The Coconino sun., 1903-02-28

arose. The W1nOIaSs spun rOupu ilke
 . boys top. It hummed and buzzed with the noise of flying locomotive. Coil after coil of rope leaped into noth-
 ingness like a magician's flower pots. Gradually the windlass ceased to spin. The whale had touched bottom. The captain signaled to back the ship, lest he should come up afoul of the propel-
 Ter. The rope foated slack on the water. There was a minute or two of silent, expectant suspe nse. Then, right in front of the bow, so close Icouldha
 poked my finger against the fiabby blubber, up rose the giant nose-up, up, up till he lowered full IS feet above the rail! I jumped back in genuine fear that he would topple over on the deck. Then he turned a somersault with a splash and drenched us all. He rose again, churning the water white. raised his tail quite 20 feet and slapped the water with noise like a 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 e 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 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 convulsione. Then the captain shouted the order to wind in the rope. 4
 As the whale felt the pull he gave one feeble, dying jump. The men stopped a minute. then continued slowly to pull in. Finally. the huge, inert, fabby body floated belly upward. just of the bow. They lowered boat, passed chain about the narrow circumference where the tail widens, and grappled him to the side of the vessel. could see a 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 a 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 i've in the morn- ind-and before breakfast. After the meal. when we came cN deck again, there had risen a heavy Iceland wind. The captain sniffed 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 blow" 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 time when we could not see dozen "blows" within 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 speedinq past q 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 dipring at regular in- tervals. Farther of. milestones of their course were their "blows." It is the one conspicuous mammal cbarac- teristic rewaining to this expatriated land animal who has chosen the en- vironment of fish for his abode; once in 90 often he must breathe. And as his taking breath inyolvex hlow;nO q