The worst trouble was from the inordinate thieving
propensities of the natives. Iron, nails, belaying pins, rudders,
anchors, bits of sail, a spike that could be pulled from the rotten
wood of the outer keel by the teeth of a thief paddling
below--anything, everything was snatched by the light-fingered gentry.
Nor can we condemn them for it. Their moral standard was the Wolf Code
of Existence--which the white man has elaborated in his evolution--to
take whatever they had the dexterity and strength to take and to keep.
When caught in theft, they did not betray as much sense of guilt as a
dog stealing a bone. Why should they? Their {189} code was to take.
The chief of the Nootkas presented Cook with a sea-otter cloak. Cook
reciprocated with a brass-hilted sword.
By the end of April the ships had been overhauled, and Cook was ready
to sail. Porpoise were coursing the sea like greyhounds, and the
stormy petrels in a clatter; but Cook was not to be delayed by storm.
Barely had the two ships cleared the harbor, when such a squall broke
loose, they could do nothing but scud for open sea, turn tails to the
wind, and lie helpless as logs, heads south.
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