The Bungalow Boys Along the Yukon Part 8

"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 s.h.i.+p," 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 s.h.i.+p and once more restored to office as official mascot in the bow of the _Northerner_. But the s.h.i.+p 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 carca.s.s, 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 s.h.i.+ps engaged in whale trade for weeks at a time.

"Gracious, we certainly are having exciting times!" said Tom as the s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sent. 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 s.h.i.+p, 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-fis.h.i.+ng after halibut. Well, the boat was lowered away and the skipper pulled off to some distance from the s.h.i.+p 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, the fluke of it should land in the blow-hole of a whale, which isn't much bigger than a man's fist?"

"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 drawn through the water at 'sixty-'leven' miles an hour or more. He said afterward it was the fastest he'd ever traveled. The wind hit his face as if he was coasting down a forty-five grade mountainside in a runaway six-cylinder auto without brakes or winds.h.i.+eld.

"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. .h.i.tched 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 s.h.i.+p again.

"They made the trip in as fast time as if he'd been hitched to a runaway cyclone. As they came near the s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sing the s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p.

"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 by the terrific pace they had traveled through the water."

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."

CHAPTER IX.

WILD WATERS.

Early one morning the boys were awakened by the steady booming of the _Northerner's_ whistle. By the lack of vibration they knew that she was proceeding slowly. Wondering what could be the cause of the reduced speed and the constant raucous bellowing of the whistle, they hustled into their clothes and met each other on deck.

It was at once apparent what was the matter. Thick, steamy sea-fog enveloped the s.h.i.+p. Through a fleece of blanket-like vapor, she was forging ahead at a snail's pace. The boys made their way to the bridge. There they found their elders in anxious consultation. And there, too, the blowing of the whistle was explained to them. It was not, as they had at first thought, for fear of encountering other vessels that the big siren was kept incessantly roaring its hoa.r.s.e warning.

The whistle was sounding to enable the captain to get his bearings in the dense smother. Sea captains along the part of the coast where they were now steaming, keep their whistles going in thick weather so as to catch the sound of an echo. When they hear one reverberating back through the fog, they know that they are in dangerous proximity to the cliffy, rockbound coast, and keep outward toward the open sea.

"Where are we?" was naturally the first thing that the boys wanted to know.

"We are somewhere off the coast of Afognok Island," was the rejoinder.

"That's a misnomer for it," declared Jack.

"How's that?" unsuspectingly inquired Tom.

"Why, it's the last place I'd think of calling A-fog-not," rejoined Jack, dodging quickly to a place of safety behind a stanchion.

"Are we near a harbor?" inquired Sandy.

"As well as I can tell, we ought to be off the mouth of Kadiak Harbor soon after breakfast," rejoined the captain, squinting at the compa.s.s and giving a brief direction to the man at the wheel.

Sure enough, after breakfast the anchor was let go with a rattle and roar and the _Northerner_ came to a standstill. The whistle was blown in impatient short toots as a signal to the pilot to come off, if, as the captain was certain, they were really near the harbor mouth. Mr.

Dacre was anxious to go ash.o.r.e, as he had some friends living in the Alaskan town whom he had not seen for many years.

At last, out of the fog came the sound of oars, and then came a rough voice roaring out through a megaphone a message to the _Northerner's_ company.

"Steamer, ahoy! Who are you?"