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Updated: June 28, 2025
Jimmy now laid down his paddle, took up his bow and arrows, and signalled to Rob to paddle ahead slowly. A few yards farther he motioned for the headway to be checked, and just as the bidarka stopped he launched his barbed arrow with a savage grunt. The weapon flew true! A wide rush of bubbles showed where an instant before the otter had lain.
The struggles of the whale broke off the slate-head at a point near to the shaft, where it was cunningly made thinner in order that it might break. A foot or fifteen inches of the slate-head remained buried deep in the body of the whale. The nogock had done its work! A loud chant now broke from all the boatmen, who joined the head bidarka, all backing away from the struggling whale.
After that all that Rob could tell was that he was in the bidarka speeding swiftly away from a churning mass of white water, in the middle of which a vast black form was rolling. He heard a sort of hoarse roar or expiration of the breath of the stricken monster.
It was plain that the natives meant to attack this monster in their fleet of bidarkas. The old Aleut chief saw the boys as they came up. He motioned hurriedly to Rob as he ran to his own bidarka, grinning as though he hardly expected Rob to accept the invitation to come and join the hunt. Not so, however; for Rob was so much excited that he did not stop to think of danger.
They agreed to this plan, and Jesse, hobbling out to the edge of the lagoon, picked up one of the bidarka's paddles a narrow-bladed, pointed implement such as the Aleuts always use rested the end of the paddle on the bottom on the other side of the bidarka, and, steadying himself by this means, slipped into place in the front hatch of the boat, just as one would step into a tottery birch-bark, although not even the latter can be more ticklish than one of these skin-covered native boats.
She debated a moment, while the bidarka drifted swiftly from her, then raised her voice to a quavering treble. "I am old, Nam-Bok, and soon I shall pass down among the shadows. But I have no wish to go before my time. I am old, Nam-Bok, and I am afraid." A shaft of light shot across the dim-lit sea and wrapped boat and man in a splendor of red and gold.
"Nam-Bok was ever clumsy. I remember...." But the women and children laughed loudly, and there was a gentle mockery in their laughter, and her voice dwindled till her lips moved without sound. Koogah lifted his grizzled head from his bone-carving and followed the path of her eyes. Except when wide yaws took it off its course, a bidarka was heading in for the beach.
With a shout he called to the others to halt, and presently, pushing the bidarka out into the creek, he paddled across to them. They all joined now in examining the contents of the boat. "It's just as I said," commented Rob. "He left in a hurry, and badly scared. He could just as well have taken one of our guns as not, but we know he did not do that, and even left his own.
Far away, outlined like a sail against an island rick, the night tent of these nomads was already pitched. Tisdale laughed softly. "Well, madam, that was skilful piloting. A bidarka couldn't have been safer riding in a skiddery sea." "A bidarka?" she questioned, ruffling her brows. Tisdale nodded. "One of those small skin canoes the Alaskan natives use.
"I, too, have strange tales to tell," Nam-Bok stated insidiously. And, as they wavered, "And presents likewise." He pulled from the bidarka a shawl, marvellous of texture and color, and flung it about his mother's shoulders. The women voiced a collective sigh of admiration, and old Bask-Wah-Wan ruffled the gay material and patted it and crooned in childish joy.
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