The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-15
SEAL SKINS ARE CHEAP,
The Hunters of the Arctic Are
DiSgruntled at Ruling
Rates.
Dangers and Disappointment
Which Attend the Ocean
HuntSmen.

Peter Temple, the sharp-shooter of the
sealing schooner Lily L, is disguised and
will squint no more over the barrel of a
rife in the Arctic Seas until things i'm
prove and good craftsmanship climbs back
to the original financial standard. The
sporting gentlemen of the Country Club
and Teal Duck Club, and the Tamalpais
Shooting and Fishing Club and kindred
organizations, who lounge over the hills
behind their pointers and settlers after
quail or sit, flask in hand, in dingy wait
ing for the ducks to come along, have no
idea of the hardships of the man who
hunts the fur seal.
Once the price to the hunter used to be
81 per skin. Now it has been reduced to
81 so, hence the chagrin and indignation OF
Peter Temple.
ANY one who has tried shooting game on
the water from tossing and uneasy boat
can appreciate how difficult it is to plant
the lead in the place where 1t Will do the
most good. There is double motion to be
calculated-the jumping OF the boat and
tie movement OF the object. Unless these
harmonic, and one fits exactly into the
other, the bullet goes wide OF the mark
and the hunter swears.
Now, when the thermometer Is away be-
low zero, and the hands of the seal-hunter
are enveloped in heavy gloves and he is
swathed in mass of coats to keep him
from freezing to death, to PUNK fur seal
through the head is not an easy task. 1t
mar be hours before he sights one, and
then, lust as the rife is at his shoulder,
Mr.. Seal, it'll farewell grin, hobs under
the water to reappear, perhaps, 200 yards
away. This is too long shot even for the
most skillful hunter to attempt, so again
he sneaks up on the seal. The latter are
intelligent animals.
If they have been hunted before they
take a malicious delight in fooling the
hunter. They chuckIe under their fur
coats at his folly in endeavoring to stalk
them, and it affords even their stolid Arctic
temperament the keenest sort delight in
leading him doleful dance over the freez-
ing deep, peeping at him around the corner
of an iceberg and in other ways rasping his
temper to the pitch of insanity.
Nor does a successful shot always mean
the recovery of the quarry. Sometimes,
and not by any means infrequently, just
when the hunter is alongside the dead ami
NAL it sinks, and nothing but the broadly
stained water tells the story of the tragedy.
This is the very intensity of irritation, and
Peter Temple, though usually a good
natured young Britisher, has in such mo-
ments of agony cast himself in the bottom
or the boat ana SUNK Ills teetu III lIle
streteher. Such misfortune is usually
followed by dense fog, failure to make
the ship and wretched night pacing up
and down the fat section of an iceberg.
When skins were 81 apiece and upward
to the seal-hunter it was a profitable busi-
ness In three months Arthur Pope, a
halfbreed Aleutian, has cleared $500 and
has reigned for nearly four days the un-
crowned king of Barbary Coast. Beauty
has smiled upon him and beer flowed like
water. Minstrels from sunny Italy have
sung the praises of the bold hunter, and
the fatness of the land has been spread be-
fore him in luxurious profusion. Nothing
was too good for Arthur until the fifth day,
when all the Guineyeres and all the knights
of the tables round and square deserted
him, for Arthur had spent his last quarter,
and he was kicked out and told to look
for ship"
Peter Temple, however, is cast in a
different mold and has visions of a sunny
haired lass away in Devonshire and snug
cottage close by the village common and
the society of his old cronies at that adj
mirable alehouse, the Pig and WHISTLE -
where the beer is of the good old British
sort and the cheese as yellow as California
gold. But these dreams will never come
to pass with fur-seal skins at only 81 so
apiece.