Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-10-11
o N T n e = L o e
BY Theodore Roberts.

1t began on the ice, and it ended on
the ice-and 1t began fully twenty
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 were 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 and the seals the same
| hour and within a mile Of each other.
The men went far and wide on the
great foes of ice, killing, sculping and
towing 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 COL
lected and put aboard at less busy
time. Each pan Of skins was marked
with a flag for the vessel 1t 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 foe, and the men
started back for their ships. 1t was
then that Corney Morris came upon
Pat Walen with red flag in his left
hand and with his right setting up a
green flag over a pan of pelts. That is
what Corney Morris said, and main
tanned for twenty years. He swore up
and down, that he had caught Pat
Walen trying to rob the Lucky Of fine
heap Of blubber and skins.
Pat Walen, Of course, could explain
it-which he did, and continued to do
for twenty years. His story was that
he had picked up one Of the red flags
from the ice, where 1t had been acci-
dentally dropped by member Of the
briggs crew, and that he chanced to
have 1t in his hand-bad cess to the
thing!-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 Ly
their comrades. That is how the en-
nifty began between two well-behaved,
middle aged men who had been friends
for years. And, as has been said the
bad blood between them lasted for
twenty years, though they lived within
four miles Of each other-Morris in
Dipper Bay and Walen in Riggers
Cove, to the northward.
Little lads grew up into burly men.
and the wooden vessels left the spring
sealing for great iron steamships. And
the lads who had grown to be burly
men tramped to large ports from all
the little out-harbors, to get berths to
the ice. But the old fellows, like Cor
ney Morris and Pat Walen, remained
at home; for the new way Of sealing
was harder, as well as less profitable.
One morning when Pat Walen OPEN
ed his door he saw that the foe had
drifted in during the night and now
lay along the anchored shore ice. Far
and wide over the thousands Of acres
of ice were dotted tens Of thousands of
black specks and specks Of 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 quarter Of a mile, but on reach
ing the edge of the shore ice, where
he told them not to come any farther,
and left them stalking the scattered
and wary harbor seals.
Pat Walen got among the Greenland
seals at last and set briskly to work.
He had left his gun on the shore ice
for the boys to use, and so, travelling
light, he was long way from the cab
ins of Riggers Cove before he gave the
matter Of his position any serious
thought.
The thing that brought 1t to his mind
was puff Of off-shore wind. When he
felt that he glanced swiftly round,
then ceased his work with the bat and
set quickly to sculping the seals he had
already killed. Caution told him to get
the pelts ond let the dead seals lie, and
run for the shore ice, but greed held
him to the work Of skinning and tow
ing. At last he ran-but then 1t was
too late.
BY the time Pat reached the inner
edge Of the foe channel Of open wa
ter over fifty yards in width lay be-
tween him and the outer edge of the
on the coast, Pat Walen could not
swim.
He was in a desperate fix and no
mistake.
An hour passed, bright and cold, and
the foe continued to drift southwark,
very slowly, and always spreading and
spreading its white RATS abroad on the
grey water. Pat Walen's pan, guided
and held by a coastwise current, kept
to it's course at distance Of about 300
yards from the shore-ice.
A second hour passed, as bright as
the first, but a trifle colder.
"I'll just be maxim bit O. fire, for
I'll be off Dipper Bay afore long," re-
marked Pat to the needless elements.
On one of the pelts he started a tin
fire, first building it with shavings cut
from the Handle of his bat, and adding
to these, when they were we'll alight
narrow strips Of blubber. 1t sent thin
stream of black smoke aloft.
Then a happy idea came to him. He
cut off the skinned fat fiipper and be-
gan to broil it at the fire. While he
was broiling the fiipper out there on
the drifting ice-pan, the smoke of his