AMONG THE WALRUS HERDS 131 



raised themselves on the edge to look over the brown 

 stained surface and dropped back still mystified. 



In this way they tramped the water around to the 

 farther side of the pan, and when they were there we 

 made ready to get away, for angry walrus in the water 

 often attack boats, and our fragile raft would not have 

 lasted a second if they had come for us. Outlying walrus 

 had also hurried to join the demonstration, so the coast 

 was fairly clear. 



An amusing detail was the action of several sea gulls 

 which we had noticed perched on near-by ice as if by 

 accident. But so soon as the last walrus had left the 

 rookery these alighted and began to pick up food: prob- 

 ably stray clams and ordure. 



Darkness had fallen, for by this season the sim was 

 setting fairly early, and a snow squall was rapidly 

 approaching. The ''Abler" cast loose and began to 

 move off, growing fainter and fainter, dissolving into 

 nothing for a few minutes as the snow fell. I was 

 alarmed, thinking that they had lost sight of us and in 

 trying to come up were getting farther away. We 

 jumped into the kayaks and were about to push off when 

 a huge walrus broke water near us and Lovering was for 

 waiting on the floe. The prospect of waiting or paddling 

 was equally unpleasant if the schooner had mistaken our 

 direction, for the ice field swallowed up small objects 

 like men at a mile distance, and the whole pack was 

 drifting nearly two miles an hour. On the other hand we 

 might break our hearts with paddling before we could 

 catch the ship if she continued to move. It did not 

 take us long to decide for the second alternative, so we 

 fired several signals, started and bent hard on the 

 paddles. After a half hour of stiff labor we met 



