 Ranger Bill, warrior of the woodland, struggling against extreme odds, traveling dangerous trails, fighting the many enemies of nature. This is the job of the guardian of the forest, Ranger Bill. Pouring rain, freezing cold, blistering heat, snow, floods, bears, rattlesnakes, mountain lions. Yes, all this in exchange for the satisfaction and pride of a job well done. Hi there, boys and girls. Today I'm going to tell you about an adventure that wasn't a bit like anything we'd ever been up against before. Just before I started to talk, you heard a certain noise, and I'm pretty sure you recognized it as the crack and whine of a rifle. But this was a very special rifle, one with great power. This kind of rifle is called an express rifle, probably because it shoots bullets so very fast. Well anyway, all of us, but especially Henry, will never forget that particular rifle. We'll find out why in the story I call The Secret of Seal Island. Bill looks sad. Bill is sad, Ray. Well, I don't like the idea of having to type out these long reports. I'm an outdoor man anyway. Besides, I'm not much of a typist. And yet, all of that wouldn't matter if it wasn't that these are such unhappy reports. Yeah, same old thing. Yeah, same old thing. That poacher. We catch him someday. But when? Half my men are on the trail. You've been out, I've been out, but we never even see him. He hard to find that for sure. I've got plaster casts of his tracks, photographs of his tracks. I know those boot marks perfectly. But I've never seen his face. He's a bad man. Shoot more game? Yeah. Now he's unbelievable. My men found three more grizzly carcasses today. Three in one day. How you know for sure, this man killed all this game? His tracks. Plus the fact that he's an excellent shot. Game poacher, no good. He's been shooting stuff out of season, anything he wants, whenever he wants it. Take hide and sell, huh? Oh, sure. He's a fur hunter, all right. You know it's a good market for bears, kids, even though the animals are shot illegally. Poacher, very bad man. Kill game out of season. Kill any game he wants. Same as stealing. Yeah. What gets me is that we don't even know who this man is. Indy never named for a man like that. Man who killed game all time, all time, kill, kill, kill. What's that? You know, Luke Karo. Wolverine. Oh, yeah, sure. Wolverine, only animal in the world who killed just for sake of killing. Very fierce, smart. Nobody ever see, hard to catch. Meantime, he kill animal all time. That certainly is a good description of our poacher. Well, at least we have a name for him now, Grey Wolf. We'll call him the Wolverine. Not far to the top of the rimrock. Keep heads down. Yeah, I know. And when we get to the edge, we can see the whole valley spread out before us like a map. See, Bill, see little pile of rocks there at edge. We go there, look through binocular, and not have to stick our heads up over top of skyline. Good. You see anything, Bill? No, not yet. I'll quarter the whole valley. You think the Wolverine is up here? Tracks go in, not come out. Well, I certainly hope... Grey Wolf. You see? Yeah. Here, take the binoculars. They're over there on the far edge by that chimney-butt. Big man. Big black beard. Let him all right. But how can we be sure it's the Wolverine? Here, you take a look. You see pack of furs on ground beside him. Maybe two. Maybe three bear hides. Oh, yeah. Nobody else have hides this time of year. Of course. Well, now that we've seen him, how do we get him? We go back down, back into valley, and circle way, way around, long way. Walk quiet. Come up behind Wolverine. Catch him. But it'll take us most of the day, Grey. Yeah, he'd be there. He'd wait there. Watch for a game. We catch him. Come on. When we saw him, he was just on the other side of this little chimney rock. And here's what we'll do. When I give the signal, you run around that side, I'll run around this side. Right. That way we'll come on in from two sides at once. You ready? I'm ready. All right. When I count three. One. Two. Nobody here, Bill. So I see. A piece of paper stuck in the cleft stick. Well, it's a note. For us. He left it here for us. Well, what note, say, Bill? Dear Ranger Bill, you're supposed to be a woodsman, but I guess you forgot that if you're facing into the sun, then the sun glints on the glasses in your binoculars. I saw you before you saw me. Too bad, all that long walk for nothing. You'll never catch me, signed... Wolverine. The Wolverine. Old summertime. Why on earth do you play that tune? All you do is complain about the heat. It kind of takes my mind off of my suffering. Hey, just fling a few more of them ice cubes into this here. Lemonade here, will you? Okay. Here you are. Hey, thank you. And then made up a tune all about her. Mr. Bobble, I feel when she's as hot as this. Okay. Let's hear it. Does hot weather affect you that way? Terrible. Please, give me some more of them ice cubes. Not many left in the bucket. Here you are. Hey, thank you. Now I've done rid another tune, and only this one is about how good I feel when she's nice and cold. Go ahead. Is that part of the title? About the ice cubes, I mean? Not sure. It just aren't anymore. They're all gone. None of the refridge, either. You used them all up. I never can get enough ice cubes. I wish I was sitting right on the iceberg. Guess what I wish. What a thing to say. Why, none of us will ever see an iceberg. What a life. A hundred in the shade and no ice cubes. Gray Wolf, do you get seasick? Well, that Bill, do you feel okay? Sure. Henry, how about you? Do you get seasick? I don't even know. I've never been on the sea to find out. Same here, but why the question? It's plain, and it's a mighty, mighty strange story, too. It's in three parts, really. Part one is, do you remember how we hunted for months and months for that game poacher we called the Wolverine? We never caught him. Sure. We haven't had any poaching for a long time now, so we just figured that you and Gray Wolf at least scared him out of the country. Exactly. You've happened to hit the nail right on the head. The Wolverine is out of this territory. Oh, good. But he's still up to his old tricks. Poaching. And that's part two. I have here on my desk a long-detailed report from Washington and from the Alaskan Game and Fisheries Commission. It appears that somebody has developed a new and fiendish method of shooting the fur seals up in those arctic waters. That's against international law. And who, evidently, has a sloop or small vessel with a supercharged engine, has been shooting the rare fur seal, probably from a long distance away, from his boat, no doubt, so as not to startle the herd, and then skinning them and, we suppose, selling the highest. What a wicked thing. Why don't they catch him? They've never even seen him. They do have the plaster casts of his boot tracks and micro-photographs of the bullets he's used. Washington compared the Alaskan report with mine. I get it. Yeah, the plaster casts of the footprints and the micro-photographs of the bullets they match. Mm-hmm. Beyond a shadow of a down. It's our old enemy, the same man doing his poaching now in Alaskan waters. Wolverine. I think so all the time. But what this got to do with us, Bill? Well, this is part three. And it sure sounds strange on a blazing hot summer day like this. Grey Wolf, you and I are the only men who have ever actually seen this Wolverine. So Washington wants us to go along on the expedition that's being fitted out to capture. We can identify him positively. The arctic. Mm-hmm. And since it's summer and you have no school... Hey, you're going to take me along. Yeah. Stompy can hold down the fort here. Since we are going right up into the arctic ocean. Enjoy this hot weather while you can. We're going to where it's mighty, mighty cool. It's getting colder by the minute. Another way to get them, colder it'll get. Cotton storm weather? Are we in the first seal waters? Two, three more days, boy. No time sailing vessel like this one don't go as fast as in modern ships. I like this kind better though. But how do we know when we're in the first seal waters? Still worrying, huh? Well, first we sight a seal or maybe a couple just little brown heads bobbing in the waves. Then we'll keep sighting more and more until finally we get to the islands. The islands? Yeah, seal islands we call them. Just rocks sticking up out of these here icy seas. The seals like them. They gather there by the hundreds. Thousands if it happens to be a big enough island. Mostly they're harmless critters and easy to shoot. That's why it's again international law to shoot them. A man shooting at them from a long ways off can just shoot about as many as he likes without the seals catching up on as to what's going on. That makes it cruel. Oh, look ahead, boy. Kind of nor by nor east. I could see something captain storm weather. Is it an island, a seal island covered with snow? Nope, that ain't no island, boy. That there is an iceberg. And a big one too. That old bird there means we're getting up into the northern seas. Up into the land ice and snow. Sure is big. Yeah, plenty big. They come bigger than that sometimes. You know much about them? Iceberg? Well, we learned in school that the part you see above the waterline, I mean, that's only a tiny part of the iceberg. Right. One eighth of the iceberg sticks out of the water. The other eight, seven eighths is under the water. Oh, that's why they're so dangerous, isn't it? Well, your ship could hit the underwater part of an iceberg, even though you thought you were far enough away to pass by it. Yeah, we'll just circle around this and give it a wide berth. Captain, what happens to icebergs? Oh, when they get down into warmer waters, they just mellow away, boy, just mellow away. If they get into regular steamer lanes, the government sends out warnings. What's that? Iceberg, you watch. Wow. What? That whole iceberg split practically right in half. There are two icebergs there now. All right. That's called calving. It's a pretty sight to see, but we're lucky we weren't any closer. Captain Stormwell, over there on the right. Captain Stormwell, I see it. I see it playing his day. Yeah, that's so do I, boy. But it ain't over to the right. It's over to the stabbered. But I will say you got mighty sharp eyes for a landlubber. You spotted it first, and that means we're getting there. That little head of bobbing along the water. That's a fur seal. Islands all around us now. Yeah. We pass quite a few of those bare rocks you call islands. We haven't seen any seals. Just a few of them in the water. There'll be plenty as soon as we get further up. We may not have to go as far as you think. See that little island off there to Starboard? Captain Stormwell there? Let me see. Let me focus my spyglass here. Those tiny dots. Are they seals? Yeah. And what's more? And what's more, they ain't moving. They ain't moving a mite. And that ain't good. Your hands! Get busy on them davits! Stand by the lower of the stabber along boats. We're going over there! There they are. All dead. All shot from a great way off, looks like. And the pearls have been taken off slick as a whistle. What do you got to say, Bill? Three nations have signed the solemn pact to prevent this vicious, wanton illegal poaching. I know. Who'd done it? Like a tracks and snow. I know those tracks anywhere. To Indian footprints, same as photograph. Those footprints belong only one man. But who? A man we call Wolverine. Yeah. Shooting and skinning for seals is against the law. Sometimes certain restricted permits are issued, but we know that this fellow has not. What are we going to do now, Bill? Henry, we follow this man all the way to the onyx. We know now what he's up here for. It may be a long and a difficult pursuit, but we'll catch him. No sign of him, Captain? There is a sign. We've been tacking back and forth in these waters for ten days now. Yeah, I know. We're about as far north as we can go. Pretty soon we're going to have to turn around and then... Oh man, a storm coming up. Bend down those hatches, men! Make everything ship shape. We're in for a blow. Hang on to that railing, Bill. She's getting rough. I'll say it is. Captain, do you think... Jordan, sail there! This looks like a humdinger. That would better. Hey, uh... Captain Schwann with it. Look! I'm looking. Right where you're looking. I see the same thing you see. A slope, riding with bare sticks. A rig like that couldn't carry a square inch of canvas in this wind. A long leanship, painted black. She's trying to use her engines. See that propeller wash under her stern? She's turning, turning away. Certain. She's seen us and she's trying to get away. Well, that must mean... Of course that's what it means. That their exhilarated swoop is the ship we're after. Otherwise she wouldn't be trying to buck the stern and get away from us. That's the Wolverine ship, for certain. But what can we do, Captain? We can catch her. That's what... But she has a powerful motor. This is just a sailing vessel. All the better. These waves make a motor useless. See how the propeller lifts right out of the water? Bill, you'll see all the sailing vessel can save the day. This wind is their enemy. But our best friend... Throw on more canvas there! We're chasing the Wolverine! What are we going to do? What matter, Henry? Look at this fog. They can't see ten feet ahead! I'm afraid the Wolverine ship will escape. Don't forget. They can't see either. They have to stop and go slow the same as us. I suppose. Bill says we've been chasing that black swoop for thirty six hours now. Day and night, but... of course the sun really never sets. ever sat there you might be long what's been our turn on watch for a long time it seems yeah hard to watch for nothing to see but fuck why I hope that other boat doesn't get away everybody hopes same thing Henry yeah I know but hey Grey Wolf do you notice anything unusual no something some seems different some oh they will find out what it is the fog it's left and see it's getting clear by the minute we keep sharp look out now maybe you see black sloop right if you take the leeward side I'll take the start right I'd like the captain told us to fog must have gone blow away quick only these these ways were so high what's that silly gray wolf the sloop the black sloop right here boy only about a quarter mile away both of us had to just ride a for the wind during that fog now that she's lifted go on behold we're ending up closer to the black sloop than ever before hard of helm and give chase right and looks by the time we catch up to him we'll be right in the lee of that monstrous iceberg up ahead and that'll be a help on a condo it'll break the force of the wind yep they don't never come much bigger than that one boy that's because we're so far north it ain't hard had time to break up none I sure is red biggest I ever see to come to think of it now what do you suppose is the matter with them fellas that's loop huh what do you mean they must be plumb crazy they're near enough to that bird they ought to be veering but instead they're steering straight for it maybe a runner broke oh she'd yaw if that happened nope they're steering her straight toward that I wonder they're up to some sort of trick I think sartan but what it is I can't figure not for the life of me my stars are going to make a landing right on that iceberg that's right but what for they can't escape away from us that way besides nobody can live on an iceberg not for long anyway little boat right up by iceberg now she shallow draft well look at that somebody's getting out somebody's being made to get out Henry see those rifles those men in the boat are pointing at the man who just jumped out of that iceberg looking just about see still pretty far away this is incredible watch the sloop captain storm with her yeah she's doing just about what you and me had figured she do bill uh-huh there she goes back and away and turning and head not to open sea they left that man alone on the iceberg right and if you take a good close look at him with a spyglass I'll guarantee it'll be the Wolverine why why they've marooned him Henry those men and his crew have figured he was too dangerous to be with so they put him off in that iceberg marooned him what about the sloop bill now let it go can arrange to get it later right now we're going to follow our original plan we're going to go and capture the Wolverine and not stay still he'd take off back through those ice hills we'll find him once we set foot on the iceberg we'd better hurry we are hurrying gray wolf sure would better make more hurry man not alone on iceberg what but an indian sees more than we can Henry never see before but see now you look over biggest ice hill great white bear i see it a polar bear and a giant one that poacher has done been marooned on an iceberg with a polar bear no sign of the Wolverine or the polar bear and either one of them can be very far away this is a big berg that we could walk clear around it in 10 15 minutes i'm sure glad we got these shoes on with a spike gotta have him boy now then let's spread out keep about 40 50 feet apart gray wolf you go over to port there right and i'll take the next position then you bill right and you boy take the other end okay now then we'll keep in sight watch where you put your feet get a good grip before you take the step and go slow and above all don't do no hollering but that man knows we're here sure he does sunny icebergs is funny a loud sudden noise might start one to kraken we don't want this thing to bust apart while we're on it oh well you don't have to whisper and if and you do call call easy like we understand let's take our positions and go forward now slowly sooner or later we'll see the poacher what we do then bill i'm counting on him giving up surrendering when he sees that we mean business he lifts his rifle to fire at us you shoot shoot right out of his hand gray wolf i will captain say big noise might split iceberg that's a chance we'll have to take and the polar bear now he's probably died in the water swim away but now what if he hasn't that's another chance we have to take everybody ready and i'd like this over in plenty of bad man poacher no good never we should see him pretty soon and i'd like this iceberg said foward show up for the bear him or the bear both he must be laying low some of his probably watching us can't say i realized this expedition no how i thought surely we'd see him before this almost across the iceberg must be hiding behind an ice hill waiting for us and then i wish he'd stay closer wow it sure is cold he's lonely well says i should keep even closer if i see us getting away let's see i'm getting farther away there he is where over there to the right over behind that ice hammock over by henry henry watch out that's him all right black beard and all now that he sees us he's standing up and have rifle bill i wait for your orders you say fire are ready good i think the bear the polar bear he's right behind henry and coming fast can the boy shoot yeah sure but look look his rifle's jam must be froze tight ray wolf you're the best shot get that bear i can't shoot from here henry between us and bear if i shoot now i hit henry henry run run to the side henry henry slip and fall bear coming fast shoot gray wolf henry still in line of bullet let's stop the bear he's down for good gray wolf how can i ever thank you for i not shoot bear i'm not dare shoot huh get henry other man shoot bear save henry's life other man why why then it must have been she's gone she's cracking that shot done at this here iceberg is cracking in two what do we do now hang on and pray kept the storm with her all shook up but still ship shape henry take a gander over yonder this old iceberg done split right spang in two and over yonder's the other half they're setting on it is henry and that poacher oh no like to me lord make everything all right like to me like wolverine binding up henry's leg taking good care of him it's a miracle the dingy still there let's get her into and roll over there fast as we can roll come on so when i saw that polar bear coming for me oh i was scared when i found my rifle was jammed then i fell and sprained my ankle well then i was really scared i tell you bill i never prayed so hard in all my life and your prayers were answered henry and you wolverine i don't know your real name how was it you decided to fire at the bear instead of us you saved henry's life i done plenty of bad things in my life i ain't no ornament to society but i can't stand still and see a young boy clawed up by a bear well we're grateful you know that plenty grateful he fixed my leg and everything i ain't looking for no thanks no favors i done wrong in a north i'm ready for my punishment but i done found out one thing found it out in spite of myself you might say well what the like you say i had the choice of shooting you or the bear when i was standing there in them few seconds something come over me like a voice saying to do the good thing shoot the bear now can you understand a thing like that yes yes i can and on the long voyage home i think we can explain a few things to you so that you will understand too i'm ready to listen henry what on earth are you doing i can get some ice to take back to stumpy he always needs ice for his lemonade well see you next week for more adventure with