That day I killed nine seal and we
were called in at two o'clock, as there was fog coming up, and we
just got in ahead of it. We had fair success sealing until the
last of August, when my crew ventured a little too far and the
wind changed so that we did not hear the cannon and the fog caught
us. Each crew when starting out in the morning always took
supplies along sufficient to last twenty-four hours. This time
when we got caught in the fog the wind had changed on us, so we
tried to remain as near the same place as possible, but this time
we had to guess at it as we could not always tell just which way
the tide was going. This was beyond any doubt the worst trip that
I ever experienced, the fog was very cold and our clothing wet. We
were out three days and nights and then were picked up by another
schooner. The captain of the schooner that picked us up heard the
firing of our cannon that morning and we were picked up about
noon. He at once set sail for our schooner, firing the signal
cannon every half hour, reaching our schooner just as it was
growing dark, and the captain and crew had given us up for lost.
We stayed out until the last of September, when we sailed for San
Francisco, and this wound up my seal hunting.
There was only one other man in the crew that killed more seal
than I did during the season, but I made the largest day's killing
of any one in the crew, that being twenty seven.
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