Читать книгу The Bungalow Boys Along the Yukon - Goldfrap John Henry - Страница 8

"Give way, men!" implored Mr. Dacre anxiously, as the sailors bent to their task vigorously.

There was small need to admonish the men. The affair had literally become a race for life between the boat and the surging, battling whales. As they came alongside Jack, who was clinging to the totem, he gave an encouraging wave of the hand.

"Gee! I'm glad you've come. This water is pretty cold, I can tell you."

He was hauled on board with all swiftness.

"Don't forget old 'Frozen Face,'" he begged anxiously as he heard his uncle give orders to take to the oars again.

"No time to wait for him now, Jack," declared Mr. Dacre; "look there!"

He pointed behind them. Rushing toward the boat with the speed of an express locomotive was a mighty head. It parted the water like an oncoming torpedo boat. The boys gave a shout of alarm.

"It's coming straight for us!"

The sailors pulled on their oars till the stout ash wood bent as if it had been bamboo. Suddenly there came a loud crack. One of the oars had snapped. No doubt, as sometimes occurs, there was a flaw in the wood. The man who was pulling it rolled off his seat into the bottom of the boat.

As he did so, there came a second loud cry of affright. The whale was almost upon them. On either side of its enormous blunt head was a mountainous wall of water. Even if it did not hit them, the mighty "wash" that its onrush made was likely to swamp the little craft, deeply loaded as she was.

The snapping of the oar had cost valuable time. A collision appeared to be inevitable. The second sailor seemed to be paralyzed with fright. He stared stupidly at the great bulk bearing down upon them.

With a sharp exclamation Mr. Dacre seized an oar out of the fellow's hand. In the stern of the boat was a "becket." He thrust the oar through this, and with a few powerful strokes moved the boat forward. It was then out of the direct path of the whale, but still in peril of the mighty wave the great body of the creature upreared.

It was at this juncture that Tom proved his mettle. He grabbed the other oar from the stupefied sailor's hands and thrusting it overboard on the port side tugged on it with all his might.

"That's right! Good lad! Head her into it!" cried Mr. Dacre, perceiving the object of Tom's maneuver, which was to force the boat bow first against the towering wave sweeping down upon them. It was the only thing to do, and Tom's experience had taught him to act quickly.

Hardly had the boat's bow been swung till it was facing the onrushing wave, than, with a roar and smother of foam, a huge black bulk shot by, drenching them with spray. Carried away by excitement, Jack did a foolish thing. Raising his revolver he fired point blank at the huge wet side of the whale.

Instantly, as the bullet struck it, the great creature spouted. From its nostrils two jets of water shot up with a roar like that of escaping steam.

"Duck your heads!" roared out Mr. Chillingworth.

He had hardly time to get out the words before the spouted water came down with the force of a cloudburst upon the boat. It was half filled, but they had hardly time to notice this before the great wave that the speeding whale had caused to rise swept under them. The small boat, half full of water and overcrowded, rose sullenly. To the boys it seemed that they were rushed dizzily heavenward and then let down into an abyss that was fathomless. But a few seconds later a glad cry from Mr. Dacre announced that the danger had passed. The boat had ridden the wave nobly, and as for the killers and their quarry, all that could be seen of them was a fast receding commotion in the water.

"Phew, what a narrow escape!" gasped out Tom. "I thought we were goners sure that time!"

"Same here," agreed Sandy with deep conviction.

The strained faces of the others showed what they had thought. Mr. Dacre relieved the tension by ordering all hands to get busy and bale out the boat with some baling cans that were under the thwarts. They were in the midst of this task when Jack gave a sudden outcry and pointed over the side.

"What's up now, another whale?" cried Sandy, his face showing his alarm.

"Whale nothing!" scoffed Jack. "Look, it's the 'Good Genius of the Frozen North!'"

"The mascot!" cried Sandy.

"The mascot, sure enough," declared Mr. Dacre. "It undoubtedly helped to save Jack's life."

"Yes, after carrying me overboard first!" snorted Jack.

Sure enough, alongside the boat old "Frozen Face" was bobbing serenely about.

"We've got to take him back to the ship," declared Sandy.

"Yes, since he's inviting himself we can't be so impolite as to leave him," said Mr. Chillingworth.

Accordingly, a line was made fast to the totem and he was towed back to the ship and once more restored to office as official mascot in the bow of the Northerner. But the ship did not get under way at once following the adventure of part of her crew. The body of the wounded whale still hung limply to her bow. Sailors with tackles had to be called into requisition before the vast obstruction could be cleared.

By this time, as if by magic, thousands of birds had appeared. They fell upon the carcass, paying scant attention to the men at work on it, and fought and tore and devoured flesh and blubber as if they were famished. The captain said that they were whale birds, such as haunt the track of ships engaged in whale trade for weeks at a time.

"Gracious, we certainly are having exciting times!" said Tom as the ship once more got under way bound for her next port of call, Valdez, to the east of the great Kenai Peninsula.

"I expect you boys will have more exciting times later than any you have yet experienced," remarked the captain, who happened to be passing along the deck at the time. "Your adventure with the whales reminds me of a yarn that a certain old Captain Peleg Maybe used to spin, of the perils of whaling. Like to hear it?"

The boys chorused assent. They knew something of the captain's ability as a spinner of yarns.

"Well, it appears, according to the way old Captain Peleg used to tell it, that his ship, the Cachelot