THE QUEST OF THE OTTER. 143 



back into the ocean without the least delay. So our two hunters, 

 perhaps the only two souls among the fifty or sixty now camped 

 on Saanak, who are brave enough, have resolved to scud down on 

 the tail of this howling gale, run in between the breakers to the 

 leeward of this rocky islet ahead of them, and sneak from that 

 direction over the land and across to the windward coast, so as to 

 silently and surely creep up and on to the kelp-bedded victims, when, 

 in the fury of the storm, the fast falling footsteps of the hunter are 

 not heard by the active yet somnolent animal ere a deadly whack of 

 his short club falls upon its unconscious head. The noise of such a 

 tempest is far greater than that made by the stealthy movements of 

 these venturesome natives, who, plying their heavy, wooden blud- 

 geons, despatch the animals one after another without alarming the 

 whole number. In this way, two Aleutian brothers are known to 

 have slain seventy-eight otters in less than one hour ! 



If these hardy men, when they pushed off from Saanak in that 

 gale, had deviated a paddle's length from their true course for the 

 islet which they finally struck, after scudding twenty or thirty miles 

 before the fury of wind and water, they would have been swept on 

 and out into a vast marine waste and to certain death from exhaus- 

 tion. They knew it perfectly when they ventured, yet at no time 

 could they have seen ahead clearly, or behind them, farther than a 

 thousand yards ! Still, if they waited for the storm to abate, then 

 the otters would all be back in the water ere they could even reach 

 the scene. By doing what we have just seen them do they fairly 

 challenge our admiration for their exhibit of nerve and adroit cal- 

 culation, under the most trying of all natural obstruction, for the 

 successful issue of their venture. 



In conclusion, the writer calls attention to a strange habit of 

 the Aleutian otter-hunters of Attoo, who live on the extreme west- 

 ernmost island of the grand Alaskan archipelago. Here the kahlan 

 is captured in small nets,* which are spread out over the floating 

 kelp-beds or "otter-rafts," the natives withdrawing and watching 

 from the bluffs. The otters come out to sleep or rest or sport on 

 these places, get entangled in the meshes, and seem to make little 

 or no effort to escape, being paralyzed, as it were, by fear. Thus 

 they fall an easy prey into the hands of the captors, who say that 



* Sixteen to 18 feet long, 6 to 10 feet wide, with coarse meshes ; made 

 nowadays of twine, but formerly of seal and sea-lion sinews. 



