a
little party of them, not more than a score in all, with a few of the
stronger youngsters of that season, on a sudden impulse left their
stormy ledges and started southward. The Pup, who, thanks to his
double mothering, was far bigger and more capable than any of his
mates, went with his partner-mothers in the very forefront of the
migration.

Straight down along the roaring coast they kept, usually at a distance
of not more than half a mile from shore. They had, of course, no
objection to going farther out, but neither had they any object in
doing so, since the fish-life on which they fed as they journeyed was
the more abundant where the sea began to shoal. With their slim,
sleek, rounded bodies, thickest at the fore flippers and tapering
finely to tail and muzzle, each a lithe and close-knit structure of
muscle and nerve-energy, they could swim with astounding speed; and
therefore, although there was no hurry whatever, they went along at
the pace of a motor-boat.

All this time the gale was lashing the coast, but it gave them little
concern. Down in the black troughs of the gigantic rollers there was
always peace from the yelling of the wind--a tranquillity wherein the
gulls and mews would snatch their rest after being buffeted too long
about the sky. Near the tops of the waves, of course, it was not good
to be, for the gale would rip the crests off bodily and tear them into
shreds of whipping spray. But the seals could always dive and slip
smoothly under these tormented regions. Moreover, if weary of the
tossing surfaces and the tumult of the gale, they had only to sink
themselves down, down, into the untroubled gloom beneath the
wave-bases, where greenish lights gleamed or faded with the passing of
the rollers overhead, and where strange, phosphorescent shapes of life
crawled or clung among the silent rocks. Longer than any other
red-blooded animal, except the whale, could their lungs go without
fresh oxygen; so, though they knew nothing of those great depths where
the whales sometimes frequent, it was easy for them to go deep enough
to get below the storm.

Sometimes a break in the coast-line, revealing the mouth of an inlet,
would tempt the little band of migrants. Hastening shoreward, they
would push their way inland between the narrowing banks, often as far
as the head of tide, gambolling in the quiet water, and chasing the
salmon fairly out upon the shoals. Like most discriminating creatures,
they were