The Bungalow Boys Along the Yukon
Tom was a great boy to lean against the rail scanning the sea in search of something that might prove exciting. He had been gazing steadily against the far horizon for some minutes. Mr. Dacre hastened to his cabin and came back with a pair of binoculars.
He raised them and looked fixedly in the direction that Tom had indicated.
"It's a whale," he declared, "or rather a whole school of them, if I'm not mistaken. They are dead ahead of us. If we keep on this course, we shall run almost squarely into them."
He hastened off to inform the captain and Mr. Chillingworth while Tom set out to find his chums. He found them in the wireless room practicing on the key. At his news they speedily jumped up and joined him in the bow.
Within an hour they came into plain sight of what appeared at first to be so many giant logs rolling about in the sea. All at once, among the "logs," which of course were the whales, appeared splashes of white water. The leviathans swam swiftly here and there as though in fear.
"What's the matter with them?" wondered Tom.
"Maybe it's the ship's coming that has scared them," suggested Jack.
"It's the totem at the bow, mon," declared the Scotch boy solemnly.
The captain leaned over the bridge rail and shouted to them.
"There's a school of killers in among them."
"Killers?"
"Yes, the killer whales. They are the enemies of the other kind and just naturally take after them when they meet. Watch close now!"
The boys needed no second bidding. Strangely fascinated by the turbulent scene below, they leaned far out to watch the thrashing water. It was a strange combat of the sea. The monster fish appeared, in their panic at the advent among them of the killers, not to notice the oncoming steamer.
"Look close now and you'll see tall, upright fins moving about among 'em," sung out the captain.
"I see them!" cried Tom. "Are those the killers?"
"That's what. Sea tigers, they ought to call 'em. They're as bad as sharks," was the reply.
Mr. Dacre joined the boys. One of the biggest of the whales appeared to be an especial target for the "killers." They pursued it relentlessly in a body.
"Wow!" cried Tom suddenly, "look at that!" The big whale had leaped clear out of the water, breached, as the whalers call it. Its body shone in the sunlight like a burnished surface. They saw its whole enormous bulk as if it had been a leaping trout.
"He's as big as a house!" cried Jack.
"I've seen houses that were smaller!" laughed Mr. Dacre; "your bungalow, for example."
Down came the whale again with a splash that sent the spray flying as high as the Northerner's mast tops.
"How do they fight the whales?" Tom wanted to know, when their excitement over this episode had subsided.
"They tear them with their teeth," replied his uncle. "They get round them like dogs worrying a cat. They literally tear the poor creatures to bits piecemeal."
"Looks like one of the whale hunts that old 'Frozen Face' here must have had a hand in," said Jack. "Here, old sport, take a look for auld lang syne."
He loosened the lashings that held the totem in place in the bow, and while they all laughed, he tilted the old relic till "old Frozen Face," as they called him, actually appeared to be gazing at the conflict raging about them.
"See, the big fellow is acting kind of sleepy!" cried Jack suddenly.
"Yes, he must have got his death warrant," declared Mr. Dacre.
"Look! He's coming right across our bows!" yelled Sandy.
"Hey! Look out, captain, you'll hit him!" roared out Tom.
But even as he spoke, there came a heavy jar that almost stopped the sturdy steamer. Her steel bow had struck the whale amidships with stunning force. The craft appeared to quiver in every rib and frame.
The party on the fore deck, taken by surprise, went over like so many ninepins. They recovered themselves in a jiffy.
"Goodness! Don't run into any more whales! You'll have the ship stove in the first thing you know," cried Mr. Dacre. "I don't think – "
But a shout from Tom checked him.
"Jack! Where's Jack?"
"He was there a minute ago. By the totem."
"I know, but the totem has gone!"
"Great Scott, it must have gone overboard when that shock came and carried the boy with it."
They darted to the rail where Jack had last been seen. The next instant they set up a mingled cheer and groan. The cheer was in token that Jack was alive, the groan was at his precarious position. Clinging to the totem as if it had been a life buoy, the lad was drifting rapidly astern, and toward him was advancing the mad turmoil of waters that signified the battle royal raging between the killers and their huge awkward prey.
As he saw his friends, the boy on the floating totem waved his hand in a plucky effort to reassure them. He shouted something encouraging that they could not catch. But the peril of his position was only too plain.
Only a short distance separated the killers and their frightened quarry from the drifting boy. Once in the midst of that seething turmoil his life would be in grave danger.
It was a moment for action, swift and decisive. Within a few seconds, although to Jack's excited friends it appeared infinitely longer, a boat had been lowered and the steamer's way checked. This latter was the more easy to accomplish for the huge carcass impending at her bow had almost brought her to a standstill.
Manned by two sailors, the boat flew toward the imperiled boy. In the stern, with pale faces, stood Tom and Sandy, side by side with Mr. Dacre and Mr. Chillingworth. All carried rifles. Jack's position was a grave one as the school of whales, pursued by their remorseless foes, rushed down upon him. But those in the boat were in equal danger. One flip of those giant tails or a chance collision, and the stout boat would inevitably be sent to the bottom with a slender chance of its occupants being saved.
No wonder that little was said as they rowed swiftly toward Jack and that many anxious glances were cast at the waters astern, which were boiling like a maelstrom as the huge bodies of the whales and their foes dashed blindly hither and thither!
CHAPTER VIII
"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 was likely to swamp the little craft, deeply loaded as she was.
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 against the towering wave sweeping down upon them. It was the only thing to do, and Tom's experience had taught him to act quickly.
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 to rise swept under them. The small boat, half full of water and overcrowded, rose sullenly. To the boys it seemed that they were rushed dizzily heavenward and then let down into an abyss that was fathomless. But a few seconds later a glad cry from Mr. Dacre announced that the danger had passed. The boat had ridden the wave nobly, and as for the killers and their quarry, all that could be seen of them was a fast receding commotion in the water.
"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 this task when Jack gave a sudden outcry and pointed over the side.
"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 more restored to office as official mascot in the bow of the Northerner. But the ship did not get under way at once following the adventure of part of her crew. The body of the wounded whale still hung limply to her bow. Sailors with tackles had to be called into requisition before the vast obstruction could be cleared.
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," remarked the captain, who happened to be passing along the deck at the time. "Your adventure with the whales reminds me of a yarn that a certain old Captain Peleg Maybe used to spin, of the perils of whaling. Like to hear it?"
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
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