Limmershin told me that never in his life—­and Limmershin sees ten thousand big seals fighting every year—­never in all his little life did he see anything like Kotick’s charge into the nurseries.  He flung himself at the biggest sea catch he could find, caught him by the throat, choked him and bumped him and banged him till he grunted for mercy, and then threw him aside and attacked the next.  You see, Kotick had never fasted for four months as the big seals did every year, and his deep-sea swimming trips kept him in perfect condition, and, best of all, he had never fought before.  His curly white mane stood up with rage, and his eyes flamed, and his big dog teeth glistened, and he was splendid to look at.  Old Sea Catch, his father, saw him tearing past, hauling the grizzled old seals about as though they had been halibut, and upsetting the young bachelors in all directions; and Sea Catch gave a roar and shouted:  “He may be a fool, but he is the best fighter on the beaches!  Don’t tackle your father, my son!  He’s with you!”

Kotick roared in answer, and old Sea Catch waddled in with his mustache on end, blowing like a locomotive, while Matkah and the seal that was going to marry Kotick cowered down and admired their men-folk.  It was a gorgeous fight, for the two fought as long as there was a seal that dared lift up his head, and when there were none they paraded grandly up and down the beach side by side, bellowing.

At night, just as the Northern Lights were winking and flashing through the fog, Kotick climbed a bare rock and looked down on the scattered nurseries and the torn and bleeding seals.  “Now,” he said, “I’ve taught you your lesson.”

“My wig!” said old Sea Catch, boosting himself up stiffly, for he was fearfully mauled.  “The Killer Whale himself could not have cut them up worse.  Son, I’m proud of you, and what’s more, I’ll come with you to your island—­if there is such a place.”

“Hear you, fat pigs of the sea.  Who comes with me to the Sea Cow’s tunnel?  Answer, or I shall teach you again,” roared Kotick.

There was a murmur like the ripple of the tide all up and down the beaches.  “We will come,” said thousands of tired voices.  “We will follow Kotick, the White Seal.”

Then Kotick dropped his head between his shoulders and shut his eyes proudly.  He was not a white seal any more, but red from head to tail.  All the same he would have scorned to look at or touch one of his wounds.

A week later he and his army (nearly ten thousand holluschickie and old seals) went away north to the Sea Cow’s tunnel, Kotick leading them, and the seals that stayed at Novastoshnah called them idiots.  But next spring, when they all met off the fishing banks of the Pacific, Kotick’s seals told such tales of the new beaches beyond Sea Cow’s tunnel that more and more seals left Novastoshnah.  Of course it was not all done at once, for the seals are not very clever, and they need a long time to turn things over in their minds, but year after year more seals went away from Novastoshnah, and Lukannon, and the other nurseries, to the quiet, sheltered beaches where Kotick sits all the summer through, getting bigger and fatter and stronger each year, while the holluschickie play around him, in that sea where no man comes.