Dick knew now that what he had thought to be a fragment of mottled ice, was the narwhal Sipsa had told them was haunting the vicinity. His hand tightened on his harpoon as he turned to shout the news of his discovery to Sandy.
Sandy redoubled his efforts at the thrilling words, but Dick suddenly had other business to attract his attention. For the narwhal had again come to the surface near his canoe.
Holding his breath until the great mammal turned broadside to him, Dick waited heedless of Sandy’s repeated cries for him to wait until he had joined him. The right moment came as the huge, grayish body rolled with the waves. Dick cast with all the strength of his right arm. The harpoon darted across the water with a hiss, the coil of thong attaching it securely to the kayack paying out after it. The cast had not missed. Not far back of the head the heavy harpoon imbedded itself in the narwhal and with a swiftness surprising in so cumbersome an animal, the great body went into action.
The harpoon line had been tied securely to the kayack and as the narwhal lunged forward, the stout thong tightened with a snap. Dick and the kayack shot completely out of the water, and when the boat landed it was traveling at the rate of about thirty miles an hour.
Grim and white-faced, Dick hung on. He could have severed the harpoon line with a stroke of his keen hunting knife, yet this he did not intend to do while the kayack still remained afloat.
Spray flying in all directions, the narwhal headed due northeast, toward the open sea. Had it not been for the submarine-like build of the kayack and the waterproofed jacket enclosing its passenger, the craft might have sunk in the first hundred yards of that swift dash. As it was, Dick experienced a sensation much like that felt by a bather riding a surfboard which is being towed by a gasoline speed-boat.
Every minute during the breath-taking ride behind the harpooned narwhal, Dick hoped the monster might either weaken from his wound, or change his course and swim to a point where Sandy or the Eskimo hunters might lend a hand in finishing the battle with their harpoons. If the narwhal took a notion to dive, Dick knew all was lost, and his only means of saving himself that of quickly severing the harpoon line.