That first experience of Roy's was a mild one. The whale, a fairish bull, showed no fight whatever. He took the irons as a baby takes soothing sirup; and he lay still while they pulled alongside and prodded him with a lance. At the last, when his spout was a crimson fountain, he gave one gigantic forward leap; but he was dead not ten fathoms from the spot where he lay when the first harpoon went home; and thereafter there was only the long toil of towing the monster back to the ship for the cutting in. A small affair, without excitement; yet big for Roy. It worked a change in the boy. He came back to the ship no longer a boy, but the makings of a man. He spoke loftily to Faith; and he brushed shoulders with the men on equal terms and was proud to do so, altogether forgetting the days when he had liked to think himself their superior, and to order them around. Dan'l catered to the new mood in the boy; he told Cap'n Wing in Roy's hearing that the youngster would make a whaleman.... That he had never seen any one so cool at the striking of his first whale.... Roy swelled visibly. Brander's initiation as an officer of the _Sally_ came at the same time; and a bit of luck made it possible for the fourth mate to prove his mettle. When they sighted spouts in three quarters, that morning, the mate had chosen to go after a lone bull; old Tichel and Brander attacked a small pod to the eastward; and Willis Cox went north to try for a fish there. Brander gave Tichel right of way, since the old man was his superior officer; and they came upon the pod with a matter of seconds to choose between them. The whales were disappointingly small; nevertheless Tichel attacked the largest, and Brander took the one that fell to him. His irons went home a moment after Tichel's; his whale leaped into the first blind struggle, not fleeing, but fighting to shake off the iron. Now it is customary, among whalemen, to wait till this first flurry has passed, to allow the whale to run out his own strength, and then to pull in for the finishing stroke. But Brander was ambitious; the whale was small.... He changed places with Loum, and shouted orders to his men to haul in the loose coils of line that had been thrown over with the irons. The whale was circling, rolling, striking with its flukes; it had not seen them, gave them no heed, but the very blindness of its struggles made them a greater menace. They drew in on the whale; and Loum at the steering oar swung Brander against the monster's flank. Brander got home his lance in three thrusts before they were forced to draw clear to avoid the whale's renewed struggles. But those three were enough; the spout crimsoned; he loosed and backed away from the final flurry, and the whale was dead ten minutes from the time when the first iron went home.