`` How do you know where to go to ? '' he panted . The leader of the school rolled his white eye and ducked under . `` My tail tingles , youngster , '' he said . `` That means there 's a gale behind me . Come along ! When you 're south of the Sticky Water -LSB- he meant the Equator -RSB- and your tail tingles , that means there 's a gale in front of you and you must head north . Come along ! The water feels bad here . '' This was one of very many things that Kotick learned , and he was always learning . Matkah taught him to follow the cod and the halibut along the under-sea banks and wrench the rockling out of his hole among the weeds ; how to skirt the wrecks lying a hundred fathoms below water and dart like a rifle bullet in at one porthole and out at another as the fishes ran ; how to dance on the top of the waves when the lightning was racing all over the sky , and wave his flipper politely to the stumpy-tailed Albatross and the Man-of-war Hawk as they went down the wind ; how to jump three or four feet clear of the water like a dolphin , flippers close to the side and tail curved ; to leave the flying fish alone because they are all bony ; to take the shoulder-piece out of a cod at full speed ten fathoms deep , and never to stop and look at a boat or a ship , but particularly a row-boat . At the end of six months what Kotick did not know about deep-sea fishing was not worth the knowing . And all that time he never set flipper on dry ground . One day , however , as he was lying half asleep in the warm water somewhere off the Island of Juan Fernandez , he felt faint and lazy all over , just as human people do when the spring is in their legs , and he remembered the good firm beaches of Novastoshnah seven thousand miles away , the games his companions played , the smell of the seaweed , the seal roar , and the fighting . That very minute he turned north , swimming steadily , and as he went on he met scores of his mates , all bound for the same place , and they said : `` Greeting , Kotick ! This year we are all holluschickie , and we can dance the Fire-dance in the breakers off Lukannon and play on the new grass . But where did you get that coat ? '' Kotick 's fur was almost pure white now , and though he felt very proud of it , he only said , `` Swim quickly ! My bones are aching for the land . '' And so they all came to the beaches where they had been born , and heard the old seals , their fathers , fighting in the rolling mist .
That night Kotick danced the Fire-dance with the yearling XXXXX .
banks fathers gale land leader mates mist seals skirt youngster