No wonder we called it Endeavour Island. For two weeks we toiled atbuilding a hut. Maud insisted on helping, and I could have wept over herbruised and bleeding hands. And still, I was proud of her because of it.There was something heroic about this gently-bred woman enduring ourterrible hardship and with her pittance of strength bending to the tasksof a peasant woman. She gathered many of the stones which I built intothe walls of the hut; also, she turned a deaf ear to my entreaties when Ibegged her to desist. She compromised, however, by taking upon herselfthe lighter labours of cooking and gathering driftwood and moss for ourwinter’s supply.

The hut’s walls rose without difficulty, and everything went smoothlyuntil the problem of the roof confronted me. Of what use the four wallswithout a roof? And of what could a roof be made? There were the spareoars, very true. They would serve as roof-beams; but with what was I tocover them? Moss would never do. Tundra grass was impracticable. Weneeded the sail for the boat, and the tarpaulin had begun to leak.

“Winters used walrus skins on his hut,” I said.

“There are the seals,” she suggested.

So next day the hunting began. I did not know how to shoot, but Iproceeded to learn. And when I had expended some thirty shells for threeseals, I decided that the ammunition would be exhausted before I acquiredthe necessary knowledge. I had used eight shells for lighting firesbefore I hit upon the device of banking the embers with wet moss, andthere remained not over a hundred shells in the box.

“We must club the seals,” I announced, when convinced of my poormarksmanship. “I have heard the sealers talk about clubbing them.”

“They are so pretty,” she objected. “I cannot bear to think of it beingdone. It is so directly brutal, you know; so different from shootingthem.”

“That roof must go on,” I answered grimly. “Winter is almost here. Itis our lives against theirs. It is unfortunate we haven’t plenty ofammunition, but I think, anyway, that they suffer less from being clubbedthan from being all shot up. Besides, I shall do the clubbing.”

“That’s just it,” she began eagerly, and broke off in sudden confusion.

“Of course,” I began, “if you prefer—”

“But what shall I be doing?” she interrupted, with that softness I knewfull well to be insistence.

“Gathering firewood and cooking dinner,” I answered lightly.

She shook her head. “It is too dangerous for you to attempt alone.”

“I know, I know,” she waived my protest. “I am only a weak woman, butjust my small assistance may enable you to escape disaster.”

“But the clubbing?” I suggested.

“Of course, you will do that. I shall probably scream. I’ll look awaywhen—”

“The danger is most serious,” I laughed.

“I shall use my judgment when to look and when not to look,” she repliedwith a grand air.

The upshot of the affair was that she accompanied me next morning. Irowed into the adjoining cove and up to the edge of the beach. Therewere seals all about us in the water, and the bellowing thousands on thebeach compelled us to shout at each other to make ourselves heard.

“I know men club them,” I said, trying to reassure myself, and gazingdoubtfully at a large bull, not thirty feet away, upreared on hisfore-flippers and regarding me intently. “But the question is, How dothey club them?”

“Let us gather tundra grass and thatch the roof,” Maud said.

She was as frightened as I at the prospect, and we had reason to begazing at close range at the gleaming teeth and dog-like mouths.

“I always thought they were afraid of men,” I said.

“How do I know they are not afraid?” I queried a moment later, afterhaving rowed a few more strokes along the beach. “Perhaps, if I were tostep boldly ashore, they would cut for it, and I could not catch up withone.” And still I hesitated.

“I heard of a man, once, who invaded the nesting grounds of wild geese,”Maud said. “They killed him.”

“The geese?”

“Yes, the geese. My brother told me about it when I was a little girl.”

“But I know men club them,” I persisted.

“I think the tundra grass will make just as good a roof,” she said.

Far from her intention, her words were maddening me, driving me on. Icould not play the coward before her eyes. “Here goes,” I said, backingwater with one oar and running the bow ashore.

I stepped out and advanced valiantly upon a long-maned bull in the midstof his wives. I was armed with the regular club with which theboat-pullers killed the wounded seals gaffed aboard by the hunters. Itwas only a foot and a half long, and in my superb ignorance I neverdreamed that the club used ashore when raiding the rookeries measuredfour to five feet. The cows lumbered out of my way, and the distancebetween me and the bull decreased. He raised himself on his flipperswith an angry movement. We were a dozen feet apart. Still I advancedsteadily, looking for him to turn tail at any moment and run.

At six feet the panicky thought rushed into my mind, What if he will notrun? Why, then I shall club him, came the answer. In my fear I hadforgotten that I was there to get the bull instead of to make him run.And just then he gave a snort and a snarl and rushed at me. His eyeswere blazing, his mouth was wide open; the teeth gleamed cruelly white.Without shame, I confess that it was I who turned and footed it. He ranawkwardly, but he ran well. He was but two paces behind when I tumbledinto the boat, and as I shoved off with an oar his teeth crunched downupon the blade. The stout wood was crushed like an egg-shell. Maud andI were astounded. A moment later he had dived under the boat, seized thekeel in his mouth, and was shaking the boat violently.

“My!” said Maud. “Let’s go back.”

I shook my head. “I can do what other men have done, and I know thatother men have clubbed seals. But I think I’ll leave the bulls alonenext time.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said.

“Now don’t say, ‘Please, please,’” I cried, half angrily, I do believe.

She made no reply, and I knew my tone must have hurt her.

“I beg your pardon,” I said, or shouted, rather, in order to make myselfheard above the roar of the rookery. “If you say so, I’ll turn and goback; but honestly, I’d rather stay.”

“Now don’t say that this is what you get for bringing a woman along,” shesaid. She smiled at me whimsically, gloriously, and I knew there was noneed for forgiveness.

I rowed a couple of hundred feet along the beach so as to recover mynerves, and then stepped ashore again.

“Do be cautious,” she called after me.

I nodded my head and proceeded to make a flank attack on the nearestharem. All went well until I aimed a blow at an outlying cowls head andfell short. She snorted and tried to scramble away. I ran in close andstruck another blow, hitting the shoulder instead of the head.

“Watch out!” I heard Maud scream.

In my excitement I had not been taking notice of other things, and Ilooked up to see the lord of the harem charging down upon me. Again Ifled to the boat, hotly pursued; but this time Maud made no suggestion ofturning back.

“It would be better, I imagine, if you let harems alone and devoted yourattention to lonely and inoffensive-looking seals,” was what she said.“I think I have read something about them. Dr. Jordan’s book, I believe.They are the young bulls, not old enough to have harems of their own. Hecalled them the holluschickie, or something like that. It seems to me ifwe find where they haul out—”

“It seems to me that your fighting instinct is aroused,” I laughed.

She flushed quickly and prettily. “I’ll admit I don’t like defeat anymore than you do, or any more than I like the idea of killing suchpretty, inoffensive creatures.”

“Pretty!” I sniffed. “I failed to mark anything pre-eminently prettyabout those foamy-mouthed beasts that raced me.”

“Your point of view,” she laughed. “You lacked perspective. Now if youdid not have to get so close to the subject—”

“The very thing!” I cried. “What I need is a longer club. And there’sthat broken oar ready to hand.”

“It just comes to me,” she said, “that Captain Larsen was telling me howthe men raided the rookeries. They drive the seals, in small herds, ashort distance inland before they kill them.”

“I don’t care to undertake the herding of one of those harems,” Iobjected.

“But there are the holluschickie,” she said. “The holluschickie haul outby themselves, and Dr. Jordan says that paths are left between theharems, and that as long as the holluschickie keep strictly to the paththey are unmolested by the masters of the harem.”

“There’s one now,” I said, pointing to a young bull in the water. “Let’swatch him, and follow him if he hauls out.”

He swam directly to the beach and clambered out into a small openingbetween two harems, the masters of which made warning noises but did notattack him. We watched him travel slowly inward, threading about amongthe harems along what must have been the path.

“Here goes,” I said, stepping out; but I confess my heart was in my mouthas I thought of going through the heart of that monstrous herd.

“It would be wise to make the boat fast,” Maud said.

She had stepped out beside me, and I regarded her with wonderment.

She nodded her head determinedly. “Yes, I’m going with you, so you mayas well secure the boat and arm me with a club.”

“Let’s go back,” I said dejectedly. “I think tundra grass, will do,after all.”

“You know it won’t,” was her reply. “Shall I lead?”

With a shrug of the shoulders, but with the warmest admiration and prideat heart for this woman, I equipped her with the broken oar and tookanother for myself. It was with nervous trepidation that we made thefirst few rods of the journey. Once Maud screamed in terror as a cowthrust an inquisitive nose toward her foot, and several times I quickenedmy pace for the same reason. But, beyond warning coughs from eitherside, there were no signs of hostility. It was a rookery which had neverbeen raided by the hunters, and in consequence the seals weremild-tempered and at the same time unafraid.

In the very heart of the herd the din was terrific. It was almostdizzying in its effect. I paused and smiled reassuringly at Maud, for Ihad recovered my equanimity sooner than she. I could see that she wasstill badly frightened. She came close to me and shouted:

“I’m dreadfully afraid!”

And I was not. Though the novelty had not yet worn off, the peacefulcomportment of the seals had quieted my alarm. Maud was trembling.

“I’m afraid, and I’m not afraid,” she chattered with shaking jaws. “It’smy miserable body, not I.”

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” I reassured her, my arm passinginstinctively and protectingly around her.

I shall never forget, in that moment, how instantly conscious I became ofmy manhood. The primitive deeps of my nature stirred. I felt myselfmasculine, the protector of the weak, the fighting male. And, best ofall, I felt myself the protector of my loved one. She leaned against me,so light and lily-frail, and as her trembling eased away it seemed asthough I became aware of prodigious strength. I felt myself a match forthe most ferocious bull in the herd, and I know, had such a bull chargedupon me, that I should have met it unflinchingly and quite coolly, and Iknow that I should have killed it.

“I am all right now,” she said, looking up at me gratefully. “Let us goon.”

And that the strength in me had quieted her and given her confidence,filled me with an exultant joy. The youth of the race seemed burgeoningin me, over-civilized man that I was, and I lived for myself the oldhunting days and forest nights of my remote and forgotten ancestry. Ihad much for which to thank Wolf Larsen, was my thought as we went alongthe path between the jostling harems.

A quarter of a mile inland we came upon the holluschickie—sleek youngbulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and gatheringstrength against the day when they would fight their way into the ranksof the Benedicts.

Everything now went smoothly. I seemed to know just what to do and howto do it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with my club, and evenprodding the lazy ones, I quickly cut out a score of the young bachelorsfrom their companions. Whenever one made an attempt to break back towardthe water, I headed it off. Maud took an active part in the drive, andwith her cries and flourishings of the broken oar was of considerableassistance. I noticed, though, that whenever one looked tired andlagged, she let it slip past. But I noticed, also, whenever one, with ashow of fight, tried to break past, that her eyes glinted and showedbright, and she rapped it smartly with her club.

“My, it’s exciting!” she cried, pausing from sheer weakness. “I thinkI’ll sit down.”

I drove the little herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes she hadpermitted) a hundred yards farther on; and by the time she joined me Ihad finished the slaughter and was beginning to skin. An hour later wewent proudly back along the path between the harems. And twice again wecame down the path burdened with skins, till I thought we had enough toroof the hut. I set the sail, laid one tack out of the cove, and on theother tack made our own little inner cove.

“It’s just like home-coming,” Maud said, as I ran the boat ashore.

I heard her words with a responsive thrill, it was all so dearly intimateand natural, and I said:

“It seems as though I have lived this life always. The world of booksand bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory than anactuality. I surely have hunted and forayed and fought all the days ofmy life. And you, too, seem a part of it. You are—” I was on the vergeof saying, “my woman, my mate,” but glibly changed it to—“standing thehardship well.”

But her ear had caught the flaw. She recognized a flight that midmostbroke. She gave me a quick look.

“Not that. You were saying—?”

“That the American Mrs. Meynell was living the life of a savage andliving it quite successfully,” I said easily.

“Oh,” was all she replied; but I could have sworn there was a note ofdisappointment in her voice.

But “my woman, my mate” kept ringing in my head for the rest of the dayand for many days. Yet never did it ring more loudly than that night, asI watched her draw back the blanket of moss from the coals, blow up thefire, and cook the evening meal. It must have been latent savagerystirring in me, for the old words, so bound up with the roots of therace, to grip me and thrill me. And grip and thrill they did, till Ifell asleep, murmuring them to myself over and over again.