"THE TALE OF A WHALE." "Give way, men!" implored Mr. Dacre anxiously, as the sailors bent to their task vigorously. There was small need to admonish the men. The affair had literally become a race for life between the boat and the surging, battling whales. As they came alongside Jack, who was clinging to the totem, he gave an encouraging wave of the hand. "Gee! I'm glad you've come. This water is pretty cold, I can tell you." He was hauled on board with all swiftness. "Don't forget old 'Frozen Face,'" he begged anxiously as he heard his uncle give orders to take to the oars again. "No time to wait for him now, Jack," declared Mr. Dacre; "look there!" He pointed behind them. Rushing toward the boat with the speed of an express locomotive was a mighty head. It parted the water like an oncoming torpedo boat. The boys gave a shout of alarm. "It's coming straight for us!" The sailors pulled on their oars till the stout ash wood bent as if it had been bamboo. Suddenly there came a loud crack. One of the oars had snapped. No doubt, as sometimes occurs, there was a flaw in the wood. The man who was pulling it rolled off his seat into the bottom of the boat. As he did so, there came a second loud cry of affright. The whale was almost upon them. On either side of its enormous blunt head was a mountainous wall of water. Even if it did not hit them, the mighty "wash" that its onrush made The snapping of the oar had cost valuable time. A collision appeared to be inevitable. The second sailor seemed to be paralyzed with fright. He stared stupidly at the great bulk bearing down upon them. With a sharp exclamation Mr. Dacre seized an oar out of the fellow's hand. In the stern of the boat was a "becket." He thrust the oar through this, and with a few powerful strokes moved the boat forward. It was then out of the direct path of the whale, but still in peril of the mighty wave the great body of the creature upreared. It was at this juncture that Tom proved his mettle. He grabbed the other oar from the stupefied sailor's hands and thrusting it overboard on the port side tugged on it with all his might. "That's right! Good lad! Head her into it!" cried Mr. Dacre, perceiving the object of Tom's maneuver, which was to force the boat bow first Hardly had the boat's bow been swung till it was facing the onrushing wave, than, with a roar and smother of foam, a huge black bulk shot by, drenching them with spray. Carried away by excitement, Jack did a foolish thing. Raising his revolver he fired point blank at the huge wet side of the whale. Instantly, as the bullet struck it, the great creature spouted. From its nostrils two jets of water shot up with a roar like that of escaping steam. "Duck your heads!" roared out Mr. Chillingworth. He had hardly time to get out the words before the spouted water came down with the force of a cloudburst upon the boat. It was half filled, but they had hardly time to notice this before the great wave that the speeding whale had caused "Phew, what a narrow escape!" gasped out Tom. "I thought we were goners sure that time!" "Same here," agreed Sandy with deep conviction. The strained faces of the others showed what they had thought. Mr. Dacre relieved the tension by ordering all hands to get busy and bale out the boat with some baling cans that were under the thwarts. They were in the midst of "What's up now, another whale?" cried Sandy, his face showing his alarm. "Whale nothing!" scoffed Jack. "Look, it's the 'Good Genius of the Frozen North!'" "The mascot!" cried Sandy. "The mascot, sure enough," declared Mr. Dacre. "It undoubtedly helped to save Jack's life." "Yes, after carrying me overboard first!" snorted Jack. Sure enough, alongside the boat old "Frozen Face" was bobbing serenely about. "We've got to take him back to the ship," declared Sandy. "Yes, since he's inviting himself we can't be so impolite as to leave him," said Mr. Chillingworth. Accordingly, a line was made fast to the totem and he was towed back to the ship and once By this time, as if by magic, thousands of birds had appeared. They fell upon the carcass, paying scant attention to the men at work on it, and fought and tore and devoured flesh and blubber as if they were famished. The captain said that they were whale birds, such as haunt the track of ships engaged in whale trade for weeks at a time. "Gracious, we certainly are having exciting times!" said Tom as the ship once more got under way bound for her next port of call, Valdez, to the east of the great Kenai Peninsula. "I expect you boys will have more exciting times later than any you have yet experienced," The boys chorused assent. They knew something of the captain's ability as a spinner of yarns. "Well, it appears, according to the way old Captain Peleg used to tell it, that his ship, the Cachelot, was becalmed in these seas while out after whales," began the skipper with somewhat of a twinkle in his eye. "One day he decided to enliven the monotony of the constant doldrums by having his small dory lowered and going a-fishing after halibut. Well, the boat was lowered away and the skipper pulled off to some distance from the ship before he cast his lines. "Now it seems strange, doesn't it, in an ocean five hundred miles wide and a thousand feet deep, that when he cast his light anchor overboard, "What's a blow-hole?" demanded Sandy. "Why, the orifice through which a whale spouts or sounds, as whalemen call it. You had a specimen of spouting when that whale Master Jack shot at gave you a shower bath. But, according to Captain Peleg, that was just what happened to him. The fluke of his anchor lodged right in that whale's nostril. "As soon as the anchor hit that whale where the apple hit the man who discovered the law of gravitation, off he dashed, and naturally the boat being fast to him, off dashed the boat, too. The line was drawn as tight as the 'G' string on a bull fiddle. "Cap'n Peleg was standing up in the stern just ready to cast a line over, when 'bang!' the fun started. He almost went overboard, but recovered himself in time to find that he was being "The cap'n said that the wind blew in his face so hard that every time he tried to get to the bow of the boat to cut the line, he was blown back again. All this time he couldn't think what he was hitched to. In fact he didn't do much thinking at all. It wasn't till the whale had gone what Peleg said must have been a hundred miles or more, that it turned plum round and headed right back for his ship again. "They made the trip in as fast time as if he'd been hitched to a runaway cyclone. As they came near the ship there was the greatest excitement on board that they'd had since they ran into a herd of sperms up in Bering Sea. "'Come aboard, cap!' yelled the mate. "'Can't, you're only a way station,' yells back the skipper, 'and this is the Alaskan flyer.' "Just then, the way Cap'n Peleg told it, up comes the whale to spout. Seems funny it didn't think of doing that before, but the way Peleg told it, the creature hadn't. Anyhow, just as they were passing the ship, up comes the whale and gives an almighty sneeze. That blew the anchor out of its nose and off it goes, while Peleg takes an oar and guides the boat alongside his ship after the most exciting ride he ever had. The boat was going so fast when the whale cut loose, that he didn't need to row her alongside; all he had to do was to steer her like a launch and then he had to make two circles to reduce speed before he dared try to reach his ship. "Peleg said that when they hoisted the boat on deck they found she had stood the trip all right, except that paint on her sides was blistered and burned by reason of the friction kicked up The boys burst into a roar of laughter at the conclusion of this surprising anecdote. The captain's eyes twinkled. "Remember, I don't vouch for it," he said; "I'm only telling the tale to you as it was told to me." "The tale of a whale," chuckled Tom. "A whale of a tale, I guess you mean," spoke Jack. "Captain, what did you say the name of that skipper was?" inquired Sandy innocently. "Maybe," was the answer. "Aweel," said the Scotch lad soberly, "I'm thinking he was well named." |