lenty of willing hands to which the burdens
might be shifted, for the "Labrador" carried a crew two hundred strong,
and, as the little party moved swiftly from one shouting man to
another, it constantly gained accessions.

At length the sealer was reached, and the rescued lads were taken to
her cabin, where the ship's doctor, having made every possible
preparation for their reception, awaited them. They were given hot
drinks, rubbed, fed, and placed between warm blankets, where poor,
weary Cabot was at last allowed to fall asleep without further
interruption.

The animal sought by the sealers of Newfoundland amid the furious
storms and crashing floes of the great ice pack is not the fur-bearing
seal of Alaska, but a variety of the much less important hair seal,
which may be seen almost anywhere along the Atlantic coast. From its
skin seal leather is made, but it is chiefly valuable for the oil
yielded by the layer of fat lying directly beneath the skin and
enveloping the entire body. These seals would hardly be worth hunting
unless they could be captured easily and in quantities; but, on their
native ice in early spring, the young seals are found in prime
condition and in vast numbers. Each helpless victim is killed by a
blow on the head, "sculped" or stripped of his pelt, and the flayed
body is left lying in a pool of its own blood.

The crew of a single vessel will thus destroy thousands of seals in a
day, and in some prosperous years the total kill of seals has passed
the half million mark. Now only about a dozen steamers are engaged in
the business, but by them from 200,000 to 300,000 seals are destroyed
each spring. The movements of sealing vessels are governed by rigidly
enforced laws that forbid them to leave port before the 12th of March,
to kill a seal before the 14th of the same month, or after the 20th of
April, and prohibit any steamer from making more than one trip during
this short open season. The crews are paid in shares of the catch, and
men are never difficult to obtain for the work, as the sealing season
comes when there is nothing else to be done.

As March was not yet ended when our lads were received aboard the
"Labrador," and as she would not return to port until the last minute
of the open season had expired, they had before them nearly a month in
which to recover their exhausted energies and learn the business of
sealing. White had suffered so severely, and reached such a precarious