Part 13

"No. Pull in between him and the second rock," said Stickine, and there was a splash of oars as Charley's boat slid away.

Then the Indian stood upright in the bows staring at the sea, and for a time the boats swung with the lift of swell, while the water trickled from the oars. Every eye was fixed on the long heave, but no more bubbles rose up, and there was nothing to be seen save when a great streamer of weed whirled and swayed beneath them as though it were an animate thing. How long this lasted the lads did not know, but the intent bronzed faces, smears of froth, grey sea, and drifting haze had all grown hazy before their straining eyes, when a rifle flashed in Charley's boat, and there was a shout, "Heading your way, played out!"

"Pull," said Stickine. "In towards the rock a stroke or two."

The boat slid forward and stopped. Once more the Indian's rifle flashed, and a hazy shape showed for a moment beneath them in the water. Then there was a shout from Charley, "Stop right where you are. One of us will get out on the rock."

His boat slid in towards the froth-swept stone, and when she swung up with the swell two men sprang out of her and floundered along a perilous ledge over the slimy weed. Then the boats pulled out, and for what seemed a very long time moved one way and another, while every now and then a rifle flashed. The lads, however, could see nothing but the weed streaming in the water, and surmised by Stickine's face that he saw little more, for it was the Indians who took command now.

At last a grey patch showed for a moment amidst the froth that swirled about the rock, and sank from sight as suddenly when a man floundered towards it swinging up a club. Then as they dipped the oars the Indian stood up and with a hoarse shout launched himself from the boat. Appleby saw his tense figure for a second, and then held his breath as he plunged down, a dim shadow, into the waving weed. He felt a little shivery, for it seemed scarcely possible that the swimmer could evade the horrible embrace of those whirling sterns. Then a head rose from the surface, there was a muffled shout, and when the man went down again Stickine stood up on a thwart.

"A white man's as good as an Indian, anyway," he said. "We'll head him in to you on the rock, boys."

The boat rocked as he plunged down with hollowed back and stiffened arms, and Appleby shivered again. He could swim, but he felt that only the direst necessity would have sent him down amidst that clinging weed. Now they pulled in to the rock, and now back again, while between times the men beat the water with their oars and for a moment or two an arm or face rose up. Twice the boats drove together, and there was a shouting while a man thrust down a long-shafted weapon which resembled both a hook and a spear. Still, the lads could see no sign of the otter, until at last, when they were quivering with excitement, there was a shout from the rock, and a man clinging to it swung up his club, and then dropped it into the water. Next moment both boats had driven against the stone, and Appleby grabbed Stickine, who clung panting to the stern, while when somebody had helped him to drag him in, the Indian flung a limp object into the boat. Its head was flattened in apparently by a club, and the lads found it somewhat difficult to believe that it would reward them for their exertions in capturing it. There was, however, no mistaking the content in the faces of the men, and presently Stickine, who spoke to the Indian, pulled off his jacket.

"I guess we'll head for the schooner, boys. It's quite likely it would take us a week to find another otter, if we did it then, and that water's kind of cold," he said.

They turned back towards the _Champlain_ while Charley's boat went on, and when Stickine had shaken off the chill by pulling and they had rested a few moments on their oars, Appleby said to him, "I fancied these Indians could shoot well, but it took them a long while to hit the otter."

Stickine laughed. "They didn't want to unless they could get him in the head. Nobody wants to drill big holes in a skin that's worth a bagful of dollars," he said.

Niven nodded, and turning round grinned at his comrade. "Of course, if you hadn't been so thick you'd have seen that, Tom," he said.

"Well," said Appleby dryly. "No doubt this is different, but I once went shooting with a friend at Sandycombe who gave a farmer's lad half-a-crown to meet him with a gun, and he would creep up so close to the first thing he fired at that all he could find afterwards was a few pieces."

Stickine's eyes twinkled. "Now, I knew a man down in British Columbia who found a fur seal on a reef, and got out his axe to catch him with," he said. "He'd never been sealing, and he wanted to make quite sure of him. I guess he did it, for when we went into that place for water the skipper laughed when he asked him to buy the skin.

"'One dollar for a seal?' says the man.

"'Yes,' says the skipper, solemn. 'You've chopped the rest of them right out of him. Nobody has much use for a pelt that's made of holes instead of skin.'"

It was noon when they reached the _Champlain_, and they spent the rest of the day helping Montreal to drive the iron bands Brulee whipped out of the galley fire on to the patched mast, so that they would shrink and bind the joint together, and refitting the rigging, while it was dusk when Charley came back without having seen another otter. Jordan, however, did not appear surprised at this.

"I've heard of the Indians prowling round for three months and getting nothing," he said.

The next day was spent in arduous and anxious toil replacing the mast, but worn out as everybody was, Jordan slipped out to sea when they hove the last shroud taut in the dusk, and they were busy afterwards reeving halliards and bending on the mainsail half the night.

"Every hour means dollars, boys," he said.

It was, however, fortunate they finished the work, for on the next evening the _Champlain_ had need of all her speed. They had crept along slowly through the drizzle all day, but towards sundown the breeze suddenly freshened, and a dull red glare flickered for a few minutes on the horizon. It smote a coppery track across the heaving waters as they sailed westwards into it, but the smoky vapours came rolling up astern, and a low island along which the surf beat white showed up blurred and grey to the south of them. The sea rolled out of the north foam-flecked here and there, and the _Champlain_ swung with the heave of it, hurling the spray from her bows as she drove along with a fresh beam wind.

The ominous red glare was, however, fading rapidly, and the lads, who sought shelter from the cold wind under the lee of the galley, knew that in half-an-hour or so the dimness that was creeping up from the east and south would close about them. There is no night in the north at that season, but for a few hours the light almost dies away, and times, when the skies are veiled by haze and rain, there is very little day.

It was very cold and clammy, and the lads' faces smarted from the stinging of the spray, while as the coppery streaks grew dimmer, the seas turned grey, and the wet rocks to the south of them became dim and shadowy. The surf was to leeward so they could not hear it, and the splashing at the bows and shrill moan of wind seemed to intensify the silence that descended on the sea. Then just before the last paling rays flickered out in the north, something showed up black and sharp against it. In another moment the _Champlain_ had slid down a sea and the thing had gone, but Niven stared at Appleby because the form of it had been curiously familiar.

Appleby nodded. "Yes," he said. "I believe it was the gunboat, but wait until she lifts again."

In another minute the _Champlain_ was hove up with the brine frothing about her, and there was no mistaking the object that moved out into the dying light from the contracting horizon. A smear of smoke hung about it, and for a second or two the dim slanted shape was outlined against a flicker of saffron. Then it and the radiance faded out together, and the lads stared at the empty waters wondering if they had been a prey to a disordered fancy. Others had seen it, however, for already a man hung out from the hoops half-way up the mainmast.

"The American, sure!" he said.

Jordan, who signed to him to go higher, sat down on the house, and his face was anxious as he glanced at the men who gathered about him.

"I don't know quite whether he's on his way to St. Michael's or looking for us, but I figure he can't have seen us yet," he said. "She was steaming fast?"

"'Bout as hard as they could shove her along, by the drift of her smoke," said the man, who now stood on the jaws of the gaff.

"Well," said Jordan, "we'll see what he's after when she heaves in sight again. Let her fall off a point or two. Slack up your sheets."

The _Champlain_ swung off a little towards the land, and Appleby fancied he understood the manoeuvre because it is one thing to see a vessel against the horizon, and quite another to make her out when grey rocks, round which vapours crawl, lie close behind her. Still, that reef-girt shore swept by the filmy whiteness of the surf did not look inviting.

For ten minutes or thereabouts they waited in silence, Stickine looking straight before him with his hands upon the wheel, Jordan sitting apparently quite unconcerned upon the house, while the men hung about the rail. Then the low, black shape of the gunboat crept out of the haze again, and the smoke cloud at her funnel showed she was steaming her fastest. Jordan turned his head and watched her in silence for several minutes.

"She's coming up with us fast, and we're going along," he said. "I guess we'll have the topsails on her as soon as you can get them. Tell Donovitch I want him. Stickine, you can give Charley the wheel."

In a minute or two the topsails were aloft and the _Champlain_ sailing very fast, swinging her lee-rail down into the swirling froth when she rolled. The steamer, however, was closing with her rapidly, while there was only a desolation of reefs and foam under their lee. It seemed there was no escape for them, but Jordan was still sitting quietly on the house tracing something upon it with his finger, while the Indian nodded as he watched him, and now and then a grim smile crept into the face of Stickine. Appleby, however, found the silence was growing almost insupportable and walked up to Montreal.

"She's evidently coming after us, but they couldn't stop us when we're doing nothing wrong," he said.

Montreal laughed a little. "I don't quite know 'bout the sea otter, but we were right in abreast of the seal beaches when he last saw us," he said. "That with the pelts on board, would be quite enough for him."

"But we didn't get the skins there," said Appleby.

"Well," said Montreal dryly, "you'd find it hard to make any one believe it. When you catch a dog with a mutton chop in a butchery store nobody's going to ask him where he found it."

"Still, with the land to leeward, the skipper can't get away unless he runs her on the reefs," said Appleby.

"He'd do that before he let those fellows have her, but that land's an island. They've most of them more than one shore," said Montreal.

Appleby asked no more questions. He was by this time quivering with suppressed excitement, and fancied the others were quite as anxious too, though there was little in their appearance to show it. They were quietly watching the gunboat rise higher out of the dimness, though they knew that a good many unpleasant things would follow their capture. One or two of them, however, glanced towards the land, which was very blurred and hazy now, and then turned to watch the skipper, who was still talking half-aloud with Stickine. At last he moved a little.

"We've got to take our chances, but I wish I knew just what water he draws in cruising trim," he said. "We're 'bout level with the passage. Donovitch will take her in."

Stickine said something, the mainboom swung further outboard, and as the schooner fell off towards the land, the lads, looking forward anxiously, could only see the dim face of a crag, and the whiteness of tumbling foam. Then they saw the man on the main-gaff nod as the skipper glanced up at him.

"Coming right in after us," he said.

Jordan laughed softly. "Well," he said, "I guess he'll feel kind of sorry he did before very long."

As he spoke there was a flash astern of them, and while yellow vapour whirled about the steamer the lads heard the roar of a gun.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*STICKINE MAKES A DEAL*

Nobody on board the _Champlain_ showed that they had heard the gunboat's warning shot, and the sound was lost in the roar of the surf which was now spouting white close in front of her. The shadowy crags were, however, falling away, and Jordan still sat on the house unconcernedly, though there were apparently only foam-swept reefs before him, and the war-vessel was coming up rapidly behind.

"I've been worrying about her draught when I've got it all the time," he said. "Bring me the handy book up, Stickine."

Stickine disappeared, and when he returned with a battered volume in which Appleby had once or twice seen the skipper writing, the two men's faces showed up sharp against the dimness as they bent over it in the faint radiance that came up through the skylights of the house. Jordan's was quietly contemplative as he turned over the pages.

"Here she is," he said at last. "Four-expansion engines; still that's not what we want. Now we're coming to it. Small displacement vessel for coast-wise service. Depth moulded. Here it is. Draught in seagoing trim!"

Stickine followed the skipper's pointing finger, and then laughed softly as he looked up. "Two feet more than the _Champlain_, and he's coming in," he said. "Well, he's not going to find it so easy to take her out again. We'll have the haze down thick as a blanket before we're through."

Appleby who heard them understood but little of this, though its meaning became apparent later, and his attention was too occupied for him to wonder much about it just then. The reefs were unpleasantly close to them, and the gunboat coming on, though the vapours that drove past the schooner left very little of her visible. The men were silent, and Donovitch held the wheel, while another Indian stood forward calling out to him.

Ahead the sea frothed horribly, and several times the schooner swung round a trifle as a cloud of spray rushed up from a big, white upheaval. Then a grey rock buried almost in the wash of a sea slid past, and the combers' tops subsided. Only a confused swell heaved behind them, but the stream seemed to be running with them, and the lads surmised that one of the reefs they had passed behind partly sheltered them from the sea. They were sailing through a tortuous strait apparently. The vapours were, however, closing in, and presently they could make out nothing ahead, though they could still occasionally see the masts of the gunboat or her smoke rolling blackly through the fog, while the wind seemed to be freshening, for the deck slanted further as the _Champlain_ tore along. Twice again a rock that rose suddenly out of the grey heave went by, and once a beam of brightness flickered past the schooner and faded in the fog. Jordan laughed as he glanced astern.

"He's not going to see much of anything in about two minutes," he said. "Down topsails, and get the mainsail off her, boys."

It was done, though the lads who helped wondered, for the gunboat was coming on, until it occurred to them that with the little sail she still carried it would be very difficult to distinguish the _Champlain_ in the haze. Once again the blaze that whirled up dimly behind them went past, and then grey and clammy the fog rolled down.

Jordan nodded with evident content. "We've shown that fellow the way in, and that's about all we'll do for nothing, boys," he said. "You'll be handy with your sheets because it's going to take a little contriving to wriggle out of this."

The men stood about with the ropes in their hands, and swung the boom foresail over when Donovitch spoke to them. They did it more than once, hauled the sheets in and let them run again while the schooner apparently twisted like an eel, and here and there a dim line of foam crept by. Once or twice the lads held their breath as they watched it, and they could see that their strained anxiety was shared by the men, for the roar of the surf rose from every side, and it was evident that all the helmsman's nerve was needed to thread that labyrinth of reefs. Indeed, Appleby fancied that nobody but a sealer would ever have attempted that perilous passage. There was no sign of the gunboat now, and he could picture the consternation of her Commander who had, he surmised, no Indian to take him through.

That, however, was the Commander's affair, and did not lessen the lads' anxiety, while now the thrill of the chase had gone they stood expectant and silent among the rest, listening to the clamour of the surf and staring at the sliding fog. At last there was a slackening of the strain, and Niven laughed excitedly while Appleby drew his breath in when Jordan's voice rose up.

"We've clear water before us now, and we'll have the trysail on her," he said. "Then we'll let her come up with staysail to weather. The Commander will be wanting us by and by."

They went about the decks at a floundering run, and the _Champlain_ soon lay almost stationary with her head to the wind. Then they stood still to listen. No unusual sound the lads could catch came out of the vapours, but one of the men fancied he heard the American's cable. The roar of running chain carries a long distance, and Jordan seemed inclined to agree with him.

"That fellow's had 'bout enough, and he'll be feeling kind of sick when he sees his anchor coming home," he said. "We'll give him an hour to find out the fix he's in, and then some of you will go off and talk to him. Boys, there's dollars in the thing."

Most of the men went below, and the lads with them. There was nothing to be done on deck, and it was considerably warmer in the hold, while it was plain that the gunboat had given up the chase. When they sat down under the swinging lamp there was a little bewilderment in some of the faces, and Stickine watched them with a quiet chuckle.

"Ye will be permitted to reshume the intherrogation, Mainsail Haul. There's things one or two av us would like to know," said Donegal.

Niven was not unwilling to avail himself of the opportunity. "Then," he said, "what sort of a place was it we were running through, and what is keeping the American?"

Stickine laughed softly. "The fog and his nerves; but I wouldn't blame the man," he said, placing a can or two upon the floor, and pointing to them.

"Now, you'll see the island's there, and this can is one reef and that one another. More of them yonder. Says you, 'It's a nasty place to crawl through even in clear weather,' but the Indian knows it just as he knows the back of his hand. He was round here for most a year once, before they killed off the sea otter. Still, there's no charts that show these places quite complete, and the American came in because he'd have a man aloft to watch us and another taking bearings each time we swung round. He done it very well. Says he, 'Where that schooner goes there's water enough for me.'"

There was a murmur of somewhat impatient comprehension, for the men at least understood most of this already, and Stickine proceeded, "When we got the mainsail off her he lost us, and I'm figuring he felt kind of sorry for himself. Still, like a sensible man he brings up with his anchor."

"What will he do now?" asked Appleby.

Stickine looked at the rest, and grinned. "First thing, he'll find that anchor's not going to hold him. There's a big stream going through, and it's not the kind of bottom you can get a grip in. Then he'll get his boats out to look for the passage, and when they come back to tell him they've only been finding reefs he'll feel sicker than ever."

"Still, he could stop where he is with his engines just turning to take the weight off the chain until the fog lifted," said Niven.

There was a general chuckle, and Montreal said, "It mightn't lift for a week, and I've known it last a month, while the breeze that shifts it will bring the sea right in."

"Then," said Appleby, "what are we going to do?"

Stickine laughed again. "Wait till the Commander's shaking in his boots, and then get a boat over and go in and assist him. I'm figuring it will pay us better than sealing."

There was grim humour in the faces of the men, and Charley grinned. "It's a head Ned Jordan has," he said.

The lads joined in the laughter, for they could realize that the skipper had with no small ability turned what had looked very like disaster into victory. He had also done no wrong, and was, so far as they could see, justified in exacting some compensation from the men who would in all probability at least have seized all the skins and prevented him sealing any more that season. They had not, however, long to consider the question, for presently Jordan sent for Stickine, and a few minutes later Appleby, to his great delight, was told to help to swing out a boat. He did not ask for any further instructions, and but once she was over the rail sprang down into her, and in a few more minutes the fog was blowing into his face as they drove her lurching over the long swell. It was not, however, very thick, which was possibly fortunate, because they could see the foam upon the reefs before they came too close to them.

Still, the lad found the shadowy dimness that was not night curiously impressive, as he did the reverberations of the seas that swung in smooth, black slopes out of the haze and crumbled into smoke upon the unseen barriers. Now and then the blurred outline of a crag upon the island loomed up and was lost again, while the wind moaned dolefully, though at times it sank awhile and the vapours rolled down upon the sea like a great, grey curtain. At last, however, they made out a light, and the men pulled a trifle faster. More lights blinked at them presently through the haze, and when a hoarse shout came down they stopped pulling close under the side of the gunboat. She swung up and down above them looking very big and black, while now and then when her bows went up there was a horrible grind of cable.

"Boat ahoy!" said somebody. "What are you wanting?"

"A talk with your Commander," said Stickine. "We're sealers from the schooner."

"Pull her in," said the unseen man. "We'll give you a rope."

"That's not going to do for me," said Stickine, with his soft, almost silent laugh. "I want the ladder."

Appleby chuckled, for he could understand how this demand from one of the men he had almost made prisoners of would exasperate the Commander, while he also knew that it takes some time to get a steamer's accommodation ladder over. So far as he could make out by the voices above him, some of the officers were conferring together, and he managed to catch the words, "Concerned insolence!"

"We don't feel like waiting here all night," said Stickine; "unless you get a move on we'll pull away."

"You wouldn't pull far," said somebody. "We've got a quick-firer trained on to you. Now then, up with you!"

"No, sir," said Stickine, grinning. "I'm expecting some show of civility as an officer of the sealer, and if you turned that gun loose on us there'd be nobody to take you out of here."

There was a growl on the deck above them, and somebody said, "Oh, give it him! We want to get through with the thing."