nted room by the sea for his nursery. But as
there were forty or fifty thousand other seals hunting for the same
thing each spring, the whistling, bellowing, roaring, and blowing on the
beach was something frightful.

From a little hill called Hutchinson's Hill, you could look over three
and a half miles of ground covered with fighting seals; and the surf was
dotted all over with the heads of seals hurrying to land and begin their
share of the fighting. They fought in the breakers, they fought in the
sand, and they fought on the smooth-worn basalt rocks of the nurseries,
for they were just as stupid and unaccommodating as men. Their wives
never came to the island until late in May or early in June, for they
did not care to be torn to pieces; and the young two-, three-, and
four-year-old seals who had not begun housekeeping went inland about
half a mile through the ranks of the fighters and played about on the
sand dunes in droves and legions, and rubbed off every single green
thing that grew. They were called the holluschickie--the bachelors--and
there were perhaps two or three hundred thousand of them at Novastoshnah
alone.

Sea Catch had just finished his forty-fifth fight one spring when
Matkah, his soft, sleek, gentle-eyed wife, came up out of the sea,
and he caught her by the scruff of the neck and dumped her down on his
reservation, saying gruffly: "Late as usual. Where have you been?"

It was not the fashion for Sea Catch to eat anything during the four
months he stayed on the beaches, and so his temper was generally bad.
Matkah knew better than to answer back. She looked round and cooed: "How
thoughtful of you. You've taken the old place again."

"I should think I had," said Sea Catch. "Look at me!"

He was scratched and bleeding in twenty places; one eye was almost out,
and his sides were torn to ribbons.

"Oh, you men, you men!" Matkah said, fanning herself with her hind
flipper. "Why can't you be sensible and settle your places quietly? You
look as though you had been fighting with the Killer Whale."

"I haven't been doing anything but fight since the middle of May. The
beach is disgracefully crowded this season. I've met at least a hundred
seals from Lukannon Beach, house hunting. Why can't people stay where
they belong?"

"I've often thought we should be much happier if we hauled out at Otter
Island instead of this crowded place," said Matkah.

"Bah! Only the holluschickie go to Otter Island. If w