churned up by the furious creature’s tail, the boat crept close. The boys’ hearts seemed to cease beating as they saw the great mountain of black skin almost within arm’s length. Now but a few feet separated the boat from the maddened whale. Cap’n Pem gathered himself for the death stroke; the boat’s bows seemed almost to touch the whale’s side, when, without warning, the great body sank beneath the sea and, drawn by the swirling suction of the whale submerging, the boat leaped forwards directly over the creature’s back. But the gray-headed old veteran of a hundred battles with giant whales was not to be cheated of his prey. As the boat lurched forward into the eddying froth above the whale, Cap’n Pem leaned over the boat’s bow, and with a shout drove the long lance straight down.
The next instant the boat was flung high. It careened dizzily, oars were wrenched from the men’s hands and, as the mortally wounded whale flung himself up, the craft slid like a toboggan from his back, buried its bow beneath a wave, rose sluggishly, and swung around broadside to the thrashing, rolling mass of pain-crazed flesh and blood and bone.
So close was the boat to the whale’s side that the men struggled to fend it off by their oars. With wild yells and shouts, Cap’n Pem warned them to keep close; for all around them the awful tail was striking, crashing, whipping, as the dying whale lashed the water into a maelstrom of foam and, only by keeping the boat so close to the monster that his tail could not reach them, could their lives be saved.
That they could escape seemed impossible. They were in the very center of a cyclone of mortal peril, a circle of death, and even the tough, fearless, experienced whalemen grew white-faced. Their jaws were hard set and they knew that any second might spell their doom.
Then, with one stupendous effort, the whale reared its head high. The flukes swept above the boat, a crimson column spurted from the monster’s head and, with a whistling sigh like escaping steam, the whale rolled upon its side, dead.
“Fin up!” screamed Cap’n Pem. “By Moses, that there was the closest shave I ever seen. Jes dumb luck, nothin’ more!”
At this instant a strange sound issued from the bottom of the whaleboat. Cap’n Pem’s jaw fell. The men stared at one another wonderingly.
“What’s thet?” gasped the old whaleman.
Tom leaned forward, reached into a locker and drew out—the black cat!
Cap’n Pem’s eyes seemed about to burst from their sockets. “Waall, I’ll be——” he began and then stood staring absolutely bereft of speech as Tom dragged out the canvas bucket and disclosed four blinking-eyed kittens.
“Now what about bad luck!” he cried triumphantly.
Cap’n Pem scratched his head, frowned and spat over the boat’s side. “I calc’late them kittens must ha’ changed the luck,” he declared. “I don’t recollec’ ever hearin’ o’ sech a thing afore. But jes the same, I’ll bet ye if that there cat hadn’t been ’long of us, we’d never ha’ had all this here fracas. Wussedest fight I ever seed.”