But , as you know , he has an extra joint in his foreflipper , and by waving it up and down and about he makes what answers to a sort of clumsy telegraphic code . By daylight Kotick 's mane was standing on end and his temper was gone where the dead crabs go . Then the Sea Cow began to travel northward very slowly , stopping to hold absurd bowing councils from time to time , and Kotick followed them , saying to himself , `` People who are such idiots as these are would have been killed long ago if they had n't found out some safe island . And what is good enough for the Sea Cow is good enough for the Sea Catch . All the same , I wish they 'd hurry . '' It was weary work for Kotick . The herd never went more than forty or fifty miles a day , and stopped to feed at night , and kept close to the shore all the time ; while Kotick swam round them , and over them , and under them , but he could not hurry them up one-half mile . As they went farther north they held a bowing council every few hours , and Kotick nearly bit off his mustache with impatience till he saw that they were following up a warm current of water , and then he respected them more . One night they sank through the shiny water -- sank like stones -- and for the first time since he had known them began to swim quickly . Kotick followed , and the pace astonished him , for he never dreamed that Sea Cow was anything of a swimmer . They headed for a cliff by the shore -- a cliff that ran down into deep water , and plunged into a dark hole at the foot of it , twenty fathoms under the sea . It was a long , long swim , and Kotick badly wanted fresh air before he was out of the dark tunnel they led him through . `` My wig ! '' he said , when he rose , gasping and puffing , into open water at the farther end . `` It was a long dive , but it was worth it . '' The sea cows had separated and were browsing lazily along the edges of the finest beaches that Kotick had ever seen . There were long stretches of smooth-worn rock running for miles , exactly fitted to make seal-nurseries , and there were play-grounds of hard sand sloping inland behind them , and there were rollers for seals to dance in , and long grass to roll in , and sand dunes to climb up and down , and , best of all , Kotick knew by the feel of the water , which never deceives a true sea catch , that no men had ever come there . The first thing he did was to assure himself that the fishing was good , and then he swam along the beaches and counted up the delightful low sandy islands half hidden in the beautiful rolling fog . Away to the northward , out to sea , ran a line of bars and shoals and rocks that would never let a ship come within six miles of the beach , and between the islands and the mainland was a stretch of deep water that ran up to the perpendicular cliffs , and somewhere below the cliffs was the mouth of the tunnel . `` It 's Novastoshnah over again , but ten times better , '' said Kotick .
`` Sea Cow must be wiser XXXXX I thought .
As along in of on over than that through under