64 HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 



keep him as much as possible within the area of the fatal 

 triangle. Should the otter commence " breaching," or 

 leaping like a porpoise every few yards, as they often did 

 when hard pressed, the nearest boat takes up the chase, 

 and, watching the line of bubbles pressed out of the pelt by 

 the resistance of the water, holds his Winchester ready to 

 take a snapshot each time of his re-appearance. Balanced 

 upon a narrow thwart, with the boat propelled at its utmost 

 speed, the steersman guided by the pointed rifle of the 

 hunter, it becomes snap-shooting with a vengeance. The 

 rapid shooting has, moreover, another object, that of so 

 scaring him as to stop the " breaching " and cause him to 

 dive back. When this is the case, the two boats, which in 

 following have throughout maintained their proper position, 

 cease rowing and prepare to pursue the same tactics as 

 before. Frequently the otter breaks the water close to one 

 after the other, and starts "breaching" at full speed from 

 each in turn ; and it is sometimes as much as four hours of 

 such strenuous exertion on the part of both hunted and 

 hunter before fatigue and shortness of breath give a favour- 

 able opportunity for a successful shot. 



All too often for the hunter, good fortune favours the 

 pursued, for he is either lost in a tide-rip or swallowed up 

 in a fog. Not unseldom, some fierce volcanic blast will 

 sweep down upon the frail boats without a moment's 

 warning, and, catching up the crest of every little wavelet 

 in its passage, churns the sea into foam and hides the boats 

 in a cloud of spindrift, until, drenched and half blinded, the 

 chase has to be abandoned for the sake of personal safety. 



To proceed with our narrative. As we opened out the 

 land more, the wind fell calm, leaving us tossing about in an 

 ugly tide-rip, which, however, carried us rapidly along the 

 the coast, so that by two o'clock in the day we were already 

 abreast of Otter Island, a mass of igneous black rock 

 situated about half a mile from the shore, marking the 

 northern extremity of Roku Bay. The island got its name 

 from the early hunters, who found great numbers of the 



