`` Look ! There 's a white seal ! '' Kerick Booterin turned nearly white under his oil and smoke , for he was an Aleut , and Aleuts are not clean people . Then he began to mutter a prayer . `` Do n't touch him , Patalamon . There has never been a white seal since -- since I was born . Perhaps it is old Zaharrof 's ghost . He was lost last year in the big gale . '' `` I 'm not going near him , '' said Patalamon . `` He 's unlucky . Do you really think he is old Zaharrof come back ? I owe him for some gulls ' eggs . '' `` Do n't look at him , '' said Kerick . `` Head off that drove of four-year-olds . The men ought to skin two hundred to-day , but it 's the beginning of the season and they are new to the work . A hundred will do . Quick ! '' Patalamon rattled a pair of seal 's shoulder bones in front of a herd of holluschickie and they stopped dead , puffing and blowing . Then he stepped near and the seals began to move , and Kerick headed them inland , and they never tried to get back to their companions . Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them being driven , but they went on playing just the same .
Kotick was the only one who asked questions , and none of his companions could tell him anything , except that the men always XXXXX seals in that way for six weeks or two months of every year .
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