Page 136 - THE JUNGLE BOOK

The Jungle Book

Lukannon Beach the night before he set off on his last
exploration. This time he went westward, because he had
fallen on the trail of a great shoal of halibut, and he needed
at least one hundred pounds of fish a day to keep him in

good condition. He chased them till he was tired, and
then he curled himself up and went to sleep on the
hollows of the ground swell that sets in to Copper Island.
He knew the coast perfectly well, so about midnight,
when he felt himself gently bumped on a weed-bed, he
said, ‘Hm, tide’s running strong tonight,’ and turning over
under water opened his eyes slowly and stretched. Then
he jumped like a cat, for he saw huge things nosing about
in the shoal water and browsing on the heavy fringes of
the weeds.
‘By the Great Combers of Magellan!’ he said, beneath
his mustache. ‘Who in the Deep Sea are these people?’
They were like no walrus, sea lion, seal, bear, whale,
shark, fish, squid, or scallop that Kotick had ever seen
before. They were between twenty and thirty feet long,
and they had no hind flippers, but a shovel-like tail that
looked as if it had been whittled out of wet leather. Their
heads were the most foolish-looking things you ever saw,
and they balanced on the ends of their tails in deep water
when they weren’t grazing, bowing solemnly to each

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