“When they got back to the surface, they lay comfortably rocking among the green swells, while they both blew all the used-up air and steam out of their lungs.  The feathery little jet of the calf rose gravely beside his mother’s high and graceful spout.  The calf, always hungry, because he had such a lot of growing to do and was in such a hurry to do it, fell at once to nursing again, while the mother lay basking half asleep.  Overhead, some great white gulls flapped and screamed against the sharp blue, now and then dropping with a splash to snatch some fish from the transparent slope of a wave.  A couple of hundred yards away three seals lay basking on an ice-floe, and in the distance could be seen other whales spouting.  So the mother knew that she and her baby were not alone in these wide bright spaces of sea and sky.

“As a general rule, the great whale was apt to stay not more than two or three minutes at the surface, but to spend most of her time in the moderate depths.  Now, however, with her big baby to nurse, she would often linger basking at the surface till her appetite drove her to activity.  In general, also, she was apt to be rather careless about keeping watch against her enemies.  But now she was vigilant even when she seemed asleep, and anything the least bit out of the ordinary was enough to make her take alarm.  As she lay sluggishly rocking, the great blackish round of her head and back now all awash, now rising like a reef above the waves, she suddenly caught sight of a white furry head with a black tip to its nose, swiftly cleaving the water.  She knew it was only a white bear swimming, and she knew also that it was not big enough to dare attack her calf.  But with her foolish mother fears she objected to its even being in the neighborhood.  She swept her dark bulk around so as to hide the little one from the white swimmer’s eyes, and lay glaring at him with suspicious fury.  The bear, however, hardly condescended to glance at her.  He was after those basking seals on the ice-floes.  Presently he dived, a long, long dive, and came up suddenly at the very edge of the ice, caught the nearest seal by the throat just as they were all hurling themselves into the water.

“To this unhappy affair the old whale did not give so much as a second look.  So long as the bear kept a respectful distance from her precious baby she didn’t care how many silly seals he killed.

“But presently she observed, far away among her spouting kindred, the black, slow-moving shape of a steam whaler.  In some past experience she had learned that these strange creatures, which seemed to have other creatures, very small, but very, very dangerous, inside of them, were the most to be dreaded of all the whale’s enemies.  It was at present too far off for her to take alarm, but she lay watching the incomprehensible monster so sharply that she almost forgot to blow.  Presently she saw it crawl up quite close to the unsuspecting shape