A LIBATION TO THE TOTEM.
Mr. Dacre rose to his feet and began scrambling forward over the rough ice. Slipping and bumping, he pushed toward the stricken bull, with the two boys close behind him.
"He looks ready for a fight," whispered Tom.
"He sure does. Wow! Look at those tusks! I'd hate to have them bite into me," rejoined his brother.
"Halt!" cried out Mr. Dacre suddenly.
Before them was the roaring bull. Behind him were grouped his companions. They appeared to be unsettled whether to fly or give battle. Apparently they were waiting to see what action their leader would take.
The boys came to a standstill. As they did so, Mr. Dacre raised his rifle for a second shot. But as he was about to shoot something jammed in the repeating mechanism of his weapon. At the same time, with a roar of rage, the wounded bull threw himself forward on his awkward flippers.
"They're going to attack us!" called Tom. "Why don't you fire?"
"I can't. Something's gone wrong with the magazine of my rifle!" explained his uncle. "You boys run for the boat. These fellows are ugly customers when they get roused."
But Tom's automatic revolver was out of his pocket in a jiffy. He leveled it and then pulled the trigger. There was a spiteful crack as the weapon began shooting lead. The big walrus sank to the surface of the floe with an earpiercing squeal, but wounded as he was, he turned and managed to propel himself along over the ice on his clumsy flippers.
"After him. He's the prize of the herd!" cried Mr. Dacre.
As their leader had turned tail, the others had swung round. Now their great bulks were in full retreat across the ice. The boys ran forward while Mr. Dacre struggled to get his rifle into working order once more.
Tom swiftly reloaded and threw up his automatic. But as he ran his eye along the barrel he dropped the weapon with a gasp of alarm.
At the landing place to which he had been directed was Sandy, standing erect in the boat. Toward him, down the valley leading to the break in the ice, wallowed the retreating walrus herd. The boy was directly in their path.
"Look out! Look out!" screamed Tom, but Sandy, if he heard him, paid no attention.
Tom saw the Scotch lad pick up an oar and stand brandishing it as the herd, in full retreat and snorting alarmedly, bore down upon him. Behind them lumbered the great creature that carried the bullets of Mr. Dacre and Tom in his gigantic carcass.
Bloodstains showed that the monster had been severely wounded, but Tom did not dare risk another shot at it. Right in line of fire with it was Sandy's upstanding form.
"Gracious, they'll charge right down on him and maybe stave the boat!" cried Tom, almost sick with apprehension.
But Sandy appeared quite unaware of his danger. With uplifted oar he awaited the oncoming of the vanguard of the retreating herd. But it now appeared that they did not intend to attack the boat.
With noisy splashes they flopped into the water all about it, while Sandy, in a frenzy of excitement, waved his extemporized weapon and yelled at the top of his voice.
"Let 'em all come! Hooray!" he shouted, and whacked one of the animals between the eyes as it plunged below.
He actually appeared delighted at the novel combat.
"Whoop! Overboard with ye!" he shouted shrilly, "get along now"; and down would come the oar with a resounding thwack!
Mr. Dacre and Jack came running up. The former had got his rifle under control again.
"The boy's gone crazy!" he cried. "If he doesn't look out, one of those creatures will turn on him and then there'll be trouble."
"Look! Look!" broke in Jack suddenly.
The wounded bull had reached the water's edge. He raised his head and snorted as he glared with angry eyes at the upstanding boy. Then, with a snort, he lunged downward into the water out of sight.
"It's gone! The prize one's gone!" shouted Jack.
"What a shame," echoed Tom, and then the next instant, "No, see there! He's coming up again."
Sure enough, the next moment a bulky, hideous head appeared above the water close to the boat. The animal was gnashing his teeth as if determined to wreak vengeance on one at least of the party that had attacked him and his companions.
"Hoots!" yelled Sandy. "Take that, you old oomeroon!"
He brought down his oar on the walrus, but the creature caught the blade in his tusks and split it with a rending sound as if it had been merely matchwood.
"Look out for him!" shouted Mr. Dacre as, having accomplished this destruction, the monster dived once again. "He hasn't gone yet. Look behind you!"
But although Sandy turned quickly, he was not swift enough. The great sea monster had only dived a few feet. Now he came up like a battering ram. He drove his big, fleshy nose right against the boat's side. Had the craft not been of the stoutest construction, it must have been stove in.
As it was, caught unawares, the shock threw Sandy from his feet. He made an ineffectual effort to save himself, but the next instant, while his friends set up a shout of dismay, he toppled overboard into the cold water which was now alive with bobbing black heads.
Directly they had recovered from their first shock at the accident, the boys, followed by Mr. Dacre, set off faster than ever over the rough ice. As they ran they shouted encouragement to their chum. Sandy's head could be seen in the water. He was striking out for the side of the boat. But behind him came the blunt head of the big walrus. The others appeared to be taking no notice, leaving the task of demolishing the boat and Sandy to the wounded animal.
"Good boy, Sandy! Strike out! You'll make it!" roared Tom, all a-quiver with apprehension.
"Swim for your life, my boy!" shouted Mr. Dacre. "Make the boat and you'll be all right. I'll attend to the walrus."
Sandy was a good swimmer and he struck out valiantly. But the monster head, with its huge gleaming tusks, was terribly close behind him as he made his way through the water.
Mr. Dacre raised his rifle. He was going to try a desperate shot. The head of the walrus, huge though it was, was moving too swiftly to offer a good target, and yet it was the only chance to save Sandy. Steadying his aim with an effort, Mr. Dacre drew a careful bead on the creature, aiming for a spot between the eyes.
Between his sights appeared the oily head, the bristling whiskers and the fierce tusks of the creature. He pulled the trigger. In the churn of the water and the wave of spray that succeeded the sharp report, it could be seen that the wounded walrus had been struck again and had sunk from sight. But his tenacity of life had been such that they were still by no means sure that he was dead.
"Get into the boat! The boat!" called Mr. Dacre as he saw the blood-stained swirl of waters where the walrus had last been seen.
Sandy was clinging to the bulwark of the craft, and after some difficulty climbed on board. Just as he reached safety, there came a shout from his friends.
"Behind you! Behind you!" shrieked Tom.
Sandy looked. Coming toward the boat was once more a swirl of water. The old bull was rushing down on the boat, rearing his head aloft. His ugly creased neck tilted back. His great tusks impended above the boat's side ready to crush on it as a terrier seizes on a rat. But before the ponderous jaws could close, "Spit!" came from Tom's automatic, and dazed and finally wounded unto death, the huge bull slipped back harmlessly into the water.
As the craft careened in the swell of the sinking body, Sandy almost went overboard for a second time. But he managed to save himself just as the carcass came bobbing up alongside. He seized the boat hook, jabbing it down into the great body, and gave a yell of triumph.
"I got him," he yelled, as the others came running and stumbling toward him. "Come on, and get your dead walrus!"
A cheer answered him. Not long after, with the shivering Sandy wrapped in what dry clothing they could spare, the boat, with its prize in tow, was sculled back to the ship where, as you may imagine, all hands had a thrilling tale to tell.
Sandy was made to gulp down boiling coffee and was hustled into a change of garments, while the others examined the body of the monster in whose slaying it might be said that they all had had a more or less active share. Tom felt not a little proud of his part as they gazed at the dead bull and admired his huge proportions. Soon Sandy joined them.
"Aweel, I'm thinking that we'll have a christening the noo," said he.
While the sailors were skinning the walrus and cutting out the four foot tusks, Sandy snatched up some strips of blubber and vanished. In a quarter of an hour or so he appeared with a cooking pan in his hands. Its contents was steaming and emitted a rank and fishy odor.
"What in the world have you got there?" Tom wanted to know.
"Give you three guesses," rejoined Sandy.
"It smells like sixty," observed Jack.
"Yes; keep to leeward of us, my lad," put in the captain.
"Well, what is it?" asked Mr. Dacre.
"Soup,—walrus soup," guessed Jack.
"If it is, I don't want any of it," declared Tom, sniffing the fishy odor.
"Don't worry, you won't get any," chortled Sandy.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked Jack.
"As I observed some time ago, we'll have a christening the noo," was the rejoinder.
"A christening!"
"Aye! That native said that old 'Frozen Face' needed a shampoo wi' seal oil, but I'm thinking that walrus oil will be just as good or better."
A shout broke from the boys.
"Good for you, Sandy," cried Tom. "Come on, we'll give the old boy a bath in it. He surely looked out well for you to-day."
While their elders looked on amusedly, the lads doused the long suffering totem with the ill-smelling oil and danced around the aged figure with mock solemnity, intoning what was meant to be a mystic chant:
AN ADVENTURE OF JACK'S.
"What's that yonder, uncle?" asked Tom.
It was the morning after the adventure with the walrus and the Northerner was steaming steadily on toward Valdez, her next port of call on her voyage north. At that place she would take on coal for the final stage of her journey to St. Michaels near the mouth of the Yukon, where the party would be left after the small steamer had been put together.
Tom was a great boy to lean against the rail scanning the sea in search of something that might prove exciting. He had been gazing steadily against the far horizon for some minutes. Mr. Dacre hastened to his cabin and came back with a pair of binoculars.
He raised them and looked fixedly in the direction that Tom had indicated.
"It's a whale," he declared, "or rather a whole school of them, if I'm not mistaken. They are dead ahead of us. If we keep on this course, we shall run almost squarely into them."
He hastened off to inform the captain and Mr. Chillingworth while Tom set out to find his chums. He found them in the wireless room practicing on the key. At his news they speedily jumped up and joined him in the bow.
Within an hour they came into plain sight of what appeared at first to be so many giant logs rolling about in the sea. All at once, among the "logs," which of course were the whales, appeared splashes of white water. The leviathans swam swiftly here and there as though in fear.
"What's the matter with them?" wondered Tom.
"Maybe it's the ship's coming that has scared them," suggested Jack.
"It's the totem at the bow, mon," declared the Scotch boy solemnly.
The captain leaned over the bridge rail and shouted to them.
"There's a school of killers in among them."
"Killers?"
"Yes, the killer whales. They are the enemies of the other kind and just naturally take after them when they meet. Watch close now!"
The boys needed no second bidding. Strangely fascinated by the turbulent scene below, they leaned far out to watch the thrashing water. It was a strange combat of the sea. The monster fish appeared, in their panic at the advent among them of the killers, not to notice the oncoming steamer.
"Look close now and you'll see tall, upright fins moving about among 'em," sung out the captain.
"I see them!" cried Tom. "Are those the killers?"
"That's what. Sea tigers, they ought to call 'em. They're as bad as sharks," was the reply.
Mr. Dacre joined the boys. One of the biggest of the whales appeared to be an especial target for the "killers." They pursued it relentlessly in a body.
"Wow!" cried Tom suddenly, "look at that!" The big whale had leaped clear out of the water, breached, as the whalers call it. Its body shone in the sunlight like a burnished surface. They saw its whole enormous bulk as if it had been a leaping trout.
"He's as big as a house!" cried Jack.
"I've seen houses that were smaller!" laughed Mr. Dacre; "your bungalow, for example."
Down came the whale again with a splash that sent the spray flying as high as the Northerner's mast tops.
"How do they fight the whales?" Tom wanted to know, when their excitement over this episode had subsided.
"They tear them with their teeth," replied his uncle. "They get round them like dogs worrying a cat. They literally tear the poor creatures to bits piecemeal."
"Looks like one of the whale hunts that old 'Frozen Face' here must have had a hand in," said Jack. "Here, old sport, take a look for auld lang syne."
He loosened the lashings that held the totem in place in the bow, and while they all laughed, he tilted the old relic till "old Frozen Face," as they called him, actually appeared to be gazing at the conflict raging about them.
"See, the big fellow is acting kind of sleepy!" cried Jack suddenly.
"Yes, he must have got his death warrant," declared Mr. Dacre.
"Look! He's coming right across our bows!" yelled Sandy.
"Hey! Look out, captain, you'll hit him!" roared out Tom.
But even as he spoke, there came a heavy jar that almost stopped the sturdy steamer. Her steel bow had struck the whale amidships with stunning force. The craft appeared to quiver in every rib and frame.
The party on the fore deck, taken by surprise, went over like so many ninepins. They recovered themselves in a jiffy.
"Goodness! Don't run into any more whales! You'll have the ship stove in the first thing you know," cried Mr. Dacre. "I don't think——"
But a shout from Tom checked him.
"Jack! Where's Jack?"
"He was there a minute ago. By the totem."
"I know, but the totem has gone!"
"Great Scott, it must have gone overboard when that shock came and carried the boy with it."
They darted to the rail where Jack had last been seen. The next instant they set up a mingled cheer and groan. The cheer was in token that Jack was alive, the groan was at his precarious position. Clinging to the totem as if it had been a life buoy, the lad was drifting rapidly astern, and toward him was advancing the mad turmoil of waters that signified the battle royal raging between the killers and their huge awkward prey.
As he saw his friends, the boy on the floating totem waved his hand in a plucky effort to reassure them. He shouted something encouraging that they could not catch. But the peril of his position was only too plain.
Only a short distance separated the killers and their frightened quarry from the drifting boy. Once in the midst of that seething turmoil his life would be in grave danger.
It was a moment for action, swift and decisive. Within a few seconds, although to Jack's excited friends it appeared infinitely longer, a boat had been lowered and the steamer's way checked. This latter was the more easy to accomplish for the huge carcass impending at her bow had almost brought her to a standstill.
Manned by two sailors, the boat flew toward the imperiled boy. In the stern, with pale faces, stood Tom and Sandy, side by side with Mr. Dacre and Mr. Chillingworth. All carried rifles. Jack's position was a grave one as the school of whales, pursued by their remorseless foes, rushed down upon him. But those in the boat were in equal danger. One flip of those giant tails or a chance collision, and the stout boat would inevitably be sent to the bottom with a slender chance of its occupants being saved.
No wonder that little was said as they rowed swiftly toward Jack and that many anxious glances were cast at the waters astern, which were boiling like a maelstrom as the huge bodies of the whales and their foes dashed blindly hither and thither!
"THE TALE OF A WHALE."
"Give way, men!" implored Mr. Dacre anxiously, as the sailors bent to their task vigorously.
There was small need to admonish the men. The affair had literally become a race for life between the boat and the surging, battling whales. As they came alongside Jack, who was clinging to the totem, he gave an encouraging wave of the hand.
"Gee! I'm glad you've come. This water is pretty cold, I can tell you."
He was hauled on board with all swiftness.
"Don't forget old 'Frozen Face,'" he begged anxiously as he heard his uncle give orders to take to the oars again.
"No time to wait for him now, Jack," declared Mr. Dacre; "look there!"
He pointed behind them. Rushing toward the boat with the speed of an express locomotive was a mighty head. It parted the water like an oncoming torpedo boat. The boys gave a shout of alarm.
"It's coming straight for us!"
The sailors pulled on their oars till the stout ash wood bent as if it had been bamboo. Suddenly there came a loud crack. One of the oars had snapped. No doubt, as sometimes occurs, there was a flaw in the wood. The man who was pulling it rolled off his seat into the bottom of the boat.
As he did so, there came a second loud cry of affright. The whale was almost upon them. On either side of its enormous blunt head was a mountainous wall of water. Even if it did not hit them, the mighty "wash" that its onrush made was likely to swamp the little craft, deeply loaded as she was.
The snapping of the oar had cost valuable time. A collision appeared to be inevitable. The second sailor seemed to be paralyzed with fright. He stared stupidly at the great bulk bearing down upon them.
With a sharp exclamation Mr. Dacre seized an oar out of the fellow's hand. In the stern of the boat was a "becket." He thrust the oar through this, and with a few powerful strokes moved the boat forward. It was then out of the direct path of the whale, but still in peril of the mighty wave the great body of the creature upreared.
It was at this juncture that Tom proved his mettle. He grabbed the other oar from the stupefied sailor's hands and thrusting it overboard on the port side tugged on it with all his might.
"That's right! Good lad! Head her into it!" cried Mr. Dacre, perceiving the object of Tom's maneuver, which was to force the boat bow first against the towering wave sweeping down upon them. It was the only thing to do, and Tom's experience had taught him to act quickly.
Hardly had the boat's bow been swung till it was facing the onrushing wave, than, with a roar and smother of foam, a huge black bulk shot by, drenching them with spray. Carried away by excitement, Jack did a foolish thing. Raising his revolver he fired point blank at the huge wet side of the whale.
Instantly, as the bullet struck it, the great creature spouted. From its nostrils two jets of water shot up with a roar like that of escaping steam.
"Duck your heads!" roared out Mr. Chillingworth.
He had hardly time to get out the words before the spouted water came down with the force of a cloudburst upon the boat. It was half filled, but they had hardly time to notice this before the great wave that the speeding whale had caused to rise swept under them. The small boat, half full of water and overcrowded, rose sullenly. To the boys it seemed that they were rushed dizzily heavenward and then let down into an abyss that was fathomless. But a few seconds later a glad cry from Mr. Dacre announced that the danger had passed. The boat had ridden the wave nobly, and as for the killers and their quarry, all that could be seen of them was a fast receding commotion in the water.
"Phew, what a narrow escape!" gasped out Tom. "I thought we were goners sure that time!"
"Same here," agreed Sandy with deep conviction.
The strained faces of the others showed what they had thought. Mr. Dacre relieved the tension by ordering all hands to get busy and bale out the boat with some baling cans that were under the thwarts. They were in the midst of this task when Jack gave a sudden outcry and pointed over the side.
"What's up now, another whale?" cried Sandy, his face showing his alarm.
"Whale nothing!" scoffed Jack. "Look, it's the 'Good Genius of the Frozen North!'"
"The mascot!" cried Sandy.
"The mascot, sure enough," declared Mr. Dacre. "It undoubtedly helped to save Jack's life."
"Yes, after carrying me overboard first!" snorted Jack.
Sure enough, alongside the boat old "Frozen Face" was bobbing serenely about.
"We've got to take him back to the ship," declared Sandy.
"Yes, since he's inviting himself we can't be so impolite as to leave him," said Mr. Chillingworth.
Accordingly, a line was made fast to the totem and he was towed back to the ship and once more restored to office as official mascot in the bow of the Northerner. But the ship did not get under way at once following the adventure of part of her crew. The body of the wounded whale still hung limply to her bow. Sailors with tackles had to be called into requisition before the vast obstruction could be cleared.
By this time, as if by magic, thousands of birds had appeared. They fell upon the carcass, paying scant attention to the men at work on it, and fought and tore and devoured flesh and blubber as if they were famished. The captain said that they were whale birds, such as haunt the track of ships engaged in whale trade for weeks at a time.
"Gracious, we certainly are having exciting times!" said Tom as the ship once more got under way bound for her next port of call, Valdez, to the east of the great Kenai Peninsula.
"I expect you boys will have more exciting times later than any you have yet experienced," remarked the captain, who happened to be passing along the deck at the time. "Your adventure with the whales reminds me of a yarn that a certain old Captain Peleg Maybe used to spin, of the perils of whaling. Like to hear it?"
The boys chorused assent. They knew something of the captain's ability as a spinner of yarns.
"Well, it appears, according to the way old Captain Peleg used to tell it, that his ship, the Cachelot, was becalmed in these seas while out after whales," began the skipper with somewhat of a twinkle in his eye. "One day he decided to enliven the monotony of the constant doldrums by having his small dory lowered and going a-fishing after halibut. Well, the boat was lowered away and the skipper pulled off to some distance from the ship before he cast his lines.
"Now it seems strange, doesn't it, in an ocean five hundred miles wide and a thousand feet deep, that when he cast his light anchor overboard, the fluke of it should land in the blow-hole of a whale, which isn't much bigger than a man's fist?"
"What's a blow-hole?" demanded Sandy.
"Why, the orifice through which a whale spouts or sounds, as whalemen call it. You had a specimen of spouting when that whale Master Jack shot at gave you a shower bath. But, according to Captain Peleg, that was just what happened to him. The fluke of his anchor lodged right in that whale's nostril.
"As soon as the anchor hit that whale where the apple hit the man who discovered the law of gravitation, off he dashed, and naturally the boat being fast to him, off dashed the boat, too. The line was drawn as tight as the 'G' string on a bull fiddle.
"Cap'n Peleg was standing up in the stern just ready to cast a line over, when 'bang!' the fun started. He almost went overboard, but recovered himself in time to find that he was being drawn through the water at 'sixty-'leven' miles an hour or more. He said afterward it was the fastest he'd ever traveled. The wind hit his face as if he was coasting down a forty-five grade mountainside in a runaway six-cylinder auto without brakes or windshield.
"The cap'n said that the wind blew in his face so hard that every time he tried to get to the bow of the boat to cut the line, he was blown back again. All this time he couldn't think what he was hitched to. In fact he didn't do much thinking at all. It wasn't till the whale had gone what Peleg said must have been a hundred miles or more, that it turned plum round and headed right back for his ship again.
"They made the trip in as fast time as if he'd been hitched to a runaway cyclone. As they came near the ship there was the greatest excitement on board that they'd had since they ran into a herd of sperms up in Bering Sea.
"'Come aboard, cap!' yelled the mate.
"'Can't, you're only a way station,' yells back the skipper, 'and this is the Alaskan flyer.'
"Just then, the way Cap'n Peleg told it, up comes the whale to spout. Seems funny it didn't think of doing that before, but the way Peleg told it, the creature hadn't. Anyhow, just as they were passing the ship, up comes the whale and gives an almighty sneeze. That blew the anchor out of its nose and off it goes, while Peleg takes an oar and guides the boat alongside his ship after the most exciting ride he ever had. The boat was going so fast when the whale cut loose, that he didn't need to row her alongside; all he had to do was to steer her like a launch and then he had to make two circles to reduce speed before he dared try to reach his ship.
"Peleg said that when they hoisted the boat on deck they found she had stood the trip all right, except that paint on her sides was blistered and burned by reason of the friction kicked up by the terrific pace they had traveled through the water."
The boys burst into a roar of laughter at the conclusion of this surprising anecdote. The captain's eyes twinkled.
"Remember, I don't vouch for it," he said; "I'm only telling the tale to you as it was told to me."
"The tale of a whale," chuckled Tom.
"A whale of a tale, I guess you mean," spoke Jack.
"Captain, what did you say the name of that skipper was?" inquired Sandy innocently.
"Maybe," was the answer.
"Aweel," said the Scotch lad soberly, "I'm thinking he was well named."
WILD WATERS.
Early one morning the boys were awakened by the steady booming of the Northerner's whistle. By the lack of vibration they knew that she was proceeding slowly. Wondering what could be the cause of the reduced speed and the constant raucous bellowing of the whistle, they hustled into their clothes and met each other on deck.
It was at once apparent what was the matter. Thick, steamy sea-fog enveloped the ship. Through a fleece of blanket-like vapor, she was forging ahead at a snail's pace. The boys made their way to the bridge. There they found their elders in anxious consultation. And there, too, the blowing of the whistle was explained to them. It was not, as they had at first thought, for fear of encountering other vessels that the big siren was kept incessantly roaring its hoarse warning.
The whistle was sounding to enable the captain to get his bearings in the dense smother. Sea captains along the part of the coast where they were now steaming, keep their whistles going in thick weather so as to catch the sound of an echo. When they hear one reverberating back through the fog, they know that they are in dangerous proximity to the cliffy, rockbound coast, and keep outward toward the open sea.
"Where are we?" was naturally the first thing that the boys wanted to know.
"We are somewhere off the coast of Afognok Island," was the rejoinder.
"That's a misnomer for it," declared Jack.
"How's that?" unsuspectingly inquired Tom.
"Why, it's the last place I'd think of calling A-fog-not," rejoined Jack, dodging quickly to a place of safety behind a stanchion.
"Are we near a harbor?" inquired Sandy.
"As well as I can tell, we ought to be off the mouth of Kadiak Harbor soon after breakfast," rejoined the captain, squinting at the compass and giving a brief direction to the man at the wheel.
Sure enough, after breakfast the anchor was let go with a rattle and roar and the Northerner came to a standstill. The whistle was blown in impatient short toots as a signal to the pilot to come off, if, as the captain was certain, they were really near the harbor mouth. Mr. Dacre was anxious to go ashore, as he had some friends living in the Alaskan town whom he had not seen for many years.
At last, out of the fog came the sound of oars, and then came a rough voice roaring out through a megaphone a message to the Northerner's company.
"Steamer, ahoy! Who are you?"
"Northerner, under charter, San Francisco to St. Michael," rejoined the captain succinctly. "Are you the pilot?"
"Aye! aye!" was bellowed back through the all-enveloping mist.
"Come aboard then, will you?" admonished the captain, and jerked the whistle cord sharply so as to give the pilot his bearings.
In a few minutes a big, capable-looking dory, manned by two Aleuts appeared alongside. In the stern sat a grizzled, red-faced man in oilskins. This was Bill Rainier, the pilot.
"How about taking her in, pilot?" demanded the captain anxiously.
The man grinned.
"All right, if you've no further use for her, cap," he rejoined. "If you don't mind piling her up on the rocks, we'll go right ahead."
"Mr. Dacre here is anxious to go ashore," responded the captain. "He has some goods to give to some friends of his, Mr. Beattie and his brother. How long before this fog is likely to lift?"
"Can't say," was the noncommittal reply; "it may last a week. But tell you what you do. The Beatties are good friends of mine. I'll take your man ashore if you like."
But here arose a question about carrying the goods which Mr. Dacre had for his friends, who were storekeepers, and which he had brought up freight free. The question was finally decided in this way: A ship's boat would be used to transport the goods and Bill Rainier and Mr. Dacre would go ashore in her. The boys, who had begged to go ashore, too, would follow in the pilot's dory with the two natives as guides.
It did not take long to get out the goods from the hold and lower them overside. Then the boys scrambled down and took their places in the dory, while the natives, with grinning faces, stared at them.
Bill Rainier roared something at the Aleuts in their native tongue and off glided the dory into the fog, bearing three happy, excited boys as cargo.
Mr. Dacre, busy superintending the work of getting the goods transferred, did not notice their departure till some minutes later. Then he asked sharply:
"Where's that dory gone?"
"That's all right, cap," rejoined Bill easily, "I sent it ahead. Those Aleuts know the way as well as I do."
"Just the same, I wish they had waited for us," said Mr. Dacre with a slight frown.
"Oh, they'll be waiting for us when we get there," declared Bill confidently, and no more was said.
But when the steamer's boat reached the dock, no dory was there. Nor had any of the loungers hanging about seen one.
"Maybe they've got into another channel and gone down Wolf Island way," suggested Bill, looking rather grave. "Don't you worry, sir, they'll be along."
"Well, if an Aleut can do anything pig-headed and plum foolish, that's what he's a-goin' to do," opined the dock superintendent, who knew the facts in the case.
"I'd suggest we get up to the store with these goods," said Bill, "and by the time we're through that dory'll be here."
"But it should have reached here long ago," said Mr. Dacre. "I tell you, Rainier, I don't half like the look of this."
"No harm can come to 'em," Bill assured him.
But nevertheless, for some time both men stood motionless, with lips compressed, staring out into the blanket of fog without exchanging speech.
In the meantime, the dory was being rowed through the fog by the two stolid natives without the boys suspecting in the least that anything was wrong. As a matter of fact, the two natives, for reasons apparent to those who know the native Aleut, had decided to take a short cut through a passage behind Wolf Island. But the fog had shut in thicker now and they were not at all sure of their bearings, skilled boatmen though they were. They rowed stolidly on and on through the dripping mist without speaking.
Tom was the first to notice that, although they had been rowing for an hour or more, the dory was still rolling on the heavy swells of the open sea. Suspecting that something was amiss, he signaled to the men to stop rowing. Without a change of expression, the flat-faced, lank-haired Aleuts rested on their oars.
Everything about the tossing dory was silent except for the swish and sigh of the waves as they swept under her. Listen as they would, they could hear no other sound from any quarter.
"I don't like the appearance of things much," said Tom in reply to a question from Jack; "we ought to have reached the dock by now."
"Looks that way to me," was the response.
"How far did the captain say it was?" inquired Sandy.
"Not more than half an hour's row from the ship. If these fellows know their business, we ought to be there by now."
"That's evident. How silent it all is," said Jack in a rather awestruck voice. "Surely if we were near the town even, we would be able to hear something."
"Just what I was thinking, more particularly as fog exaggerates sound," responded Tom. "What makes it worse, too, is that the steamer has stopped sounding her whistle. We can't even get back to her now."
"I wish we'd stuck to the pilot boat," put in Sandy dismally.
"See if you can get anything out of those Aleuts," suggested Jack.
But although Tom tried to get something understandable from the natives, they only grinned and shook their heads. But at last they fell to their oars again.
"They don't know where they're going, but they're on the way," said Jack with a rather weak attempt at humor.
The sea began to come tumbling up astern of them in long black water rows that broke and whitened with spray now and again. The dory swung skyward and then plunged down as if bound for the bottom of the sea, as the swell nosed under her keel.
The boys exchanged serious glances. Their faces looked several shades paler than when they had left the steamer. The fog lent a ghastly grayish hue to everything. The dismal quality of the weather only added to their perplexity and alarm.
The Aleuts rowed steadily on without a shade of an expression on their greasy, yellow faces.
"Maybe they do know where they are going, after all," said Tom hopefully. "We may be ashore in a short time and laughing over our scare."
The others did not reply and the Aleuts rowed stolidly on like two images as lifeless as Sandy's totem. But in spite of Tom's hopeful prophecy, there was no sign that they were approaching land and friends. Instead, the water grew rougher, the white caps more frequent. The boys exchanged looks of dismay. In all their lives they had never been in such wild waters as these.
THE TIDAL "BORE."
"What's the matter, Sandy?"
Tom spoke as the dory swung dizzily between heaven and earth.
"I—I'm scared!" confessed Sandy, turning a white face to his chum.
"Pshaw! Cheer up, Sandy," said Tom, trying to put a bold face on the matter, as was always his way.
"Yes, we'll come out of it all right," struck in Jack bravely, concealing his real fear of the outcome of the adventure.
"We've been in worse fixes than this before and got through all right," supplemented Tom, and Sandy appeared to pluck up some heart from the confident tones of his companions.
"Tell you what," suggested Jack suddenly, "I've got an idea."
"What is it?"
"Why, to find out where we are. It's no use asking those wooden Indians; they wouldn't say if they did know, and couldn't if they didn't."
"Well, but what's your plan?" asked Tom impatiently.
"Just this. You remember how the captain on the Northerner found out when he was dangerously near to the coast by blowing the whistle and waiting for the echo?"
Tom nodded.
"Well, why can't we do the same by hollering at the top of our voices?"
"Good boy! I see your idea. If we're near land, we ought to catch the echo of our voices."
"That's the scheme exactly."
The boat was tossing too violently to stand up in it, but the boys placed their hands to their mouths, funnel-wise, and set up as loud an uproar as they could.
Sure enough, back out of the fog faint and obscure, but still audible, came an unmistakable reply.
"Hul-l-o-o-o-o!"
Their faces brightened. Even Sandy broke into a grin.
"We're aboon the land!" he cried out.
"Must be," declared Tom positively.
He looked at the two natives, who had been regarding the proceedings with no more interest than they appeared to display in anything else.
"Row that way," he ordered in a loud, clear voice, pointing off into the fog in the direction from whence the answer to their shouting had come. The natives obeyed without a word. Whether they understood him or not Tom never knew, but they appeared to apprehend his vigorous gesture well enough.
As they rowed along, the boys repeated their practice, and every time the echo came louder and more clearly.
"Wish we'd thought of that before," sighed Jack, "we might be in the harbor by this time."
"Better late than never," Tom assured him cheerily.
Before long they could hear the roar of waves breaking on the coast. The natives apparently heard them, too, and kept the boat out a little. The angry sound of the breaking waters was sufficient warning that no landing could be attempted there.
"We must be running along the coast," decided Tom.
"How can you guess that?" inquired Jack.
"Yes, I dinna ken how you know, unless you hae the second sight," agreed Sandy, who had in a large measure recovered his self-possession at the idea of the proximity of land.
"Easy enough," responded Tom, "the echo only comes from one side. If we were in a harbor or channel it would come from both sides."
"So much the worse," declared Jack. "We know now that we are not anywhere near Kadiak, for that is rock walled on either side and we should get the echo from both directions."
"Still, it's something to know that we are even within touch of land," said Tom, and in this they all agreed.
After a while the roaring of the surge grew less loud. This gave Tom an idea.
"We must be near to an inlet or something that will afford a landing place," he said, as the thunder of the surf diminished and finally almost died away. "What do you say if we go ashore?"
"What kind of a country will we find?" objected Jack.
"It couldn't be worse than tossing about in this dory, could it?" demanded Tom. "At any rate, we might find people ashore and a shelter and some food."
Both Jack and Sandy agreed to this, and Tom made motions to the native oarsmen that they were to make a landing if possible. In response to his gesture the men nodded as if they understood what was wanted, and began rowing directly toward the direction in which they had guessed the landing place lay.
As they neared the shore, which was still, however, invisible through the mist, the surf thunder grew louder. But the natives did not appear alarmed. No doubt they were thoroughly used to handling their craft in the surf and such proved to be the case.
When they got quite close to the shore and the boys could see a dark outline against the mist which they judged was a wall of cliffs, the two natives stopped rowing and back-watered. They did this till a big wave came along behind the dory, lifting its stern high in the air. Then, with a piercing yell they dug their blades into the water.
The dory was flung forward like a stone from a sling. The men leaped out as the wave broke, and ran the craft amidst the surf and spume high and dry upon what proved to be a sandy beach in a little covet between two frowning battlements of rocky cliff.
The boys scrambled out. Even though they had not the remotest idea where they were, the touch of solid earth felt good under their feet after that blundering voyage in the mist. But their surroundings were cheerless enough. Above them, except where the soft blanket of fog obscured the view, towered the dripping walls of black rock, all moist and shiny with the mist.
On the beach, the surf thundered and screamed as the waves broke and receded. Now and then the sharp shriek of some sea-bird rose startlingly clear above the voice of the sea. The boys felt lonely and wretched. But this feeling, seemingly, was not shared by the stoical Aleuts. They drew out pipes and began to smoke in silence. They appeared to pay no attention to the boys whatever, and Tom began to get angry at their indifference. After all, their blundering had placed the boys in their predicament, and Tom felt, and so did his companions, that the natives ought to make at least some effort to right their error.
"Here, you," he said angrily, addressing one of them, "where are we?"
The man shook his head. If he knew, he did not betray it by a change of expression or a spoken syllable.
"Ask him about getting something to eat," said Sandy. "Mon, but I'm famished."
Tom tried to convey this idea to the natives in speech, but it was plain they did not understand. Then he fell back on the sign language. Here he succeeded better. He pointed to his mouth and then rubbed his stomach, a sign understood from the Arctic Ocean to Statenland. The native grinned and gave over smoking a minute. He nodded his head.
"Bye'm bye," he said, "bye'm bye."
"Well, at least he understands that much English," cried Tom triumphantly. "I wish I could tell him to hurry up. 'Bye'm bye' might mean any time."
But in answer to further efforts, the native only nodded and smiled amiably. After a while, during which the boys strolled about disconsolately, the natives smoked their pipes out, and then began to talk in their guttural, grunting tongue. Of course, the boys could not understand what they were saying, but as well as they could judge the two men were coming to some sort of a decision. Suddenly they got to their feet and made off through the fog at a swift pace. The boys ran after them, shouting, but the Aleuts speedily vanished.
It was a pity that the boys could not know that the two natives, after a discussion, had decided to set off across the island to a fishing settlement for help. For it was Wolf Island on which the party had landed and the natives had only delayed to get a smoke before starting for aid. But of this the boys knew nothing.
Hour after hour they waited with despairing faces for the two Aleuts, whom they thought had basely deserted them. At length Tom reached a decision.
"Those fellows have left us. We'll leave them," he declared.
"How?" inquired Jack.
"In the dory."
"Which way will we go?"
"Toward the direction from which we came. We are bound to get somewhere, and at any rate the fog seems to be lifting. We can keep track of the shore by the echo, and so find our way back to Kadiak."
"The sea's pretty rough," objected Jack.
"The dory's a good sea boat, and anyway it isn't as rough as it was. I'm for pulling out of here right away before we waste any more time."
"So am I," agreed Jack, and Sandy, although he looked rather sober at the thought of venturing out on the big swells again, assented to Tom's plan.
By good luck they managed to get the dory launched on a big sea, and almost before they knew it, they were out on the tossing waves once more. The dory proved heavy and hard to pull, but the boys all had well-seasoned muscles and they made fairly good progress.
They were laboriously toiling in the direction Tom had pointed out, when Jack gave a shrill cry of real fear.
"Look! Look there!" he cried.
For a moment they all stopped rowing and gazed ahead.
Bearing down on them was a towering, walllike ridge of white, foamy waves. They were higher than their heads, even had the boys been standing upright in the boat. The mighty phalanx of water appeared to be rushing down on them with the purpose of engulfing them in its maw.
"What is it?" gasped Jack, cowering.
"More whales!" shouted Sandy.
But it was something far worse than any creature of the deep. Although they did not know it, the mighty waves that it appeared certain would presently engulf them, were caused by the tide-bore, the irresistible wall of water that twice each day sweeps down the east coast of Kadiak between the islands that form what is virtually an inland channel. The mighty forces of the Pacific tide and the Japan current unite to make the titanic tide-rip which now threatened the boys.
With blanched faces they watched its oncoming. Escape was impossible. Sandy covered his eyes and crouched in the bottom of the dory. Jack shook with fear. Tom alone kept a grip on his faculties.
"Get her round. Let her head into the wave quartering, or we're goners!" he shouted.
Swirling and breaking and crying out with a thousand voices, the parapet of water marched down on the seemingly doomed boat.