But those Greenlanders learn
to handle themselves so well that their kayahs will go dancing over the
big billows and then fly through a ragged, dangerous surf. From their
kayahs, too, they will fight the fierce white bear.
Ah! Sammy, what is the matter?
"Ugh-h-h-h!"
Sammy gives a melancholy groan. He begins to suspect that his boat is
leaking.
_Could_ any one have slit the seal-skin bottom?
The kayah is really settling.
Sammy feels troubled. "I _must_ go home," he says.
He turns his back upon the bright, beautiful sea, tufted with cakes of
ice that seem in the distance like the white, pure lilies on a glassy
pond, and paddles off home with good-by to the fishing, good-by to the
black-headed seals, good-by to the low islands with their gulls and
mollimucks and burgomeisters and tern and kittiwakes and
eider-ducks--good-by to the long day's fun!
"It makes me feel like a mad whale," said Sammy, "to be cheated out of
my fishing. I wonder who cut my kayah!"
Just then he looked off to the shore, and there stood Billy Blubber, an
ancient enemy.
"There's the fellow," said Sammy. "He slit my kayah, I know. If I had
him, I'd eat him quicker than a tern's egg. Just see how he looks!"
Billy did look exasperating. He saw everything and he enjoyed
everything. Plainly he was the miscreant. He was waddling round on his
stout little legs, flourishing a huge jack-knife, and grinning as if he
were going to have a big dish of whale-fat for dinner.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35