United States or Chile ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The tide sweeps out, washing the net up, but the otter are enmeshed in a tangle that holds neck and feet. This is, perhaps, the best kind of otter hunting, for the females and young can be thrown back in the sea. Barely has the supply schooner dipped over the offing, when the cockle-shell bidarkas skimming over the sea make for the shore of the hunting-grounds.
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.
The passages between the islands about Sitka were called the "Straits" by the Russians, and in them the sea-otter skins were taken by the thousands. It was not unusual for a Russian hunting party consisting of a hundred bidarkas to take on one expedition 2,000 skins of the Morski bobrov, as they called the sea-otter.
The natives were hurrying as fast as they could go in a body up the beach. Perhaps a half-mile from where they stood they could see a vast dark shape half awash in the heavy surf. Around it bobbed a few dark spots which they saw to be bidarkas. From these, and from the natives gathered at the edge of the water, there came, as the boys could see, one harpoon after another.
"If each bidarka were as a grain of sand," Nam-Bok defiantly continued, "and if there were as many bidarkas as there be grains of sand in this beach, still would they not make so big a canoe as this I saw on the morning of the fourth day. It was a very big canoe, and it was called a schooner. I saw this thing of wonder, this great schooner, coming after me, and on it I saw men "
There were one hundred and fifty bearded promyshileniks, or fur hunters, and over 500 Aleuts in their skin bidarkas. With him were the ships "Alexander," "Ekaterina," "Yermak," and "Rostislaf." When they reached Sitka they found there Captain Lisianski of the Imperial Russian Navy, with the ship "Neva," one of the first Russians to circle the globe, and who came to help to recapture the post.
There was a ring of indignation in his voice, that told his interest had been aroused. "San Francisco was helpless. There was not a boat on the bay, except the rude tule canoes of the Indians 'boats of straw' Vancouver called them, and these were no match for the swift darting bidarkas of the Alaskan natives." "And Luis Argüello in command!"
"If each bidarka were as a grain of sand," Nam-Bok defiantly continued, "and if there were as many bidarkas as there be grains of sand in this beach, still would they not make so big a canoe as this I saw on the morning of the fourth day. It was a very big canoe, and it was called a schooner. I saw this thing of wonder, this great schooner, coming after me, and on it I saw men "
"In those tippy bidarkas?" "Tippy bidarkas," nodded Uncle Dick; "and go egg-hunting on the gull rocks, and all sorts of things. Why, they'd have the time of their lives, that's all." "But not one of the boys has a father at home now to advise in the matter," hesitated Jesse's mother. "They are all inside, and won't be back for a week."
To these boats the natives were now hastening; indeed, some of them had already launched their bidarkas and were paddling back and forth, as much at home on the water as on the land. With much shouting and gesticulation, one after another bidarka joined these, the hunter in each hurriedly casting off the lashings of his harpoon which lay along deck.
Word Of The Day