THE QUEST OF THE OTTER. 139 



is, when found ashore, surprised just out of the surf-wash on the 

 reef. The quick hearing and acute smell possessed by this wary 

 brute are not equalled by any other creatures in the sea or on land. 

 They will take alarm, and leave instantly from rest in a large sec- 

 tion, over the effect of a small fire as far away as four or five miles 

 distant to the windward of them. The footstep of man must be 

 washed from a beach by many tides before its trace ceases to scare 

 the animal and drive it from landing there, should it approach for 

 that purpose. 



The fashion of capturing the sea-otter is ordered entirely by the 

 weather. If it be quiet and moderately calm, to calm, such an in- 

 terval is employed in " spearing surrounds." Then, when heavy 

 weather ensues, to gales, " surf-shooting " is the method ; and if a 

 furious gale has been blowing hard for several days without cessa- 

 tion, as it lightens up, the hardiest hunters "club" the kahlan. 

 Let us first follow a spearing party ; let us start with the hunters, 

 and go with them to the death. 



Our point of departure is Oonalashka village ; the time is an 

 early June morning. The creaking of the tackle on the little 

 schooner out in the bay as her sails are being set and her anchor 

 hoisted, cause a swarm of Aleutes in their bidarkies to start out 

 from the beach for her deck. They clamber on board and draw 

 their cockle-shell craft up after them, and these are soon stowed 

 and lashed tightly to the vessel's deck-rail and stanchions. The 

 trader has arranged this trip and start this morning for Saanak, by 

 beginning to talk it over two weeks ago with these thirty or forty 

 hunters of the village. He is to carry them down to the favored 

 otter-resort, leave them there, and return to bring them back in 

 just three months from the day of their departure this morning. 

 For this great accommodation the Aleutes interested agreed to give 

 the trader-skipper a refusal of their entire catch of otter-skins in- 

 deed many of them have mortgaged their labor heavily in advance 

 by pre-purchasing at his store, inasmuch as the credit system is 

 worked among them for all it is worth. They are adepts in driv- 

 ing a bargain, shrewd and patient. The traders know this now, 

 to the grievous cost of many of them. 



If everything is auspicious, wind and tide the next morning, after 

 sailing, bring the vessel well upon the ground. The headlands are 

 made out and noted ; the natives slip into their bidarkies as they 

 are successively dropped over the schooner's side while she jogs 



