The older man was tiring. Johnny found that by using a little strategy he could tap the man’s chin at will. Be it said to his credit, he tapped that round red chin only twice. There is little to be gained by an unnecessarily large score.
Those two taps, little heavier than love pats, stirred up something deep in Red’s nature. His men were looking on a new man. Not that they thought the less of him for it. Rough and ready men of the northern wilds, they understood as few ever do.
Then things began to happen fast. Red lunged at Johnny. The boy dodged. The man came at him again. In one of those seconds when reason goes on a vacation, Johnny tried one more pulled punch to the chin. He did not pull it fast enough. Red McGee fell upon that punch as a polar bear falls upon a spear.
There came a resounding thwack. Then, doubling up like an empty sack, Red McGee spread himself neatly on the floor. He was out for much more than the count of ten.
The hush that followed was appalling. But the shout that followed! Nothing Johnny had ever before heard even remotely resembled it. Perhaps a gladiator in the Roman Arena, had he returned from the dead, might have recognized it with joy or fear.
In vain did Johnny try to analyze that sound. Was it a cheer? Or was it a curse? Should he be carried out like a football hero or crushed by an infuriated mob?
Strangely enough, as he stood there half paralyzed by the sudden shock of it all, he was conscious of one voice. Above the shout had risen a woman’s scream. And he had not known there was a woman in the place. Who was she? Where had she come from? Why was she here?
“It’s all right, boys,” he heard a big voice boom. “He didn’t aim to do it. He pulled his punch. Twice he did it. He—”
The speaker broke off short. There was a girl at his side, or perhaps a young lady. Johnny was not sure. A round, freckled face and angry eyes, that was all he saw. In another second she would have been at him, tooth and nail. But the big foreman, who had done the talking, wrapped a long arm about her waist as he said, “It’s all right, Rusty. Everything is O. K., child. He didn’t aim to do it. An’ your daddy ain’t hurt none to speak of. It’s what they call a knockout. He’ll be ’round in a twinkle.”
At that the girl hid her face in the foreman’s jacket to murmur fiercely, “The brute! The ugly little brute!”
And Johnny knew she meant him. Because she was a girl, because he had hurt her and he felt miserable, he slipped back into the outer fringe of the milling throng.
As Red McGee opened his eyes he found the foreman, Dan Weston and his daughter, Rusty, bending over him.
“Wh-what!” he exclaimed, struggling to a sitting position, “what in the name of—”
“You fell into a fast one, Red.” The foreman laughed. The crowd joined in this laugh but not the girl. Sober of face, she stood looking down at her father.
“Daddy,” she began, “are you—”
“Do you mean to say that kid from theStormy Petrelput me out?” Red McGee interrupted.
“Well, you went out,” the foreman drawled. “The boy was the only one near you so I reckon—”
He was not allowed to finish for at that Red McGee let out a tremendous roar of laughter.
“Ho! Ho! Ha-ha-ha!” he roared. “That’s one on Red McGee.
“But, boys!” he struggled to his feet. “I want to admit right here. There might be something to thatStormy Petrelcrew after all. Give ’em a chance, I say.”
“Sure! Sure!” the crowd boomed. “Give ’em a chance.”
“Where’s that young roughneck?” Red demanded, staring about him. “I want to shake his hand.”
“Here—here he is!” Blackie pushed Johnny forward.
“I—I’m sorry—” Johnny began.
“Young man,” Red McGee broke in, “never apologize. Your enemies don’t deserve it, and your friends don’t demand it. From now on we’re pals. Shake on it.” Their hands met in the clasp of a grizzly and a bear cub.
“What’s more,” Red went on, “the treat’s on me. You’re coming up to dinner with me, all four of you fellows from theStormy Petrel. Ever eat ptarmigan pot pie?”
“Never have,” said Johnny.
“Well, you’re going to before this day is ...”
* * * * * * * *
... look into her eyes, he found himself seeing cold, blue-gray circles expressing as near as he could tell, undying hate.
“Of course,” he said to Blackie, “you can’t expect a girl to understand about boxing, with all of its ups and downs. But it does seem she might give a fellow the benefit of the doubt.”
“She will, son. She will,” Blackie reassured him. “Perhaps sooner than you think.” Was this prophesy or a guess? Time would tell.
Rusty McGee was the type of girl any real boy might be proud to call a pal. With an easy smile, a freckled face and a mass of wavy, rust-colored hair, she caught your interest at a glance. The strong, elastic, healthy spring of her whole self kept you looking.
More than once during his visit to the McGee summer home, a stout log cabin nestling among the barren Alaskan hills, Johnny found his eyes following her movements as she glided from room to room.
“Boy, she can cook!” Blackie exclaimed as he set his teeth into the juicy breast of “mountain quail,” as ptarmigan are often called. And Johnny did not disagree.
Since the crew of theStormy Petrelwere her father’s friends, it was evident that Rusty meant to do her best as a hostess. But to Johnny she gave never a smile.
“How she must love that old dad of hers!” Blackie whispered once. Johnny’s only answer was a scowl.
Yes, Johnny was shunned and slighted by this youthful “queen of the canneries,” as she had once been called, but theStormy Petrel’sengineer, old Hugh MacGregor, came in for more than his full share of interest.
Hugh MacGregor was truly old. His thatch of gray told that. With grandchildren of his own he was just a big-hearted old man. Rusty was not long in sensing that.
When the dinner, a truly grand feast, was over, the others, Blackie, Red McGee, Lawrence and Johnny retired to the glassed-in porch where they might have a look at the barren hills of Alaska and the wide, foam-flecked sweep of Bristol Bay, and, at the same time, talk of fish, Oriental raiders and the sea.
MacGregor remained behind to “help with the dishes.”
“Do you like Alaska?” Rusty asked him.
“Oh, sure I do!” was the old man’s quick response. “I spent a winter much further north than this many years ago. I was quite young then. It was thrilling, truly it was. Cape Prince of Wales on Bering Straits—” his voice trailed off dreamily.
“Way up there?” the girl exclaimed. “What were you doing?”
“Herdin’ reindeer and Eskimo,” he laughed. “I crossed the straits in a skin boat with the Eskimo and lived a while in Russia without a passport. You do things like that when you are young.
“Ah yes,” he sighed, “youth is impulsive, and often wrong.” He was thinking of Johnny. He knew how Johnny felt about things. He had become very fond of the boy.
Did Rusty understand? Who could tell? Burying her hands in foamy suds, she washed dishes furiously. Nor did she speak again for some time.
Meanwhile, over their pipes, Red McGee and Blackie were discussing the task that lay before them.
“I suppose you know all about this Oriental fishing business,” Red suggested.
“I’m not sure that I do know all about it,” was Blackie’s modest reply. “Suppose you tell me.”
“It’s like this,” Red cleared his throat. “There was a time when we thought the salmon supply off these shores was inexhaustible. We caught them in nets and traps just as we pleased.
“Then,” he blew out a cloud of smoke, “there came a time when we woke up to the fact that the whole run of salmon might vanish. You know what that would mean?”
“Yes, I know,” Blackie agreed. “The little man in Hoboken, Omaha and Detroit who hasn’t much pay and has a big family could no longer feed the children on a fifteen-cent can of salmon.”
“Right,” McGee agreed. “More than that, thousands of fine fellows, just such men as you saw tonight, fair-minded, honest men that would,” he paused to chuckle, “that would see one of their best friends knocked cold by a stranger in a fair sparring match and not want to kill him, men like that would be out of a job. Their families would go hungry. You know, about all they understand is salmon catching.”
“And so?” Blackie prompted after a moment’s silence.
“So the government and the canners got together on a conservation program; so many fish to be caught each year, the same number allowed to go up stream and spawn.
“The plan was well worked out. We’ve put the salmon industry on a sound foundation. It will continue so for years unless—”
“These Orientals are allowed to come over here and set three-mile-long nets across the bay,” suggested Blackie.
“That’s just it!” McGee struck the table a resounding blow. “They’re taking advantage of a technicality of international law. And unless we drive them out—”
“Not too loud,” Blackie cautioned. “There goes one of them now.”
“What?” McGee sprang to his feet. A slender, dark-haired person was passing down the path before the cabin.
“No,” he settled back in his place. “He’s not one of ’em. He’s one of our Eskimos. We have three of them down here. It’s a little off their regular beat. But they are keen at locating the runs of salmon. Inherited it from their fathers, I—
“But say!” his voice rose. “He does look like one of those Orientals.”
“Sure he does,” Blackie agreed.
“We might use him for a sort of spy,” McGee’s voice dropped to a whisper. “His name’s Kopkina. Used to work in a restaurant. He picked up the Oriental lingo, at least enough to pass for one of ’em. If some of them come around here, we’ll have Kopkina mix in with them. He might find things out, important facts.”
“It’s a good idea,” Blackie agreed.
“Yes,” MacGregor was saying to Rusty, as he told more of his adventures in the very far north, “it was a bit peculiar goin’ up there like that, livin’ with the Eskimos. And me still a young fellow like Johnny Thompson now.” He shot her a look. She smiled at him in a peculiar way, but said never a word.
“It was the food that was strange,” he went on after a chuckle. “Of course, you can chew polar bear steak if you’ve got uncommon good teeth. Seal steak’s not half-bad and reindeer makes a grand Mulligan stew.”
“Yes, I know,” the girl agreed. “We have some reindeer meat sent down every season. Stay with us and you’ll have a taste of it.”
“We’ll stay, all right,” MacGregor declared. “That’s what we’re here for to stay, hunting Orientals and shadows—shadows.” He repeated the word slowly. “Blackie believes in moving shadows in the fog on the sea.”
“Shadows?” the girl stared at him.
“Sure! He says they glide along across the sea with never a sound. Like some phantom schooner it was,” he said.
“That’s strange.” The girl’s eyes shone. “There was a gill-net fisherman last season told something just like that. He was an Italian, sort of a dreamer. We didn’t believe him. But now—what do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” MacGregor scratched his gray thatch.
“But, Mr. MacGregor,” the girl said after a moment, “didn’t you have a thing to eat except Eskimo food?”
“What? Oh, yes, up there, up there when I was a kid same as Johnny,” MacGregor laughed. “Sure—sure we did. It came on a sailin’ schooner all in cans.
“We had evaporated potatoes and eggs in cans, butter pickled in cans, hot dogs in cans, everything. And the Eskimos,” he threw back his head and laughed. “They’d stand around watchin’ to see what we’d take out of a can next.
“And then we got a phonograph,” he laughed again.
“A phonograph?” Rusty said.
“Sure. First one those little brown boys ever seen. Had a long tin horn to it, that phonograph did. The Eskimos looked at it and tapped the tin horn. They said, ‘Suna una?’ (What is it?) We didn’t tell ’em, so they tapped it some more and said, ‘All same tin can-emuck.’
“Bye and bye we cranked it up and started it going. The record was a white man singin’ ‘Meet me in Saint Louis, Louie. Meet me at the Fair.’
“Well, that was funny!” he chuckled. “The Eskimos just looked and listened for a long time. Then one of them looked at the others and said, ‘Can you beat that! A white man in that tin can!’”
The merry laugh that rang out from the kitchen was heard by those on the porch. Johnny heard it with the others and was glad—glad that that fine girl could laugh even if it wasn’t his joke.
“See that cannery out there?” Red McGee was saying. “Cost a cool million dollars. Paying interest on the investment, too. Also it’s giving two thousand people a living. But these Orientals with their floating canneries—”
“Floating canneries?” Lawrence broke in.
“Sure! That’s what they’ve got. They pick up some big hulk of a ship cheap, install some canning equipment, load on a drove of cheap coolies and steam away. Pretty soon they’re over Bristol Bay, just off the shores of Alaska, but beyond the three-mile limit. Three miles! Bah!” he exploded.
“I’m in favor of calling every square mile of Bristol Bay American waters,” Blackie replied.
Red McGee stared at him with sudden approval. “Say!” he roared, “we must be brothers.”
“We ought to run those Orientals off,” Blackie grinned. “We’re here to start just that. That boat of ours may not seem so hot, but she’s got speed and power, three airplane motors in her. Good ones, too. Once we sight an Oriental fishing boat setting nets too close behind the fog they’re coming ashore.”
“To do a lot of explaining.”
“Yes, and for quite a long visit.”
“That’s the talk,” Red McGee stood up. “Here’s hoping the wind drops so you can get there. The fishing hasn’t really started. No foreign boats have been seen. But they’re there. They made a haul last year. We’re sure of that. So why shouldn’t they come back?”
“Why not?” Blackie agreed.
In all of this time neither Johnny nor Lawrence said a word. For all that, they were thinking hard and their young hearts were on fire with a desire to do their bit for the good old U. S. A. and Alaska, their present home.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” said MacGregor, as he joined the party on the porch.
“It will pass,” was Red McGee’s modest reply. “I built it for my wife. She loved these rugged hills and the smell of the sea. She—” his voice faltered. He looked away. “She left us a year and a half ago. But Rusty and I, we—we sort of carry on.
“But if those Orientals—” his voice rose, “Oh! Well, enough of that for today. It’s good of you fellows to join us in a feast!”
“It’s been swell!” said Blackie.
“Swell! Grand! Mighty keen!” were the impulsive comments of the boys.
“We know each other better,” said Blackie.
“A whole lot better,” Red McGee agreed.
“Goodbye, Rusty,” MacGregor called back through the house.
“Goodbye! Goodbye! Come again soon,” came back in a girlish voice.
“I wonder,” Johnny thought as he took the winding path leading down to the wharf. “Wonder if we’ll ever get to come back here?”
“Fog.” There was more than a suggestion of disgust in Johnny’s tone as he said this word. It was the next morning. After a good night’s sleep aboard theStormy Petrelhe felt ready for anything. The moment he awoke he had listened for the pounding surf.
“Gone!” He had leaped from his bunk. “Storm’s over. Now for a good look at Bristol Bay and perhaps, just perhaps, some of those Orientals.”
“Here’s hoping,” Lawrence agreed.
Yes, the storm was over, but here instead was a damp, chilling blanket of dull, gray fog.
“Can’t see a hundred feet,” he grumbled.
“You’ll get used to that, son.” It was Red McGee who spoke. He had been leaning on the rail talking to Blackie. “‘Men and Fog on the Bering Sea.’ That’s the name of a book. And it’s a good name. There are always men and nearly always there is fog.
“Fish are coming in,” he added as a cheering note. “Two boats are just in from a try at the gill-nets. They made a fair catch.”
“But this fog,” Johnny insisted, “gives those Orientals a chance to slip in close, doesn’t it?”
“It does!” Red agreed. “Blast their hides! That floatin’ factory of theirs comes in close to the three-mile limit. Then their other boats, small, fast ones, can come over the line and set nets. You couldn’t see them in the fog. They’d put ’em up early. Three miles of nets.
“Claim they’re catchin’ crabs. Crabs, me eye!” he exploded. “Crab nets are set on the bottom. Salmon nets are set close to the top. Drift nets are what they use. We’ve never found one inside the three-mile line, but we think they’ve been there all the same.
“If you ever do find one,” he turned to Blackie, “take it up and bring it in. We’ll can their fish an’ boil their nets.
“Shouldn’t be any three-mile line,” he continued. “All our shore water belongs to us. So do the fish. It’s food, son! Food for the millions. And these Orientals would have had fish on their own shores if they hadn’t exterminated them.”
“We’re going out right now,” said Blackie. “Going to have a look for that shadow that passes in the fog. We’ve got a nice swivel cannon up there forward. Don’t know whether you can hit a shadow, but it won’t do any harm to try.”
“All the same, thisisa serious situation,” said Blackie as they headed out into the fog. “These Alaskans are a strange people. They are like the men of the old west, the west that’s gone forever; fearless men with hearts of gold, fighting devils when they know they’ve been wronged. And this Oriental raiding business is an outrage, providing it’s true.”
“But is it true?” Johnny asked.
“That,” said Blackie, “is what we’re going to find out.
“Johnny,” he said after a moment, “go up forward and remove that box. Let our little brass messenger swing with the boat.”
A moment later, up forward, a small swivel cannon swung from side to side. As it did so it seemed to point, first right, then left.
“This way or that?” Johnny thought. “I wonder which it will be.”
Hour after hour the fog hung on. Hour after hour Johnny squinted his eyes for some moving object in that blanket of gray fog. The cold, damp ocean air chilled him to the bone. Stamping his feet, he held doggedly to his post. When his watch was over he went below to soak in the heat of the stove that George, the colored cook, kept roaring hot. He drank two cups of scalding black coffee, downed a plate of beans and a whole pan of hot biscuits, then spread himself out on a cushioned seat to close his eyes and dream.
In those dreams he saw creeping gray shadows, darting fish and a pair of laughing eyes. The eyes closed. When they opened the face wore a frown.
“Rusty!” he whispered. “Wonder if she’ll ever forgive me?”
All too soon his turn at the watch came. The days were long, twenty hours from dark to dawn. By nature a hard driver, inspired by his desire to help the Alaskans, Blackie steered his small craft endlessly through the gray murk.
Then—of a sudden Johnny rubbed his eyes—stared away to the right—closed his eyes—snapped them open again to whisper hoarsely,
“Blackie! The shadow passes.”
“The shadow! Where?”
The boy’s hand pointed.
“As I live!” Blackie muttered.
A short, slim line, little darker than the fog, moved slowly across the spot where sky and sea should meet.
“Ahoy, there!” Blackie roared. “What boat goes there?”
No answer.
“I’ll show them!” Blackie put out a hand. Three powerful motors roared. TheStormy Petrellurched forward, all but throwing Johnny into the sea.
Sudden as the movement was, it proved too slow. Like a true shadow, the thing vanished into the murk.
“It—it went down,” Johnny stammered. “Must have been a whale.”
“Or a submarine,” Lawrence suggested.
“It did not go down,” said MacGregor. “It slid away into the fog. And it was not a whale. I’ve seen plenty of whales. They’re never like that.”
“Wait!” Johnny sprang for the cannon. “I’ll give them a shot just to let them know we’re after them.”
“No! No! Not that!” MacGregor waved him back. “‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.’ That was Teddy Roosevelt’s motto. The grandest president that ever lived. There’s time enough to make a noise after we’ve got ’em under our thumb.”
“I—I’m sorry,” said Johnny.
Forty-eight long hours theStormy Petrelhaunted the gray fog. During far more than his fair share of that time, eyes blinking but tireless, Johnny stood on deck studying the small circle of black waters.
Three times his heart leaped as a dark bulk loomed before them. Three times he heaved a sigh of disappointment.
“Only one of the gill-net boats returning to the cannery,” was the answer.
“They’re running strong,” was the joyous report of one fisherman. “Full load first trip. Looks like a grand season.”
“Poor luck,” came from the second. “We tried hard. Got only half a load. Have to come in anyway. It’s the rule. Fish must always be fresh.”
The third boat had had even worse luck. It was going back all but empty.
“No new calico dress for Nancy this time,” the youthful skipper groaned.
“No gitta da dress,” his Italian companion agreed.
At last, out of gas, with her crew half-blind from watching, theStormy Petrelheaded for the harbor.
“They’re out there somewhere,” Red McGee insisted, as he met them at the dock. “Must be anchored up north of here somewhere. It’s the boys who go up that way who come back half-empty.
“But the wheels are turning,” he added with a touch of pride. “Ever see a cannery in operation?” he turned to the boys.
“No, never have,” was the quick response.
“Rusty,” said Red, turning to his daughter, “how’d you like to show these boys through our plant?”
Did Johnny detect a frown on the girl’s face? If so, it was gone like the shadow of a summer cloud.
“Sure! Come on!” she welcomed. They were away.
Somewhere Johnny had heard that a fish cannery was a place of evil smells and revolting sights. Dirty coolies gouging into half-rotten fish—that was his mental picture.
A surprise awaited him. Not a coolie was in sight. The place smelled as fresh as a May morning. To his ears came the sound of rushing water.
“Where are the coolies?” he asked a man beside a machine.
“This is him,” the man chuckled. “An iron coolie.”
As the two boys watched they saw the machine seize a large salmon, sever its head and tail, remove the scales and fins, clean it and pass it on in a split second.
“Jimminy crickets!” Lawrence exploded. “And I used to think I was the champion fish cleaner!”
Rusty favored him with a gorgeous smile.
When, a little later, Johnny made a try for that same young lady’s smile, the cloud once again passed over her face, but no smile. He was not, however, entirely discouraged. It was, he thought, more as if she could not forgive him than that she did not want to.
“We saw the shadow pass,” Lawrence confided to the girl, as at last they stood before a canning machine.
“Oh!” the girl breathed. “Did you? And what—”
“It vanished into the fog.”
“I have a small motor-boat,” the girl said, in evident excitement. “It’s theKrazy Kat. I—I’m going out to look for the shadow in the fog.”
“You—you’d better not do that,” Johnny spoke before he thought. “You’d be—” He did not finish.
“I was practically born and raised here.” She spoke to him, as an old-time Alaskan might to a newcomer.
Johnny did not resent it. He had spoken out of turn. And yet he was disturbed. He did not care to think of this fine young creature out there in the fog alone. Supposing she did find the Orientals setting nets. Suppose they found her, alone out there in the fog?
“None of my business,” he told himself fiercely. “Just none at all.”
TheStormy Petrelremained an entire day in port. Blackie spent his time listening to reports from the various fishing grounds. The shores of Bristol Bay are hundreds of miles long. Next time he went out he wanted to go to the right spot, if there were such a spot.
Johnny made the acquaintance of Kopkino, the Eskimo. From him he learned much about salmon, Orientals and the shores of Bristol Bay. And then, just at midnight, he passed the sturdy little man standing beside a dark pathway. There were three little men with him and they were all talking. They were not Eskimos. He was sure of that. But they were Orientals. He had heard enough of the languages to know.
At once his mind was filled with questions. Was Kopkino betraying his employer for Oriental gold, or was he acting as a spy for his big white brother? Who could say?
“He’s an Oriental,” Johnny told himself. “All Eskimos are. But after all—” He came to no conclusion.
Just before dawn theStormy Petrelcrept out into the fog. She was bound for an unannounced destination.
“Action,” Johnny said to Lawrence. “This time we are to have action. I feel it in my bones.”
One thing puzzled Johnny not a little. They were provisioned as if for a long trip, two weeks or more.
Several hours later theStormy Petrelwas once again circling about in the fog.
“Seems like it’ll never end, this fog,” MacGregor said to Johnny. They were on deck working out their watch. “Looks as if nature was on the side of those Orientals.
“Orientals,” he continued musingly, “I don’t suppose they’re much different from the rest of us, only just some of them.”
“Just some of them,” Johnny agreed, giving the wheel a turn.
“Come to think of it,” MacGregor went on, “there are a few white men who are not so honorable.”
“Quite a few,” Johnny agreed.
Truth is, Johnny was dead tired. He wanted nothing quite so much as to crawl into some warm corner and sleep for hours and hours.
“I don’t hate them all the same,” MacGregor squinted his eyes to look through the fog. Then he demanded low, “Hear anything, Johnny?”
“Not a thing.”
“Thought I heard a voice coming out of the fog.”
For some time after that neither spoke. They were listening with all their ears for some sound that might tell them the mysterious moving shadow was about to pass.
“What is this shadow?” Johnny asked himself. “Submarine, some fast, silent craft, or a whale?”
He liked the idea of a submarine. The Orientals had them. Why not use them for laying nets? Easy enough to vanish when danger was near.
“Hate, me lad, is destructive,” the aged man’s voice was solemn as he took up the thread of conversation he had dropped. “Hate destroys you as well as the people you hate.”
He broke off short to cup a hand behind his ear.
“Therewasa voice,” he insisted in a hoarse whisper.
“Yes, I heard it,” Johnny replied, tense with sudden excitement.
Ten minutes had passed. They were beginning to relax when the sound came again.
“Over to the right,” MacGregor shrilled. “Turn her about quarterin’ them. Give her top speed.”
“Right.” Johnny twisted the wheel. The motors roared. It was a bold step that might have led to disaster. Should there be a boat out there setting nets, and should they crash at that speed, what would it mean? Johnny did not dare to think.
“There!” MacGregor gripped the boy’s arm.
“Oh—ah!” Johnny groaned. “We missed them.”
It was true. Off to the left, for the space of seconds, they saw an unmistakable dark, gray bulk. And then it was gone.
“Our own speed defeated us,” declared MacGregor. “Ah, well, better luck next time.”
“Or worse,” Johnny grumbled.
Had he but known it, it was to be worse, much worse.
“As for me,” MacGregor said a half hour later, resuming his talk, “I don’t hate anybody. It’s not worth while. Sometimes I hate the things they do. Mostly, I try to think of good people and the good things they do.
“And that,” his voice rose, “that’s what I like about this job of ours. If we can drive these Orientals from our shores we’ll be doing good to our own people, a whole lot of ’em.
“Know what I see when I’m tired and I close my eyes?” he asked suddenly.
“No. What?” Johnny grinned good-naturedly.
“Children,” MacGregor said in a mellow tone. “Children playing before an open fire and their mother puttin’ the crust on an apple pie in the kitchen. And those, Johnny, are the children and wives of men way up here scoutin’ around in the cold and fog for salmon. We’re servin’ them, Johnny, or at least we’re trying to.”
Just then Blackie’s head popped up out of the hatch.
“See anything?” he demanded.
“Plenty,” said Johnny.
“Yes, an’ heard ’em,” MacGregor added.
They told Blackie what had happened.
“So you think you heard them?” he asked.
“Think?” MacGregor roared. “Weknowwe heard ’em.”
“Might have been a seal barking to his mate, or mebby a loon. You can’t be sure. Question is, if they’re here, where’s their nets?” Blackie came up on deck.
“Turn the boat north by east,” he said to Johnny. “We’re going in for a rest.”
“Rest? What’s that?” Johnny opened up a grand smile.
“Something we don’t have much of,” said Blackie. “But this fog burns your eyes. You’re no good when you’ve been out too long.
“There’s a cabin on shore if only we can find it,” he explained. “A trapper’s place, snug and warm. Red McGee told me about it. Trapper’s gone south with his furs. We’re to make ourselves at home.”
Make themselves at home they did. After tying theStormy Petrelup at a narrow dock they helped George up to the cabin with kettles, pans and food supplies. Then, while a jolly wood fire roared in the huge stove made of a steel gasoline barrel, laid on ends, they sprawled out on rustic chairs to sniff the odor of roasting beef and baking pies and to dream dreams.
With his eyes closed, MacGregor was seeing “children and their mothers putting the top crust on apple pies.” In his dream Blackie held a struggling Oriental by the collar of his coat and the seat of his trousers. As for Johnny, he was seeing a round, freckled face all rosy with smiles. Then, to his dismay he was seeing that same face take on a somber look.
“Rusty,” he thought once again. “Will she ever forgive me?”
The feast George had prepared was one fit for a king or even a big league baseball player, and the sleep they had in that cabin resting among the bleak Alaskan hills was the soundest Johnny had known for many a day. Well it was that this should be, for Fate had much in store for him.
“It will be an hour or two before I can get out,” Blackie said next morning, standing up to stretch himself before the fire. “I want to go over some maps Red McGee gave me. Lawrence can draw up a simple chart that will keep us going right.
“MacGregor,” he turned to the aged Scotchman. “How would you like to take Johnny for a circle or two in the fog? You might discover some evidence. It’s nets we want most. If we can discover some of those nets inside the three-mile limit it will help a lot.”
“Like nothin’ better,” said MacGregor. “Come on, Johnny, let’s get goin’.”
MacGregor had spoken for both of them. Johnny was fond of the engineer. He was old, mellow and kind, was MacGregor. This, he had confided to Johnny, was to be his last year with the service. Another twelve months and he would be pensioned. “And, Johnny,” he had added, “I’m as eager as any boy to have a part in something big before I am compelled to go.”
“I hope you can have,” had been Johnny’s heartfelt wish.
So now, with the sun still low and the fog, it seemed, thicker than ever before, they slipped out of the snug little natural harbor into the great unknown that is any sea in time of fog.
Standing at the wheel, Johnny watched the dark circle of water about them. Ever they moved forward, yet never did this circle grow larger. It was strange.
There was life at this circle. Now a whole fleet of eider-ducks, resting on their way north, came drifting into view. With a startled quack-quack they stirred up a great splatter, then went skimming away.
And now a seal with small round head and whiskers like a cat came to the surface to stare at them.
“Not worth much, that fellow,” was MacGregor’s comment. “Not much more hair than a pig.
“But look, Johnny!” his voice rose. “There’s a real fur seal. His hide’s worth a pretty penny. Wouldn’t have it long either, if those Orientals sighted him. We used to have a hot time with ’em over the seals. Had to pay ’em to get ’em to leave the seals alone. That was a shame. Have to do the same with the salmon, like as not. We—
“Look, Johnny! What’s that?” His voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, as if he believed the fog had ears. “Right over to the left, Johnny. Ease ’er over that way.”
“Another seal,” said Johnny.
“It’s no seal,” MacGregor whispered. “Johnny!” His whisper rose. “We got ’em. It’s a net marker. Inside the three-mile limit. An’ it’s none of Red McGee’s net markers either.”
“That—that’s right,” the boy breathed.
“And there’s the floats, Johnny! There they are!”
Sure enough, leading away into the fog was a wavering line of dots.
“We’ll follow it,” was MacGregor’s instant decision. “See how much net there is, then—”
“I’ll follow it,” Johnny agreed.
“Set the boat to go five miles an hour. I’ll time you.” MacGregor pulled out his large, old-fashioned watch. “Now we’ll see.”
For a full ten minutes, in silence, the two of them watched the apparently never-ending line of net floats appear and disappear into the fog.
“Near two miles of it,” MacGregor growled. “And yet no end. No wonder some of our fine boys come in with empty boats. These Orientals, they just find a place outside where the salmon run an’ head ’em off. They—
“Slow up, Johnny!” he warned. “There’s the end. Shut off the motor.”
The motor ceased to purr. Silence hung over the fog. A seal bobbed up his head, then ducked. A large salmon, caught in the net close to the surface, set up a feeble splatter.
“Ease about,” said MacGregor. “I’ll pick up that net with this pike pole.
“Now,” he breathed, leaning far out over the rail, “now I got her. Now—”
He had succeeded in getting his hands on the marker when catastrophe came thundering up at them from the deep. A tremendous explosion sent the water rocketing toward the sky. The prow of theStormy Petrelrose until it seemed she would go completely over.
Frantically Johnny gripped the wheel to save himself from being plunged into the icy water. But where was MacGregor?
For ten tense seconds the boat stood with prow in air. Then with a slow, sickening swash, she came down.
“MacGregor!” Johnny cried. “What happened? Where are you?”
“Here—here I am!” MacGregor’s voice rose from the sea.
“Johnny!” his voice was hoarse with emotion. “Shove off that life boat. Get her off just any way. There’s a terrible hole in theStormy’sside. She’ll sink in another minute. For God’s sake, be quick!”
Johnny was quick and strong. If ever his strength stood him in good stead it was now.
The life boat hung over the afterdeck. The knots of ropes that held it in place were wet and stiff with fog.