The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-11-26

about to be skinned, when the hunter
saws:
No time for that now, boys; give
way; there's another one therev'
Crack! Crack! come the faint re-
ports of shots off to the right and left
Other hunters are meeting with sue
cess
Soon the boats are far from the
schooner. Even the captain grows ex-
cited and orders his boat lowered away.
Mate and boy act as boats crew, ,leav-
ing the doctor" and the dog alone to
man the schooner Now the captain
gets shot and bags a seal.
SO it goes all day. Along toward the
middle of the afternoon the captain,
more observing than the others, de-
tects something in the sky that makes
his face grow grave.
Back to the schooner" he COM
than with that mysterious sud-
denness seen only in the North
Pacific, thick. penetrating fog,
one that hampers your breathing
and feels almost as dense as water as
you drive your hand through it. has
come on. Already the cook has set to
ringing the great bell. The mate
charges the small brass cannon for
ward and fires it, repeating the firing
frequently.
Soon there is a "hullo, schooner
ahoy' IN muffied tones off the star
board bow. All hands aboard give
tongue to an answering cry. Presently,
wet and glistening and hardly disting-
Unstable, a boat bumps against the
schooners side and three men, water
running from their garments, C, nlc
aboard, hoist in their skins and then the
boat. They do not take time to stow
the sailed nelts, but give their ltten-
ton to making all the noise possible 20
attract the other boats. After anxious
hours all have returned. The YES sci ls
then made snug for the night, thu boy
IS stationed at the bell to keep lp a
warning ringing 30 prevent collisions,
and all hands 20 to supper.
But not always do the crews all re-
turn safely. These treacherous Pa
citic fogs are the great enemy
of the pelagic sealers. Hardly
season goes by but some crews
are lost. Sometimes they are
found days afterward, farhished, weak
ened, crazy beings. afoat on the open
sea. Other times they disappear en-
tirely, as did the boats crew from the
Sophie Sutherland, and never are heard
of more.
And then there are the fierce SPRING
tiPe storms that drive those schoon-
ers that have chung too close to
the shore against the rock-bound, desc
late coast Of Vancouver island or one
of the treacherous Alaskan crag-like
rocks, leaving only a mass of drift
wood and whltened bones upon the mar
row beach to tell the terrible story.
From February until late in October
the schooners are at work They fol-
low the main body of seals until the
furry, shy creatures enter the pro-
hibited zone, and then the schooners go
Off to the westward to pick up stray
glers of the Asiatic schools that head
for Copper island on the Siberian side
OF Boring sea, or cruise about the
Aleutian islands, picking up Struggling
seas here and there.
Some seasons steamer is sent out
from Victoria carrying supplies to the
schooners and receiving their skins in
return. At such times the schoonars
are met at a previously appointed rem
devious in western Alaska. Imagine
with what joy she is hailed and how
eagerly the sealers fall upon the letters
from home and the good things to eat
sent them by loved ones. What a
wealth of pathos there is in their de-
mands for news of the outside world.
Sometimes the letters tell of sickness
or death at home, of an unfaithful
sweetheart; sometimes they tell 4
stalwart sailor, who had been anxious
and heavy-heartedf for weeks of a sturdy
son and heir born since his departure,
They bear tragedies and comedies, do
these letters. Once it was the writer's
duty to deliver hundreds of them. 1t
was like dealing in a game of hazard
in which life and happiness were The
stakes.
And the letters that came back!
Here is one that goes to a bride of six
months, telling her she is a widow; here
is one telling of a sturdy, high spirited
young mate who crazed by the hard
ships and dreary monotony of the life
had leaped overheard and ended all;
here is another addressed to a widow
and bearing the news that her only son
had died at sea and been given a sail
or's funeral
Then the supply steamer sails away
southwark and the schooners go on to
work until the dark days of the fall
come on and the seals drop out of sight.
When pelagic sealing first began to
assume large proportions the schooners
entered Boring sea to operate, al
though, with the exceptions noted, they
did not attempt to raid the rookeries.
Then the United States set up the claim
that it owned all of Boring sea east
of the line of demarkation. 1t proceed