alk nearly as many languages as
human beings. But the sea cows did not answer because Sea Cow cannot
talk. He has only six bones in his neck where he ought to have seven,
and they say under the sea that that prevents him from speaking even
to his companions. But, as you know, he has an extra joint in his
foreflipper, and by waving it up and down and about he makes what
answers to a sort of clumsy telegraphic code.

By daylight Kotick's mane was standing on end and his temper was gone
where the dead crabs go. Then the Sea Cow began to travel northward very
slowly, stopping to hold absurd bowing councils from time to time, and
Kotick followed them, saying to himself, "People who are such idiots as
these are would have been killed long ago if they hadn't found out some
safe island. And what is good enough for the Sea Cow is good enough for
the Sea Catch. All the same, I wish they'd hurry."

It was weary work for Kotick. The herd never went more than forty or
fifty miles a day, and stopped to feed at night, and kept close to the
shore all the time; while Kotick swam round them, and over them, and
under them, but he could not hurry them up one-half mile. As they went
farther north they held a bowing council every few hours, and Kotick
nearly bit off his mustache with impatience till he saw that they were
following up a warm current of water, and then he respected them more.

One night they sank through the shiny water--sank like stones--and for
the first time since he had known them began to swim quickly. Kotick
followed, and the pace astonished him, for he never dreamed that Sea Cow
was anything of a swimmer. They headed for a cliff by the shore--a cliff
that ran down into deep water, and plunged into a dark hole at the
foot of it, twenty fathoms under the sea. It was a long, long swim, and
Kotick badly wanted fresh air before he was out of the dark tunnel they
led him through.

"My wig!" he said, when he rose, gasping and puffing, into open water at
the farther end. "It was a long dive, but it was worth it."

The sea cows had separated and were browsing lazily along the edges of
the finest beaches that Kotick had ever seen. There were long
stretches of smooth-worn rock running for miles, exactly fitted to make
seal-nurseries, and there were play-grounds of hard sand sloping inland
behind them, and there were rollers for seals to dance in, and long
grass to roll in, and sand dunes to climb up and down, and, best of all,