Our fourth and last whale gave us quite a bit of trouble. We sighted this fellow spouting in a choppy sea among ice islands two or three miles off the edges of the polar pack. All three boats lowered for it. It was traveling slowly in the same direction the brig was sailing and about two miles from the vessel. It took the boats some time to work to close quarters. When the mate's boat was almost within striking distance, the whale went under. As frightened whales usually run against the wind, Mr. Winchester steered to windward. But the whale had not been frightened; it had not seen the boats. Consequently it failed to head into the wind, but did the unexpected by coming up to leeward, blowing with evident unconcern. This brought it nearest to Gabriel, who went after it in a flash. After a sharp, swift run down the wind, we struck the whale, which dived and went racing under water for the ice pack. The dizzy rate at which it took out our line might have led us to believe it was not hurt, but we knew it was seriously wounded by the fountains of blood it sent up whenever it came to the surface. The captain's signals from the brig, by this time, had headed the other boats in our direction, but they could not reach us in time to be of any assistance. The whale ran away with our tub of line and we sat still and watched the red fountains that marked its course as it headed for the big ice to the north. Directly in the whale's course lay an ice floe about half a mile long, a few hundred yards wide and rising from five to ten feet above the surface. We naturally supposed the creature would dive under this and keep going for the main pack. To our surprise we soon saw fountain after fountain, red with blood, shooting up from the center of the floe. The whale evidently was too badly injured to continue its flight and had sought refuge beneath this strip of drifting ice. [Illustration: Skin Boat of the Siberian Eskimos] Men were hurriedly landed from all the boats with harpoons and shoulder guns, leaving enough sailors on the thwarts to fend the boats clear of the ice. The landing parties clambered over the broken and tumbled ice, dragging the harpoon lines. We found the whale half exposed in a narrow opening in the center of the floe, all the ice about it red with clotted blood. Long John and Little Johnny threw two harpoons each into the big body and Big Foot Louis threw his remaining one. As a result of this bombardment, five tonite bombs exploded in the whale, which, with the harpoons sticking all over its back, suggested a baited bull in a Spanish bullring hung with the darts of the banderilleros. But the great animal kept on breathing blood and would not die. After all the harpoons had been exhausted, shoulder guns were brought into play. In all, twelve tonite bombs were fired into it before the monster gave a mighty shiver and lay still.