"There's the whale all right," said he to his two friends. "It's a good thing for these people, I suppose; but it's a very bad thing for us." Jesse looked at him in inquiry, and Rob went on: "Don't you see that they'll camp here now for days, and maybe weeks? They'll eat this thing as long as it is fit to eat, and probably a good deal longer; and meantime they are not going to take out any word from us to the settlements, if they really intend to go there at all." "That's so," said John. But his hopeful temperament cast off troubles readily. "We can't do anything more than just wait, anyhow; and I suppose that our friend here"--he motioned to the Aleut boy--"will see that we get our share of the whale meat." The boys now saw that whale-hunting among the Aleuts is a partnership affair, a whole village sharing equally in the spoils. Every man of the party now went to work. Some of them mounted the slippery back of the dead whale and hacked away at the hide, laying bare strips of the thick white blubber. Skilfully enough, for those possessing no better tools, they got off long strips of the blubber, which they carried high up the beach above the tide. Some of them carefully worked at the side of the whale where the deadly harpoon had done its work. Cutting down, they disclosed the broken head of slate buried deep in the body of the whale, the wound now surrounded by a wide region of inflamed and bloodshot flesh. This they carefully cut out for a distance of two or three feet on each side of the wound, and this seemed to be all the attention they paid to the preparation of the flesh for food. As the rain was now falling steadily they did not pause to build fires, but here and there a man could be seen eating raw whale meat, cutting off the strip close to his lips with his knife, in the curious fashion which always seems to the white race so repulsive. The young Aleut looked among the pieces of flesh as they were carried high up the bank of sea-wall, and at last selected a few smaller portions which he carried with him when at last the boys turned back toward the barabbara. He also got a good-sized sack of salt and one or two battered cooking utensils. It was plain that whatever his relatives might wish to do, or whatever right they had to turn intruders out of their own barabbara, he himself intended to cast in his lot with the white boys.