’But this was at another port, in another country which lay to the north.  And there I heard dim tales of the yellow-haired sea wanderer, and I learned that he was a hunter of seals, and that even then he was abroad on the ocean.

’So I shipped on a seal schooner with the lazy Siwashes, and followed his trackless trail to the north where the hunt was then warm.  And we were away weary months, and spoke many of the fleet, and heard much of the wild doings of him I sought; but never once did we raise him above the sea.  We went north, even to the Pribilofs, and killed the seals in herds on the beach, and brought their warm bodies aboard till our scuppers ran grease and blood and no man could stand upon the deck.  Then were we chased by a ship of slow steam, which fired upon us with great guns.  But we put sail till the sea was over our decks and washed them clean, and lost ourselves in a fog.

’It is said, at this time, while we fled with fear at our hearts, that the yellow-haired sea wanderer put in to the Pribilofs, right to the factory, and while the part of his men held the servants of the company, the rest loaded ten thousand green skins from the salt houses.  I say it is said, but I believe; for in the voyages I made on the coast with never a meeting the northern seas rang with his wildness and daring, till the three nations which have lands there sought him with their ships.

’And I heard of Unga, for the captains sang loud in her praise, and she was always with him.  She had learned the ways of his people, they said, and was happy.  But I knew better—­knew that her heart harked back to her own people by the yellow beach of Akatan.

’So, after a long time, I went back to the port which is by a gateway of the sea, and there I learned that he had gone across the girth of the great ocean to hunt for the seal to the east of the warm land which runs south from the Russian seas.

’And I, who was become a sailorman, shipped with men of his own race, and went after him in the hunt of the seal.  And there were few ships off that new land; but we hung on the flank of the seal pack and harried it north through all the spring of the year.  And when the cows were heavy with pup and crossed the Russian line, our men grumbled and were afraid.  For there was much fog, and every day men were lost in the boats.  They would not work, so the captain turned the ship back toward the way it came.  But I knew the yellow-haired sea wanderer was unafraid, and would hang by the pack, even to the Russian Isles, where few men go.  So I took a boat, in the black of night, when the lookout dozed on the fo’c’slehead, and went alone to the warm, long land.  And I journeyed south to meet the men by Yeddo Bay, who are wild and unafraid.  And the Yoshiwara girls were small, and bright like steel, and good to look upon; but I could not stop, for I knew that Unga rolled on the tossing floor by the rookeries of the north.