`` Give me another season , '' he said . `` Remember , Mother , it is always the seventh wave that goes farthest up the beach . '' Curiously enough , there was another seal who thought that she would put off marrying till the next year , and Kotick danced the Fire-dance with her all down 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 were n't grazing , bowing solemnly to each other and waving their front flippers as a fat man waves his arm . `` Ahem ! '' said Kotick . `` Good sport , gentlemen ? '' The big things answered by bowing and waving their flippers like the Frog Footman . When they began feeding again Kotick saw that their upper lip was split into two pieces that they could twitch apart about a foot and bring together again with a whole bushel of seaweed between the splits . They tucked the stuff into their mouths and chumped solemnly . `` Messy style of feeding , that , '' said Kotick .
They bowed again , and Kotick began XXXXX lose his temper .
before between by down in like on to under with