t with his strong neck, grabbed her by the
back with his sharp teeth and threw her on the rocks with the rest of
his company. As the sea-catch weighed over four hundred pounds and the
cow not more than eighty--the poor creature was flung down most cruelly.

"The brute!" cried Colin.

But for some reason the cow was dissatisfied with her new master and
tried to escape. The old sea-catch made a lunge forward and caught her
by the back of the neck, biting viciously as he did so, in such wise
that the teeth tore away the skin and flesh, making two raw and ugly
wounds.

Colin's indignation was without bounds.

"I'd like to smash that old beast!" he said, and if the agent had not
been there to stop him the boy would have jumped over the low wall and
gone to the assistance of the cow seal.

"That's going on all the time," the agent said. "You can't settle the
affairs of ten thousand families. Not offhand that way. You'd be kept
busy if you tried to fight the battles of every female that hauls up on
St. Paul rookery."

"But see," cried Colin, "he's going after her again!"

This time the sea-catch was evidently angry, for he shook the cow as a
dog does a rat and tossed her back into the very center of the harem,
standing over her and growling angrily. The agent looked on tranquilly.

"There's going to be trouble," he said. "See that idle bull coming?"

He pointed to the back of the rookery, and Colin saw a sea-catch of good
size, though not as large as the bull whose savage attack on the cow had
excited Colin's resentment, come plunging down through the rookery with
the clumsy lope of the excited seal. The cow squirmed from under the
threatening fangs of her captor, but just as he was about to punish her
still more severely, he caught sight of the intruder, and, with a
vicious snap, he whirled round to the defense. The newcomer, though
powerful, showed the dark-brown rather than the grizzled over-hair of
the older bull, but while he had youth on his side, he was not the
veteran of hundreds of battles.

Both stood upright for a moment, watching each other keenly, but with
their heads averted, then the younger bull, with a forward movement so
rapid that it could hardly be followed, struck downward with his long
teeth to the point where the front flipper joins the body. It was a
clever stroke, but the old bull knew all the tricks of warfare and
turned the flipper in so that the teeth of his opponent only gashed the
skin