many of those. And unless we can find a way to stop the
seal-pirates, those will soon be gone, too."

"Do you have much trouble with that sort of thing?" the boy asked.

"A lot nearly every year. We won't have so much of it now. Great
Britain, Japan, Russia, and the United States are united in the desire
to prevent pelagic sealing. Good thing, too. A treaty has been signed,
forbidding it for fifteen years. So you see, a seal poacher on the
rookeries finds everybody against him."

"Wasn't there a lot of trouble some years ago?" Colin asked. "I heard
that there was real fighting here."

"Indeed there was, and lots of it! No one, not even the United States
Government, ever knew how much. While the islands were leased to a
private company the beaches were patrolled by riflemen. Russian and
Japanese schooners frequently sent off boatloads of armed men during a
fog, to kill as many seals as possible, protecting their men by gunfire.
But that was before the Bureau of Fisheries took hold!"

"Has there been any of that lately?"

"Not recently. The last was in 1906, when seven men were killed. The two
schooners, the _Tokaw Maru_ and the _Bosco Maru_, were seized and
confiscated. Promptly! The men were taken to Valdez. They were convicted
and sent to prison."

"Well, that's desperate enough," the boy said, "but, after all, there's
something daring about it. It's the pelagic sealing that seems so mean
to me."

"It may be daring enough," the agent admitted. "The way I feel about it,
though, is that it seems worse to kill a cow fur seal than a human
being. There are lots of people in the world. The human race isn't going
to die out, but the small remnant of fur seals on the Pribilof Islands
is absolutely the last chance left of saving the entire species from
extinction. So," he concluded with a laugh, as they went into the
village, "don't let your enthusiasm for a piece of daring tempt you to
turn seal-pirate."

Colin laughed, as he nodded to his host, and went to see after one of
his new pets, a blue fox pup which had been given him that morning by
one of the natives.

Evening seemed to come early because of the dense fog, the damp mist
which had been present all day settling down heavily. Colin was
thoroughly tired, but not at all sleepy, and he wandered aimlessly
through the village for a while after supper.

"I wonder if there's a storm coming?" he said to the agent. "I have a
sort of feeling that something's going