River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-07-10


deck. Then he turned someTsaulr
with splash and drenched US al. He
rose again, churning the water white,
raised his tail quite 20 feet and slapped
the water with noise like thunder
clap at our very toes. He turned round
and round, wrapping the rope about
his huge body, then shot straight for
ward on the surface, skipping from
wave TO wave like swallow. He
reached the end of his slack rope with
jerk that shook the ship from stem to
stern. There was an instant tug of
war between the whale and the re-
versed engines. Then the whale won
and for a minute pulled the vessel for
ward with him.
Again the windlass whirred and
whizzed, but with diminishing speed.
Far out at the end of his two miles Of
rope, the whale churned and dashed the
water and blew big blasts of hot vapor.
The crew saw the end and relaxed their
tenseness. They gave him half an hour
or so to end his commissions. Then the
captain shouted the order to wind in
the rope.
AS the whale felt the pull he gave one
feeble, dying jump. The men stopped
minute, then continued slowly to pull
in. Finally, the huge, inert, fabby
body foated belly upward, just off the
bow. They lowered boat, passed
chain about the narrow circumference
where the tail widens, and grappled
him to the side of the vessel. I could
see dozen quarreling porpoises eat
ing the tongue of the monster that
had been an hour before alive and, to
those scavengers, invincible. The cap
tain gave sigh and smile of content
and leaned over the side to measure
with his eye the size of his prize. The
crew busted themselves with loading
the harpoon gun again and putting
things in order.
All this was before five in the morn
ind-and before breakfast. After the
meal, when we came on deck again,
there had risen heavy Iceland wind.
The captain shifted it and glanced at
the choppy sea. "'Twill be bad day
for the feesh," he said; and went aloft
to his bridge to watch with his glass
es for another elbow" With the wind
came rain, and the two did, indeed,
make bad fishing. Not that the whales
went in out of the wet, as an irreverent
sailor must tell the guileless lands
men; there was scarce a time when we
could not see a dozen elbows" within
a five-mile radius. Often. when we
were not prepared for them, they
would swim right past us with all the
dignity of an ocean liner speeding past
a bobbing fishing craft. They never
seemed to be merely browsing idly
around-they were always swimming
in straight line, and always very fast,
as if they had important business
somewhere on the coast of Sweden.
When they were close by we could fol-
low them readily with the eye, and see
them rising and dipping at regular in
tervals. Farther off, milestones of
their course were their "blows." It is
the one conspicuous mammal charac-
teristic remaining to this expatriated
land animal who has chosen the en-
vironment Of fish for his abode; once
in so often he must breathe. And as
his taking breath involves blowing a
2O-foot high pillar of white vapor into
the air, it is this "mark of the beast"
and of the beasts natural habitat that
betrays him to his enemies.
Late in the afternoon the captain on
the bridge swept the sea with his
glasses, and saw no sign of "blow."
He glanced at the sinking sun and
ha To
the harbor. He dropped his glasses
and gave quiet order that meant the
days work was done. The deck was
put in order and the stocky little
whaler, with her trophies grappled
close to her side, set her bow towards
the mainland. 1t was not for the want
of 'fish" that we had fisherman's luck
that day. But the whaler was no
larger than a tugboat. The heavy sea
tossed her about like a cork, and aim
ing cannon with so unsteady base
as the whaler's bow was difficult bust
ness even for the expert captain.
Three times he fired and missed; and
as it took an hour or two to reload the
gun and prepare the harpoon and
bomb, it was two o'clock in the after
noon before we got our second prize.
The process was in all respects like the
first; but there was the same frenzy of
excitement aboard the ship. The one
appetite that never becomes satiated,
the one instinct that is never satisfied,
the one experience that no amount of
repetition dulls, is, it seems, the in
stinct to hunt and kill. In primitive
man it was the first law of his being;
and, like the whales breathing, it
stays with him in a wholly changed
environment.
The captain slowly paced the bridge
and pulled long cigar in profound
content. I judged, by what he had
told me, that his individual share in
the days catch would be a successful
lawyers income for a week.-Boston
Transcript.
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