ee a vast dark shape half awash in the heavy surf. Around it bobbed a
few dark spots which they saw to be bidarkas. From these, and from the
natives gathered at the edge of the water, there came, as the boys could
see, one harpoon after another. It was plain that the whale, sickened by
its wound and buffeted by the heavy weather, had been driven close in
shore, and here had been attacked and finished at short range by the
natives who had been watching for its appearance.

XIX

HOPE DEFERRED

Of course the boys could not help joining the hurrying throng which now
was thickening about the stranded whale. John and Jesse were much
excited, but Rob remained more sober and thoughtful, even as they
finally stood on the beach where the Aleuts were working at the giant
carcass of the whale, which, pierced by a half-dozen lances and
bristling with short harpoons, was now quite dead, and fastened to the
shore by a score of strong hide lines.

"There's the whale all right," said he to his two friends. "It's a good
thing for these people, I suppose; but it's a very bad thing for us."

Jesse looked at him in inquiry, and Rob went on:

"Don't you see that they'll camp here now for days, and maybe weeks?
They'll eat this thing as long as it is fit to eat, and probably a good
deal longer; and meantime they are not going to take out any word from
us to the settlements, if they really intend to go there at all."

"That's so," said John. But his hopeful temperament cast off troubles
readily. "We can't do anything more than just wait, anyhow; and I
suppose that our friend here"--he motioned to the Aleut boy--"will see
that we get our share of the whale meat."

The boys now saw that whale-hunting among the Aleuts is a partnership
affair, a whole village sharing equally in the spoils. Every man of the
party now went to work. Some of them mounted the slippery back of the
dead whale and hacked away at the hide, laying bare strips of the thick
white blubber. Skilfully enough, for those possessing no better tools,
they got off long strips of the blubber, which they carried high up the
beach above the tide. Some of them carefully worked at the side of the
whale where the deadly harpoon had done its work. Cutting down, they
disclosed the broken head of slate buried deep in the body of the whale,
the wound now surrounded by a wide region of inflamed and bloodshot
flesh. This they carefully cut out for a distance of two or three feet