“No time,” he muttered. With his knife he slashed away the ropes. The boat fell on deck with a thud. It was a heavy steel boat. To his consternation, he saw that it had fallen squarely between the heavy rails. The prow must be lifted. Creeping under it, he put all the strength of his back against it. It rose.
“Now!” he breathed. “Now! And now!”
The boat was on the rail. He could fairly feel theStormy’sdeck sinking beneath him. She was doomed, there was no doubt of that. Those heavy motors would take her down fast.
Once again he heaved. The life boat was now a quarter over the rail, now a third, now half.
Leaping from beneath it, he executed a double movement, a shove and a leap. He was in the life boat. The life boat plunged, all but sank, swayed from side to side, then righted herself.
There was a low, sickening rush of water. Johnny looked. TheStormywas gone. In her place were swirling water and in the swirl an odd collection of articles; a coat, a cap, a pike pole, and MacGregor’s checkerboard.
“MacGregor!” Johnny called hoarsely. “MacGregor! Where are you?”
“Here! Over here!” was the cheering response. “I had to get away. She would have sucked me down.”
Seizing an oar, Johnny began sculling the boat. In a moment he was alongside his companion. A brief struggle and MacGregor, watersoaked and shivering, tumbled into the boat.
“John—Johnny,” his teeth were chattering. “There—there shou-should be d-d-dry clothes in the stern.”
Dragging a half barrel from the prow, Johnny pulled out shirts, underclothing, trousers, socks and shoes.
“Seems you were looking for this,” he chuckled as he watched the plucky old man disrobe himself.
“Johnny,” said MacGregor. “In the Coast Guard service you are always looking for it an’ all too often you’re not disappointed.”
When, a few minutes later, after a brisk rub-down, MacGregor had struggled into dry clothes and had succeeded in lighting his pipe, he said, “Well, me boy, we thought we had ’em an’ now they’ve got us. We’re miles from anywhere in a fog. And that’s bad! Mighty bad.”
“Do you suppose Blackie heard it?”
“What? The explosion? ’Tain’t likely. We’re all of four miles from there. Don’t forget, we followed that net two miles. An’ that explosion was muffled by the water.
“An’ if he heard,” he added after a brief pause, “what could he do? He’s four miles away. No compass. An’ no boat except maybe a fishing skiff. No, Johnny,” his voice sounded out solemn on the silent sea. “For once in our lives we are strictly on our own, you and me.
“Well, me lad,” he murmured a moment later. “They got us that time. Attached some sort of bomb to their net, that’s what they did. Safe enough in a way, too, for how you goin’ to prove it was their net? Yes, they got us. But you wait, me lad, we’ll be gettin’ them yet.”
Many times in his young life Johnny had been on his own, but never quite like this.
“Not a bit of good to row,” was MacGregor’s decision. “We’ve not the least notion which way to go. If there was a breeze we might row by that. There’s no breeze.”
“No sun, moon or stars, either,” Johnny agreed.
For a full half hour they sat there in silence. Off in the distance a seal barked. Closer at hand an eider-duck quacked to his mate. A sudden scream, close at hand, startled them for an instant. It was followed by a wild laugh. They joined in the merriment. It was only a loon.
There came a wild whir of wings. A flock of wild ducks, flying low and going like the wind, shot past them.
“That’s north,” Johnny exclaimed. “They’re going due north to their nesting place. That’s east,” he pointed. “All we have to do is to row that way. We’ll come to land.”
“If you kept your course, which you couldn’t,” MacGregor chuckled.
“It’s worth trying. Anyway, I’m cold,” Johnny began to row. “There may be other bird flights to set me right.”
There were not, at least not for fifteen minutes. When at last a pair of loons with long necks stretched straight before, passed them, to his disgust, Johnny saw that the boat was headed due north.
“Well,” he sighed, dropping his oars, “At least I—”
“Listen!” MacGregor put up a hand.
Johnny listened. “Say! That’s no seal.”
“Nor a bird either. That’s a human sound.”
“Like someone trying to start a motor.”
“Just that.”
For a time the sound ceased. Then it began again.
“Over to the left.” Once again Johnny took up the oars. This time he rowed slowly, silently. No telling whose motor had stalled. Fisherman, trapper, or Oriental? Who could tell?
Four times the sound ceased. Four times Johnny’s oars rested on the surface of the water.
When, at last, a small, dark spot appeared on the surface of the sea, Johnny fairly ceased to breathe.
“Heck!” said a voice in that fog.
“Doesn’t sound like an Oriental,” Johnny whispered.
“Fisherman nor trapper either,” replied MacGregor.
Leaning even more gently on his oars, Johnny sent his boat gliding forward. Then, of a sudden, he dropped his oars to stare.
“It’s that girl, Rusty,” he whispered hoarsely.
“The same,” MacGregor agreed.
There could be no doubt about it. The girl was bending over to give her flywheel one more turn. Over her boy’s shirt, high boots and knickers she had drawn a suit of greasy coveralls. On her face, besides a look of grim determination, there was a long, black smudge.
“Heck!” she exclaimed once more.
“Havin’ motor trouble?” MacGregor spoke aloud.
The girl started so suddenly that she all but lost her balance. Then, after a brief spell of unbelieving silence, she said, “It’s you, Mr. MacGregor! How glad I am to see you! I’ve been lost for hours. I—I went out to hunt the Shadow, that shadow you know. My motor’s stalled. But now—”
“Now we’re all lost together,” MacGregor chuckled.
To Johnny, the girl gave never a second look.
“Do—do you suppose you could start it?” she said to MacGregor, nodding at her motor.
“No harm to try. At least we’ll come aboard for a cup o’ tea,” MacGregor chuckled.
Johnny rowed the lifeboat alongside the girl’s boat, theKrazy Kat, and they climbed aboard.
“She’s not gittin’ gas,” said MacGregor, after he had turned the motor over twice.
“I know,” the girl’s brow wrinkled.
Without saying a word, Johnny scrambled back to the box covering the gas tank. After lifting the box off, he struck the tank a sharp rap. The tank gave off a hollow sound.
“You might try putting some gas in your tank,” he said with a sly grin.
“Oh, but there must be gas!” the girl exclaimed. “There must be.”
“Perhaps,” said Johnny. “But it’s empty. May be a leak.” Drawing a small flashlight from his pocket, he bent over and examined the offending tank.
“Yep,” he said, “there is a leak, a small hole, but big enough. Your gas is in the bottom of the boat, along with the bilge water. Any reserve supply?”
“Not a bit.”
“Well, then, here we are.” Johnny took a seat. “Now we have two boats and there are three of us. The motor-boat won’t go, but—”
Suddenly he sprang to his feet. “You’d have a compass, wouldn’t you?”
“Ye-es,” the girl replied with evident reluctance, “but it—it’s out of order. That’s why I got lost.”
“Well, anyway,” Johnny said with forced cheerfulness, “now there are three of us. Two’s company and three’s a crowd. I always have liked crowds. Besides,” the corners of his mouth turned up, “you’ve got something of a cabin.”
“Oh, yes.” The girl seemed, for the moment, to forget that she was speaking to one who had knocked her beloved daddy out. “Yes, there is a cabin. There’s a small stove and—and some wood. There’s tea and some pilot biscuits.”
“A stove, wood, tea and pilot biscuits?” Suddenly MacGregor seized her and waltzed her about in a narrow circle. “Rusty, me child, you are an angel.”
A half hour later found them comfortably crowded into Rusty’s small cabin. They were sipping tea and munching hard round crackers.
“The fog’ll lift after a while,” MacGregor rumbled dreamily. “We lost our boat. That’s bad. But there’s marine insurance. That’s good. We’ll have another boat. I wonder,” he paused to meditate, “wonder what Blackie and the others are thinking by now.”
“And doing,” Johnny suggested uneasily.
“Yes, and doin’,” MacGregor agreed.
A half hour later, growing restless, Johnny crept from his corner, opened the cabin door and disappeared up the narrow hatch.
Ten seconds later he poked his head into the door to exclaim in a low, tense voice, “MacGregor, come up here quick.”
MacGregor came. The girl came too. For a full half minute the three of them stood there speechless. They were looking up and away. Their eyes were wide and staring.
“MacGregor,” Johnny asked, “what is it?”
“A ship,” MacGregor whispered. “A thunderin’ big ship. She’s not two hundred leagues away. She’s not movin’, just driftin’. That’s how she came close to us.”
“Wha-what ship is she?”
“Who knows, son? But I’d lay a bet I could guess the country she came from.”
“So—so could I.” Johnny’s throat was dry.
“We—we,” Rusty pulled her old sou’wester down hard on her head, “we’d better get into the life boat and row away. It—it doesn’t matter about theKrazy Kat. It really doesn’t.” She swallowed hard.
“We can try it,” MacGregor agreed. “But I’m afraid it’s too late.
“Well,” he added with a low, rumbling laugh. “We were lookin’ for ’em. Now we found ’em, we don’t want ’em. Come on, an’ mind you, never a sound!”
“It’s no use. We’re in for it.” Five minutes later MacGregor dropped his oars. From some spot close to that dark bulk against the sky had come the throb of a motor.
“Rusty, me child,” the old man’s voice was very gentle. “Be sure those golden locks of yours are well tucked in. Whatever you do, don’t remove that sou’wester. For the present you are a boy. You must not forget.”
“I—I won’t forget.” Rusty’s fingers were busy with her hair.
“I only hope,” the old man added soberly, “that my guess is wrong.”
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when a smart little motor boat, bright with red and white paint, hove into view. And on the deck, scarcely less smart in brass buttons and braid, stood a small man with slanting eyes.
Those eyes appeared a trifle startled at sight of MacGregor. “A thousand pardons.” The little man’s voice was smooth as oil. “What is that which you wish?”
“Only a few gallons of gasoline,” said MacGregor.
The lightning change on the little man’s face was startling. It was as if a dagger had suddenly flashed from his belt, yet his tone was smooth as before.
“Ah! You are out of gas? Very unfortunate. Your line, please. We shall escort you to our ship.”
“But we don’t want to go to your ship,” MacGregor protested. “All we want is gas.”
“Ah, yes, a thousand apologies. But here there is no gasoline, only at the ship. Your line, please.”
“Say, you—” Johnny’s angry voice was stopped by a heavy pressure on his arm.
“Give him our line, son,” said MacGregor.
Grudgingly Johnny obeyed. A moment later, with the two boats in tow, the bright, little craft went rolling back toward that broad, black bulk.
“It’s no use to quarrel with ’em,” MacGregor said in a sober whisper. “We’ve fallen into their hands. I think that chap recognized me. I’ve been along the Pacific waterfronts for many years. So have these Orientals.”
“But—but what will happen?” Rusty asked.
“Who knows?” was MacGregor’s sober reply. “Let us hope for the best. They’ll not let us go now. When they’re well beyond the three-mile limit they may give us gas and let us go.
“In the meantime, Rusty,” he warned, “don’t forget you’re a boy. It’s a good thing you’ve got on knickers instead of a dress.”
They were brought alongside. A ladder was let down. They climbed aboard. There they were ushered before one more small man who wore even more brass and braid. Johnny thought with a touch of humor that he would make a very fine monkey if only he had a cap, a tin cup and a string.
When MacGregor requested that they be given gasoline and allowed to leave, there were excuses, very profuse and polite, but quite formal. There were reasons, very unfortunate reasons; too much fog, a storm coming up, too few men to spare even one or two, to find the way alone quite impossible. Oh, quite!
The man, who beyond doubt was the captain, talked on and on.
It all ended by theKrazy Kat’sbeing hoisted on board, by the little party drinking very black and very hot tea with the much adorned captain, and at last by their being escorted, for all the world as if they were embarking on a long voyage, to a pair of staterooms on the second deck.
For a time after the stateroom doors had been closed the surprised trio stood staring first at one another and then at their surroundings.
The two staterooms were joined by a door. There were two berths in each stateroom. There were round portholes, no other windows.
“That will be your stateroom, Rusty,” MacGregor opened the door to the one beyond. “Keep your outside door locked.
“One thing more,” hesitatingly he produced a pair of scissors, “I always carry them,” he explained. “A man doesn’t live everywhere as I have done, not in Alaska, without learning to cut hair. I’m a fair hand at it. Rusty, me child, those rusty red locks of yours have got to come off.”
Without a word the girl dropped to a stool beside the berth.
“Johnny,” said MacGregor, “I suggest that you step outside and stand guard. Don’t leave the door, not more than three steps. If anyone comes near, make some noise on the door.”
“Right,” said Johnny.
“Rusty,” said MacGregor, “do you ever box?”
“Oh yes, often.” The girl’s face flushed. “Often. Daddy and I box by the hour.” She gave Johnny a strange, fleeting look.
“Good!” MacGregor exclaimed low. “Tonight we’ll have an exhibition match, just you and Johnny. Two boys showing these Orientals how to play.
“And now,” he nodded his head toward the door.
Johnny opened it ever so softly, peered through the crack, and was gone.
At the same moment the old man lifted the shabby sou’wester from the mass of lovely hair, blew on his scissors, heaved a heavy sigh, then slashed with apparent ruthlessness at a great handful of perfectly natural, copper-colored curls.
A half hour later the door opened a crack.
Taking the cue, Johnny stepped inside. He stopped short when he looked at Rusty.
It was with the greatest difficulty that he suppressed a smile at what he saw. The sou’wester was no longer needed. Good old MacGregor had done his work well. Rusty’s hair looked like a real boy’s.
“What a grand boy!” Johnny thought. And after that, “What a perfect brick of a girl she is!”
“Mac,” he said a moment later, “there are twenty thousand fine big red salmon up forward. I stepped around a hatchway far enough to see.”
“Twenty thousand,” the old man murmured. “Our boys get fourteen cents apiece just for catchin’ ’em. Twenty-eight hundred dollars. A grand livin’ for two happy families. And that’s the first haul. There’ll be many another unless someone stops ’em.
“And we won’t stop ’em,” he added with a touch of sadness. “Not just yet. But you wait!” he sprang to his feet. “We’ll get a break yet.”
It may seem a little strange that MacGregor and his young companions accepted the whole situation so calmly. Yet the old man had lived long and in many places. He was wise in the ways of the world. He realized that they had already seen too much to be released at once. How long would they be detained? To this question he could form no answer. Perhaps until the end of the legal fishing season, twenty or more days away. Perhaps longer. They might even be taken to the Orient. After that some fantastic story might be told of their being picked up adrift on the high seas.
Johnny was thinking along these same lines. But he, unlike MacGregor, was already laying plans for escape. For the present, however, he was willing to bide his time.
Dinner was brought to them by a smiling little brown man. It was not a bad meal, as meals go on the sea—boiled rice, baked salmon and tea.
When it was over, MacGregor slipped out into the gathering night. While he was gone not a word was spoken. Johnny was busy with his own thoughts. So, he supposed, was the girl who now looked so very much like a boy.
He was thinking, “I wonder if there were shadows passing us in the fog. Or did we imagine them?” Certainly he had seen nothing resembling a shadow here. And this girl. Would she forgive him? Well enough he knew that in trying times such as these people were either drawn closer together or driven farther apart. He could only wait and see.
“There’s hope in the airplane that young Dan MacMillan is bringing up,” he thought with fresh courage. “If only he’d arrive and fly over this ship we’d manage somehow to signal him and then the whole navy would be on this old freighter’s heels.”
He was thinking now of something told to him in secret by Red McGee. He had been speaking of the cannery. It had been built by old Chad MacMillan. A crusty, honest, fair-dealing man, he had managed it for many years.
“Then he died,” Red had gone on, “and young Dan MacMillan, just out of university and full of big ideas, inherited it. This winter I suggested that he hire a seaplane to go out scouting for these Oriental robbers.
“‘It’s a fine idea,’ he said to me. ‘A grand idea. I’ll buy a seaplane and learn to pilot it. You’ll be seeing me up there scouting around as soon as the salmon season opens.’
“That’s what he said to me,” Red McGee had drawn in a deep breath. “These wild young millionaires! What can you expect? He’s not here now and like as not won’t show up at all.”
“What can you expect?” Johnny was thinking over his words now. “If only Dan MacMillan showed up over this old craft all these little brown men would be scared out of their skins.”
But would he come? He dared not so much as hope.
He wondered about Lawrence and Blackie. He suffered a pang because of Lawrence. What a shame that he had dragged the boy up here! He would be far better off in Matanuska valley planting turnips and potatoes, hunting wild geese, and, perhaps, catching a glacier bear way back in the mountains.
But here was MacGregor. And he carried in his hands, of all things, two pairs of boxing gloves. Johnny had wondered where they were to come from, but now here they were.
“These little brown boys go in strong for boxing,” the old man explained.
“I told them,” continued MacGregor, “that you were one of America’s most promising young boxers, but a little out of training.”
“Quite a little,” Johnny agreed.
“I said you and your boy pal would put on an exhibition match on deck tonight.”
Rusty shot him a look, but said never a word.
“I hope you understand,” the old man said soberly, “that I am asking you to do this for your own good.” He was talking to Rusty.
She bowed gravely. Then, of a sudden, her face brightened. “I hope they take us lightly,” she said. “That may give us a chance to escape.”
“That’s what it will,” MacGregor agreed. “And this boxin’ stunt is just the thing to put them off their guard.”
A half hour later, beneath a brilliant electric light, with a circle of dark faces about them, Johnny and Rusty shook hands for the first time in their lives, then drew on the gloves.
Johnny had boxed strange people in many an out-of-the-way place. Never before had he boxed with a girl. He was not sure he was going to like it now. But with MacGregor as manager of the strange affair, there was no turning back.
Itwasstrange, there was no getting around that. A swaying light, a host of sober, brown faces, the gray fog hanging over all, made it seem fantastic indeed.
There were to be five short rounds with MacGregor keeping time.
At the very beginning, Johnny discovered that his opponent was fast and skillful. Having no sons, Red McGee had taken it upon himself to train his daughter in the manly art of boxing. Life on the bleak Alaskan shore was often dull. The girl had welcomed each new lesson. And now Johnny was discovering that her punches that from time to time reached his cheek or chin, were far from love pats. They really stung, nor, try as he would, could he entirely escape them.
“She’s taking it out on me because of her father,” he thought grimly. “Well, I can take it.”
What did the audience think of this affair? Who could tell? They watched in silence. Once when Rusty was tossed into their midst they helped her to her feet and pushed her into place. Their movements were so gentle, the flitting smiles about their lips so friendly, that, for the moment, the girl forgot her role and said, “Thank you.”
The rounds passed speedily. When the fourth and last was up, Johnny said in a whisper, “Come on, Rusty, let’s make this one snappy. Give them a real show.”
Snappy it was. From the moment MacGregor gave them the signal they whipped into it with a wild swinging of gloves. Rusty’s footwork was perfect. Johnny found himself admiring the manner in which, hornet-like, she leaped at him for a sharp, stinging blow, then faded away.
Perhaps he was admiring her too much. However that might be, in the last thirty seconds of the bout he stepped into something. Trying for a bit of reprisal in the way of a tap on her chin, he left an opening far too wide. Rusty’s eyes opened wide, her stout right arm shot out and up. It took Johnny squarely under the chin and, “believe it or not,” he went down and out like a match.
He was not out long, perhaps eight seconds. When at last his stubborn eyelids opened he found himself looking at a circle of grinning brown men and at Rusty who stood staring at him, but not smiling at all.
“Well,” he laughed, “that must square the McGee’s with Johnny Thompson.”
“John—Johnny, please!” she cried. “I didn’t mean to. I truly didn’t.”
“All right.” Johnny sprang to his feet. “Shake on it. Let’s always be friends.”
The girl made no response. There was no need. She did clasp his hand in a grip that was friendly and strong.
A half hour later they were having one more cup of tea in their staterooms and Johnny was thinking, “Life surely is strange. I wonder how this affair will end.”
Before he fell asleep he went over it all again. Blackie and Lawrence, the silent, moving shadow, the hard-working men on shore, the airplane that might come. When he was too far gone in sleep to think clearly he fancied that he felt the ship’s propeller vibrating, that the ship was on the move. He was not sure. After all, what did it matter? There was nothing he could do about it. And so, he fell fast asleep.
Back in the trapper’s cabin Blackie was in a rage. He stormed at the Orientals, at MacGregor, then at himself. From time to time he rushed out on the small dock in a vain attempt to pierce the thick fog and to listen with all his ears.
“The robbers have got them,” he muttered. “I should have known. That shadow! It’s done for them and for theStormy Petrel.”
As night came on he settled down to sober thinking. “There’s a fishing skiff out there by the dock,” he said to Lawrence. “We’ll have to put it in the water and make a try for the mainland. This cabin is on an island. Mainland must be thirty miles away. We’ll make it. We’ll find some sort of power boat. And then, by thunder! Things will get to popping!”
Lawrence, too, was disturbed in his own quiet way. He knew a great deal about Johnny. Many a time Johnny had been in a tight spot. Always, somehow, he had come out safely. MacGregor was old and wise. And, after all, this was not a time of war. Why need one worry too much?
There were a number of tattered books on the shelf in the corner. Evidently this trapper was something of a naturalist, for five of these were about animals and birds. In browsing through these, the boy made a real find, a picture of a glacier bear, a brief description, and the history of the animal as far as known.
It was with the feelings of a real discoverer that he read those words over and over. When he had finished he said to himself, “If ever I see one of those bears I’ll know him.”
But would he? At the present moment those bears seemed as far away as the moon. And yet, who could tell?
At dawn next morning the three of them, George, the cook, Blackie and Lawrence, carried their few supplies down to the dock, tacked a note on the door, climbed into the broad, clumsy skiff and rowed into the fog.
“We’ll follow the shore as far as we can,” said Blackie. “We’ll have to cross a broad stretch of open water, but I think I can manage that with my pocket compass.”
When at last Lawrence saw even the small island disappear from sight, he regretted the circumstances that appeared to make it necessary to leave that comfortable retreat.
When Johnny and his friends came on board that same morning, they found the fog still with them, but it was thinner. There was a suggestion of a breeze in the air.
“Going to clear,” was MacGregor’s prophecy. This, they were soon to discover, did not concern them too much, at least not in the immediate future.
When they had eaten a strange mixture of rice and meat and had gulped down some very bitter coffee, a little man with neither gold nor braid on his uniform came up to them, saluted in a careless manner and said simply, “Come.”
They followed him from one deck to another until they found themselves in a vast place of steam and evil smells.
When their eyes had become accustomed to the light and steam, they saw long rows of men toiling and sweating over apparently endless tables. Before the tables, on a conveyor, thousands of large salmon moved slowly forward.
“No iron coolie here,” Johnny chuckled. “Everything is done by hand. Heads off, tails, fins, all with big knives.”
“Please,” said the little man. He was holding out a long, thin, oilskin coat. Understanding his wish, Johnny put it on. Still wondering, he watched MacGregor and the girl follow his example.
“Please,” said the little man again. “A thousand apologies.” He was holding out three long, sharp knives, at the same time pointing with his other hand at a break in the solid line of salmon workers.
“Why, the dirty little shrimp!” Johnny exploded. “He wants us to go to work.”
“Steady, son,” MacGregor warned. “They understand English. I fancy there are worse places than this on the ship. We have no choice but to obey.”
Johnny muttered, but dropped into place to slash off a large salmon’s head.
He had worked in a rebellious humor for a quarter of an hour when, on looking up, he discovered that Rusty was performing the most disagreeable task in the salmon line. She was cleaning the fish. Shoving past MacGregor, he turned her half about as he muttered low, “You take my place.”
To his great astonishment, he felt the girl whirl back to her place, give him a hard push, then saw her resume her work.
For a space of seconds he stood there stunned. Then he laughed low. The girl was wise, much wiser than he had known. She was supposed to be a boy. Boys were not gallant to one another. She would play the part to the bitter end. Johnny returned to his task.
“Mac,” he was able to whisper at last, “why would they do this to us?”
“You answer,” was the old man’s reply. “Sh-sh—” he warned. “Here comes a big shot, one of the monkeys with gold buttons.”
As he passed the “big shot” smiled suavely at them, but said never a word.
Even at lunch time the toiling trio, Rusty, Johnny and MacGregor, were not invited to have their lunch on deck. Instead, they were served, like the coolie with whom they toiled, with great bowls of some mixture that looked like soup.
“Hm,” MacGregor sighed, “fish chowder. And not bad.”
Rusty’s eyes shone. “What a lark!” She laughed outright. “I only wish we had a camera. My crowd down in Seattle won’t believe me.”
Johnny looked at her in surprise and admiration. “Here’s one girl with a spirit that can’t be broken,” he thought.
“Reminds me of a time I was on the Big Diomede Island on Bering Straits,” said MacGregor with a rumble of merriment. “We were cutting up a big walrus. I saw an old woman working over the stomach of that walrus. Know what the walrus lives on?” he demanded.
“Clams,” said Johnny.
“Right. Bright boy,” said MacGregor. “The thing that had happened was this. The walrus had been down to the bottom. He’d ripped up the sand at the bottom of the sea. He’d cracked a lot of clams and had swallowed ’em. He hadn’t digested ’em yet when we shot ’im. Know what that Eskimo woman was doing?”
“Can’t guess.”
“She had a white pan and was savin’ the clams from the walrus’ stomach. And that night,” there came a low rumble from deep down in MacGregor’s throat, “that night we had seal steak and clam chowder for supper. An’ I took seal steak.”
“O-oh,” Johnny breathed.
“Mr. MacGregor,” Rusty said with a gurgle, “you wouldn’t spoil anyone’s dinner, would you?”
“Not for the world,” was the old man’s solemn avowal.
“Listen,” MacGregor held up a hand. “I hear an electric generator going. It’s on this deck. I wonder why? I’m going for a little walk.”
“They’ll chase you back.”
“That’s all they can do.” He was away.
“The ship’s beginning to sway a little,” Johnny said. “Shouldn’t wonder if we’d get a storm.” The girl could not suppress an involuntary shudder.
“Johnny,” she leaned close to speak almost in a whisper. “When we used coolie labor I learned to talk with them a little. I’ve been talking to the coolie who cuts off fish’s heads next to me. He says they expect to have a boatload of fish in a week or ten days. Then they’ll go back to the Orient.”
“And if we go with them?” Johnny breathed.
“I’ve seen pictures of the Orient.” The girl’s eyes were closed. “It’s gorgeous. It truly must be.”
“Do you think we’d get to see anything?”
“Why not?” the girl laughed low. “It’s all there to see. At least they can’t keep us from dreaming.”
“No, they surely cannot.” At that Johnny did some very choice dreaming, all his own.
He was wakened from these dreams by the return of MacGregor. “It’s the strangest thing!” he exclaimed. “I got a look into that place. There’s a huge generator an’ it’s chargin’ batteries.”
“Batteries!” Johnny exclaimed in surprise.
“Sure! Banks and banks of large batteries.”
“When submarines go under water,” Johnny spoke slowly, “they use batteries for power. What do you think?”
“I don’t think,” said MacGregor. “Anyway, here’s our little boss. He wants us to resume our duties as first-class cleaners of sock-eyed salmon.”
As the day wore on Johnny watched Rusty ever more closely. The heavy, unpleasant work, together with the ever-increasing roll of the ship, was telling. He was not surprised that, after the day was over and they were allowed to go to the upper deck, she took his arm to lean on it heavily.
“Johnny, I won’t give up. Please help me not to give up.”
Johnny looked down at her with a reassuring smile.
As they stepped on deck they found themselves looking at a new world. Gone was the fog. In its place was racing blue waters, flecked with foam.
“A storm!” the girl shuddered.
“Just too dark to see land,” Johnny groaned. “If it wasn’t, we might get our location and then—”
“Then what?” she whispered.
“I have some plans. We—”
“Sh—an officer!” she warned.
At the evening meal Rusty ate hard, dry crackers and drank scalding tea. She was still putting up a brave struggle against being sea-sick.
When darkness came they went below. Rusty retired at once. Johnny threw himself, all dressed, upon his berth, but did not sleep.
An hour later a shadowy figure passed him. It was Rusty. She was carrying blankets. Without a sound, he followed her. Arrived on deck, he saw her at the rail. Understanding, he dropped down upon a wooden bench.
After what seemed a long time, she turned and saw him. Swaying as she walked, she came toward him to drop down at his side. She did not say, “I am so sick!” She was too game for that and there was no need. He wrapped her in the blankets. Then they sat there in silence.
The wind was rising steadily. It went whistling through the rigging. Ropes banged and yard-arms swayed. A shadow shot past them, a watch on duty. Lights shone on the blue-black sea. It was a truly wild night.
Of a sudden a form stood before them. Clutching a steel cable, it clung there.
“Thousand pardons,” it hissed. “Cannot stay here. It is forbidden.”
“My friend is sick. We stay.” Johnny felt his anger rising.
“Thousand pardons,” came once more. “Cannot stay.”
“Million pardons,” Johnny half rose. “We stay.”
A hand reached out. It touched Rusty’s shoulder. That was enough. Johnny leaped at the man. They went down in a heap. A second more and Johnny felt a steel clamp about his neck, or so it seemed.
“Jujitsu,” he thought in sudden consternation. Throwing all his strength into an effort to break the man’s grip, he failed. Coughing, trying to breathe, failing, strangling, he felt his strength going when, of a sudden, he caught the sound of a blow, then felt the hated arm relax. Ten seconds more and he was free.
“You—you hit him,” he managed to breathe. “Is he dead?”
“No—no. Watch out!” the girl warned.
Just in time Johnny caught the man. This time, gripping him by collar and trousers, he dragged him from the floor. And then, screaming like some wild thing, the brown man found himself hanging out over an angry sea.
“Johnny, don’t!” The girl’s hand was on his arm.
“Oh, all—all right.”
Swinging the brown man in, he dropped him on the deck. Like a scared rabbit, the intruder went racing off on all fours.
“Now I’ve done it,” Johnny groaned as he dropped back in his place.
“Perhaps,” said Rusty. “Still, you can’t tell.”
Rusty was not the only one disturbed by this storm. At the very moment when Johnny was at grips with the Oriental on the ship’s deck, Lawrence, Blackie and George were battling for their very lives.
What had happened? The distance from the trapper’s cabin to shore was, they had discovered, far greater than they had supposed. When at last the fog cleared they found themselves far from any shore on a black and threatening sea.
“Might as well keep headed for the mainland,” was Blackie’s decision.
Head for the mainland they did. After that, for hours, with the storm ever increasing in intensity, they rowed as never before.
The clumsy oars were rough and hard to manage. Lawrence’s hands were soon blistered. Tearing strips from his shirt, he bound them up and rowed on.
Fortune favored them in one thing. They were going with the wind. Had they been forced to face into the storm, their boat would have been swamped at once. As it was, just as darkness began to fall the skiff began to fill.
“Lawrence, you start bailing,” Blackie commanded. “George and I will row.”
“Ya-as, sir, we’ll row. Don’t nebber doubt dat,” George agreed. Then he began to sing,