Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-01-08

gripping fat convulsive salmon in its Jaws. As if
sheer wantonness of destruction the shining fish would
be bitten clean in two, mouthfu gulped, and the
bleeding fragments dropped into the water. Then the
notous fisherman would plunge for new prey.
1t was bad hour for the salmon. Along the nearer
shore of the estuary prowled certain lesurely white
bears, which would plunge into the thronged tide pick
out their prizes and carry them ashore to be devoured
at But the hordes of salmon, urged by mex
orabe DESIRE swerved halted And their
bers incaculable that not all the assaults of
seal and bear combined seemed to diminish them in
the least.
In the exuberance of his play with the salmon, the big
seal CHANGED to respass the none too aabe repoSe
of strange looking which rolling slug
gishly from side to side the muddy bottom This
beast of pale corpseke color and some twelve feet IN
length, suggested some past misalance between uni
and porpoise. From the middle of its huge blunt
snout proruded to length of fully six feet, massive
keeny pointed curiousy twisted tusk of hardest ivory
Its cold little pglike eyes regarded ndiferently the
myr1ads of salmon passing above It, because, tor the
time its giant appetite was stated with salmon.
The water of the estuary at this point not more
than twelve feet deep; and it CHANGED that the
big SEAL in one of his reckless punges slapped the mar
whal rudey the with his hind fppers. Pos
sbly the narwha at that moment suffering from
incpient Indigestion. His temper was certainly light
the trigger. In sudden fury he darted upward The
seal out of the of his the rise of that pale
bulk though it almost mperceptble in the turbd
water He writhed aside, doubling upon himself like an
eel And he barely in time That fine lance of ivory
missed indeed his vitals but it plowed red cash up
his side, just behind the fore fpper.
With the ferocity of his rush the narwhal shot his
tusk and half his body out of the water The SEAL in
rage at the attack darted at him he down. and
slashed him savagey across the piglike eye: Then.
realizing, perhaps, that his assaants of blubber
too thick for his teeth to do much with he gded off
and was lost among the salmon while the narwha sank
back heavily to his interrupted digestion of the mud
TT almost MINDLESS morning under pale, low
sum- when the big seal that particular island
of the Prbiof group which he had been holding in his
minds eye all through the northward journey. The
coast the whole island was barren and bleak beyond
depction but the point where the seal foundered
ashore and preempted his claim had certain advantages
which his kind quick to appreciate. Not half mile
off shore lay another fat island long and narrow, which
served breakwater against the heavy of the
OPEN Moreover the channel between there were al
ways plenty Of fish and the deep water right to
the lip of the ledge which he had established himself
As he landed, he followed at once, all along the
wide of the ledge. by the throngs of his fellow
travellers And instantly the polar Stiffness which had
been breathless death, shattered with harsh,
barking roars and granting yels as the new arrivals
wrangled savagely their holdings.
Here the big bull made himself Immediately at home,
his roof the sky, his house walls the four Winds his floor
gently soping space of rock that not the maddest
Arctic storm would be able to jar. How desirable
holding he had taken up promptly proved to him.