t on to
say, as they drew near the _Comet_, looming up out of the night gloom to
seaward.

At hearing his remark Mate Plunkett chuckled.

"So that's what they been calling us, is it?" he said, as he shifted his
quid to the other cheek. "Well, the way we've been dodgin' around
lately, hardly gettin' settled in one anchorage before we'd hear an
alarm raised that a cruiser was comin' down on us, so we'd have to skip
out like the wind from the three-mile limit, I don't wonder at it."

His words enlightened Ned, who had already been entertaining certain
suspicions with regard to the possible explanation of the mystery.

"Are you after whales or seals?" he asked, plainly.

"This time, it's seals we been takin'," replied the mate. "You see, word
was fetched to us, some months back, that a whopping big herd of seal
had taken to some of these here islands in old Hudson Bay, and there was
a rush of vessels to scoop in the same, our hooker along with the rest.
I wanted to come up here again, to find out if anything had ever been
heard of the poor old _Comet_ that I was captain of last season, and so
I took the berth of mate to my old friend, Captain Bill, here."

"What luck have you had?" asked Jimmy, eagerly.

"Nawthin' to brag about," came the reply from the old skipper. "I
reckons that it'll pay me nigh as well to go back to whalin' agin; and
there needn't be sech risks of havin' your ship and cargo confiscated by
revenue vessels, as this seal huntin' in Hudson Bay turns out to be."

"But they say it's nearly five hundred miles across in its widest part,"
Frank broke in with; "and how can Canada claim jurisdiction over an
ocean like that? Why, you might as well say, that the Mediterranean was
a closed sea."

"That's the trouble," remarked Mate Plunkett; "always has been a pesky
lot of trouble about this here place. Because the two roadways of
getting into Hudson Bay happen to be only a certain number of miles
wide, Canada has always tried to claim it as her private preserves. Lots
of whalers has been chased for darin' to ply their trade in these same
waters. Course, they got the right to that three-mile from shore limit,
but they want the whole hog up here. We been keepin' a lookout right
along, while we sent boats out after the seal. It's late in the season
for the work, but skins is so skeerce that we got to take 'em any old
time. But the game's hardly worth the candle, and next year you won't
see many sealers up th