El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-09-10
ON THE FLOE
by Theodore Roberts.

TT BEGAN on the ice, and it ended
4 on the ice-and it began fully %
a years before it ended. The way the
enmity between Pat Walen and Cor
ney Morris began need be treated only
briefly, for it is ancient history from
Dipper Bay to Foxtrap. In those days
sailing vessels We're still used in the
seal fishery.
Corney Morris was a member of the
sealing crew of the brig Lucky, and
Pat Walen belonged to the Topsail-
schooner Princess. Both vessels got
among the ice ard the seals at the
same hour and within a mile of each
other. The men went far and wide
on the great floes of ice, killing sculp-
ing and toFing the loads OF blubber
and skin They did not drag the pelts
all the way back to their ships but
panned them here and there on the ice,
to be collected and put aboard at less
busy time. Each pan of seal-skins was
marked with a flag for the vessel it
belonged to-the flags Of the Lucky
were red, and those of the Princess
green.
Just before sunset a change of wind
began to spread the floe and the men
started back for their ships. 1t was
then that Corney Morris came upon Pat
Walen with a red flag in his left hand
and with his right setting up a green
flag over a pan OF pelrs. That is what
Corney Morris said and maintained for
20 years He swore, up and down, that
he had caught Pat Walen trying to rob
the Lucky of a fine heap of blubber
and skins.
Pat Walen of course, could explain
(which he did, and continued to do
for. 20 years. His story was that he
had picked up one of the red flags from
the ice where it had been accidentally
dropped by a member of the briggs crew
and that he CHANGED to have it in his
hand-bad cess to the thingi-when he
stopped to set up the green flag that
had been toppled over by a gust of
wind
At the time, however, neither said
very much; but they fought with hands
and feet until they were separated by
their comrades. That is how the en-
nifty began between two we'll behaved
middle-aged men who had been friends
for years And, as has been said, the
bad blood between them lasted for 20
years. though they lived within four
miles of each other-MorriS in Dipper
Rav. and Walen in Riggers' Cove to
the northward.
Little lads grew up into burly men.
and the wooden vessels left the spring
sealing to great iron steamships. And
the lads who had grown to be burly
men tramped to large parts from all the
little out-harbors, to get berths to the
ice But the old fellows, like Corney
Morris and Pat Walen, remained at
home for the new way of sealing was
harder as we'll as less profitable.
One morning when Pat Walen open
ed his door, he saw that the flOe had
drifted in during the night and now lay
along the anchored shore-ice. Far and
wide over those thousands of acres of
ice were dotted tens of thousands of
black specks and specks Of a yellow
ish-white color The black specks were
old seals and the sulphur-tinted were
Young seals or whitecoats.
The sight, fired Pats rusting ener-
gies and set the lust of easy gain
steaming in his blood. He hustled his
wife, his two married daughters. and
his four grandchildren out of their
blankets, and drove them to get break
fast Three boys accompanied him for
about a quarter of a mile; but on
reaching the edge of the shOre-ice.
where the unanchored floe ground
restlessly, he told them not to come
any further, and left them stalking