Part 9

The men murmured approval, and Stickine shook out his pipe with a little deprecatory gesture. "I'll make you very tired, boys, but if you will have it this is how it was," he said. "It was 'bout through with the afternoon watch when the fog shut down on the four of them in the whaler in Russian water. They heard the schooner's bell, but it's kind of difficult to fix a sound in a fog, and when it let up sudden they allowed they'd lost her."

"Sure!" said Donegal. "Mainsail Haul could tell ye that in a fog ye hear the sounds in front of ye behind ye. It is digressing ye are, Stickine, but the boys is wondhering what four sealermen were squandhering their time luxurious for in a whaler."

Appleby understood the comment, for he had seen a couple of whale boats on the beach at Port Parry, and they were costly examples of the boat-builder's skill. Stickine, however, laughed silently.

"Old man Corliss got her for nothing--and she was built for the Government with flooring gratings fore and aft, but we needn't worry 'bout how he did it now. Well, there they were, with a big lump of a sea running, shut in by the fog, and they had to keep her head-to with the oars when the wind came down."

"Fog--and a breeze!" said Niven, and Donegal shook his fist at him.

"'Tis bethraying the ignorance av ye, ye are again," he said. "Up there 'tis fog for ever except when 'tis a gale, an' before it's through with that the fog crawls in again. Ye will not heed the lad, Stickine."

"Well," said the sealer, "they held her head to wind, until just before sun up a gunboat came along, and she come that sudden they'd no time to heave the seals they'd with them over before she was going hard astern close alongside of them. The first look at her kind of sickened them. She was a Russian."

"There was fog--and they stopped there?" said Montreal.

"They did. There was quick-firer turned right down on the boat," said Stickine dryly. "Well, it was all fixed up inside five minutes. The whaler was hove up, and a guard with side-arms marched them before a Russian officer, and he was quite anxious to know where they'd last seen the schooner. Now, it was kind of curious there wasn't one of the boys could remember."

"Had they been sealing inside the limits?" asked Appleby.

"No, sir," said Stickine. "Not that time, anyway. When they last saw the land they were well off shore."

"Then the Russians had no right to seize them, and the Canadian Government could have made them pay up thousands of dollars," said Niven.

A little, grim smile crept into the faces of the men. "That," said one of them, "is where you're wrong. They had all the right they wanted when they had the men and guns, and who's going to believe a poaching sealer when an officer in kid-gloves tells quite a different story?"

"And have British subjects no redress?" asked Appleby with a little flush in his face, and Montreal grinned at him with grim approval.

"Oh, yes, when they can get it--and they do now and then, though they don't usually worry the Government folks at Ottawa," he said. "They took them to Peter Paul, Stickine?"

"They did," said Stickine. "And they kept them most of eight months there cooped up in a loghouse with a little dried fish to eat, and 'bout half enough sour black bread. They wouldn't tell the officer where that schooner was, you see, and when they're not put down on the papers men in prison get kind of forgotten in that country."

"And you believe it has happened--to Canadians?" asked Niven with a little gasp of anger.

The veins swelled up on Montreal's forehead. "Well, there are sealer's boats, British and American, that get lost, and nobody but the partners of the men who pulled in them and a woman or two away down south worries very much," he said. "I had a brother in one of them."

There was silence for almost a minute before Stickine went on again. "Two of them got very sick, and they all got thin, until when the spring came they were walked out every day with a guard to take care of them. Perhaps the officer figured it would be kind of awkward if they died on his hands and then somebody remembered them. Well, one day nigh sundown the mate and a sick man were sitting on the beach looking at the sea, and wondering if their folks in Canada would ever hear of them again. They were to be sent away from that place in a day or two.

"Now, there was an old schooner that must have been getting shaky when the Russians seized her years before moored in front of them. The oakum was spewing from her seams, her bulwarks were worn and weather-cracked so you could put your fingers in the rents in them, and it wasn't much use telling a sealerman what kind of canvas she would have after lying there since the Russians took her in the rain and wind. Still, she looked kind of homely, and they sat there watching her until they heard the boom of gun and there was a Russian soldier signing to them. Now, some of those folks were kind enough, but this was a bad man, and when the sealer who was sick couldn't get along fast enough he kicked him hard, and where it would hurt him."

Montreal drew his breath, and a little grey patch showed in his cheeks.

"But," he said hoarsely, "he didn't do it again!"

Stickine laughed a curious little laugh. "No," he said. "He meant to, but the man who wasn't sick was too quick for him, and the soldier wasn't handy getting his side arm out. The sealer took the point in his arm, and it ripped it to the wrist, but he got his right fist on that soldier's chin, and when he went down he made no great show of getting up again. Then the other two left him, and went back to the prison where a soldier locked them in, and when the rest heard what had happened they did some talking. They didn't take long about it, for the mate had a notion the soldier looked very sick when he left him, and it was quite plain that anything they did must be put through before they were marched away from sea.

"'We've got to light out of this right now,' says one.

"'Well,' says another, 'where are we going to?'

"'That,' says the mate, 'is quite easy. There's a schooner handy and we're going straight to sea.'

"Nobody said any more for a little, and the boys looked kind of solemn. It was a long way to British Columbia, and they knew what that schooner was like because they'd see her. Then one of them gets up.

"'I'd sooner drown out yonder than work in the mines,' says he.

"In 'bout five minutes they'd fixed up the thing, and there was one of them waiting behind the door when a soldier came in. Before he got started talking the man had his arms about him. Then there was a circus that didn't last very long, and the soldier was lying tied up quite snug with his tunic round his head when they slipped out one by one. The moon was getting up, but it was hazy with a little breeze blowing out to sea when two of them lit out for the place where the schooner was lying while the rest went for the beach where it was nearest them. There was a boat or two handy, but they were big, and you can't get a vessel that's been lying by for years off in a minute. When the two stopped abreast of her the water was very cold, and it isn't quite easy swimming in your clothes, but they knew if they took them off they would have to go home naked, and made the best of it they could, though one of them was played out when they fetched the vessel. They couldn't get a holt of her, and the tide swung them along bobbing and clawing at her side, until the mate got his fingers in a crack the sun had made. Then he got up, though he was never quite sure how it was done, and pulled the other one after him, but they fell down on deck and lay there a minute, anyway.

"After that one crawls to the foremast, and it was while he made shift to get the foresail on to her he found out what prison and hunger had done for him. It wasn't a big sail, but he sat down faint and choking when he'd got it up. Then he found where the shackle was on the chain, and smashed his fingers as he pounded it, for the pin was rusted in. He couldn't quite see straight and his hands were bleeding, but he figured they'd got to light out quick, for there was a dog howling and he could hear a boat coming. At last, when he knew another blow would knock out the pin, he let up and he and the other man tried to get the mainsail up, and stopped because they'd 'bout the strength of Mainsail Haul between them. Then while they stood there gasping a boat comes banging alongside, and the rest was crawling over the rail when the mate hears another splash of oars behind.

"'They're coming along with rifles,' says somebody.

"Well, there was nobody wanting to waste any time, and they got the mainsail up with a split you could have ridden a horse through in the middle of it, and 'bout half the staysail to swing her with. When they'd done that much they saw there wasn't much use in hoisting the rest of it, and they pulled the head right out of one of her jibs. The boat was coming up tolerably fast, and somebody hailing them, but they didn't stop to answer, and getting the staysail aback knocked out the shackle-pin. The cable ran out all right, and then they stood still, very quiet and feeling sick, for most a minute, for they could see the boat now, and the schooner wouldn't fall off handy. One or two of them will remember that minute while they live. There was so much in front of them, and, so far as they could see, more behind--and the old schooner was just hanging there with her mainsail peak swung down.

"At last she fell off slowly, but there wasn't one of them fit to howl when she started off before the wind. The mate had a kind of fancy somebody was shooting, but nobody was quite sure then or after, because they were too busy swaying the mainsail peak up and looking for a sound place to bend the halliards to the jibs. They got them up in pieces, but she was off the wind, and when the boat dropped back into the haze behind her the mate fell over on the hatch and lay there until somebody poured water on to him. It was sun up next morning before he remembered very much more, and then that schooner scared him. You could have clawed out pieces from her masts with your nails, and there were more holes than canvas in her sails. No compass, no water, not a handful of grub, and the Pacific to cross.

"They ran down the coast that day, and came to with the kedge-anchor off a village the next one. The folks came off, and brought them dried fish and water for all the odds and ends of rope and ironwork they could spare off the schooner. Then they cleared for sea again, and hung out for two weeks starving on a handful of grub each morning for every man, with only the sun, that wasn't always there, and the stars to guide them."

Stickine stopped a moment, and his face grew very grim while there was silence in the _Champlain's_ hold, and Appleby shivered as he pictured the crazy schooner crawling as it were at random across the face of the Pacific with her crew of starving men.

"It must have been horrible," he said. "Did they lose any of them?"

Stickine shook his head. "Not a man," he said. "Still, two of them were on their backs and the others just ready to lie down when a steamer came along, and they ran slap for the bows of her when they saw the flag she was flying. She stopped, and they felt kind of shaky when she lay there rolling with white men hailing them and a boat swinging out, while when a man came on board they couldn't quite talk to him sensible, and he stared at them and the masts a minute without a word. Then he sized up what they were wanting, and there was grub and coal and water in the schooner besides a compass when the steamer went on. After that it was easier. Somehow they nursed her through two gales, and drove her south-east when they could, and then one morning there was the snow shining high, up in the sky and they knew they were through with their troubles. That's 'bout all there is to it, and I've done quite enough talking!"

"Did the Government get them any compensation, and what became of the schooner?" asked Appleby.

Stickine laughed dryly. "No, sir," he said. "They didn't. Nobody asked them to, and that schooner isn't sailing now."

"But you knew the mate?" said Appleby. "Of course it was he who brought them through."

Stickine did not answer, and Donegal reached out suddenly and grabbed his arm. Taken unawares he could not extricate it, and next moment his sleeve was drawn back and the lads saw a long white scar that ran down to the wrist. Then Stickine's face flushed a trifle, and Donegal grinned. "Ye have heard where he got it--and he swum off to her that night," he said.

The flush faded from Stickine's face, which grew grim again. "I'm owing the folks who did it more than that and the hunger," he said. "We were set down, all of us, as lost at sea, and while I was lying in that prison things had gone wrong. When I got back to Canada I knew they could never be straightened out again."

Appleby noticed how Stickine's big hands trembled, and surmised that some great sorrow he would not speak about had darkened the home-coming of the man who had risen as it were from the dead. He, however, sat still with the rest until Montreal slowly clenched a big brown fist.

"And," he said with a curious quietness, "it's a brother they're owing me."

Then there was a silence that was intensified by the roar of the sea.

*CHAPTER XI*

*AMONG THE HOLLISCHACKIE*

The bitter gale they had run before for two days had fallen suddenly, and it was a hazy afternoon when the lads saw St. George of the Pribyloffs lying a faint blur on the rim of the Behring Sea. In between swung long slopes of grey water, that flickered here and there into green, where a pale ray of sunlight shone down. They did not, however, see it long, because the sun went in, and a smear of vapour crawled up from the horizon, for where the warmer waters of the Pacific meet the icy currents from the Pole, the clammy fog follows close upon the gale.

They had still short sail upon the schooner, and she rolled distressfully with a great rattle of blocks and banging of booms, but Jordan stood poised on the house with glasses levelled, and white men and Indians clustered aft and beneath him.

"No smoke anywhere, but we'll have the wind back before night," he said. "How far do you make us off the land?"

"Six miles, anyway," said Stickine, and Jordan nodded.

"I'd have put another half-mile on to that," he said. "Well, you can get the boats over and look for the holluschackie."

Stickine raised his hand, and the men fell to work. He scarcely gave an order, and there was no shouting or confusion, for every one knew what to do and did it with a silent swiftness which the lads had never seen on board the _Aldebaran_. The hurrying figures seemed everywhere at once, and before Appleby could decide whom to help, the first boat was swinging from a tackle between the masts. Then there was a splash, and when he gained the bulwarks, a copper-faced Indian was crouching in the bows and the oars were out. It was quick work. Boat after boat was hove up, thwarts fitted, rifles put on board, and while the _Champlain_ rolled so that no landsman could have kept his footing, swung into the sea.

Finally when the deck was almost empty Stickine glanced at Jordan. The skipper said nothing for a minute, but once more swept his glasses round the horizon, and his face was a trifle dubious when at last he laid them down.

"You can take Donovitch and Donegal and try what the lads can do," he said. "That leaves two of us to work the schooner, but I don't figure we'll have any wind to speak of for an hour or two."

Stickine nodded as he moved forward, and thrust a rope into Appleby's hands. "Lay hold and heave," he said. "You're not going to be quite so keen on sealing by the time you pull her back again."

The lads gasped and panted as they hauled upon the tackle, but the boat was swung high before they had lifted her stern a foot, and they began to understand that even in such an apparently simple thing it would take them years to attain the dexterity of the men who had preceded them.

Still, they did what they could, while their faces grew red and the veins on their foreheads swelled, and at last the boat fell almost level, when at a sign from Stickine they let her go with a run. Then they dropped from the rail, and, though Niven fell over Appleby, got the oars out and the boat away before the _Champlain_ rolled down on that side heavily. Appleby had lost his cap and his face was flushed, but he kept stroke with Donegal, who pulled on the thwart in front of him, and saw a little twinkle in the eyes of the skipper who looked down from the rail.

"I'd remember the kind of crew you've got, Stickine, though I've seen raw hands make a worse show," he said.

They were well clear of the schooner when Donegal spoke. "'Twas a compliment Ned Jordan paid ye, an' it he had the thraining av ye for ten years I'd have some hopes av ye."

"Ten years!" said Niven with a little laugh that hid the pride he felt. "Well, I fancy I'd have been made into a merchant in less than that time if I'd stayed at home."

"An' who would be afther throwing the likes av you away on a merchant's business?" said Donegal dryly.

Niven said nothing further, and they had pulled for another half-hour when Appleby asked, "Why was the skipper looking for smoke?"

Donegal laughed. "'Tis a diction'ry wid pictures in it to tell ye the meaning av all things ye want to know. Sure now, but what would be afther making a smoke?"

"A gunboat," said Appleby. "But we're a good deal more than three miles off the land."

"An' what av it?" said Donegal. "'Tis not easy to fix your distance at sea without a four point bearing, an' when 'tis a matter of opinion 'tis not the pelagic sealerman that folks will listen to, or where would be the use av the men in uniform who're a credit to their nation an' the prothectors of the American company?"

"Well, now, I've known quite a few sealers who couldn't tell the difference between one mile and three," said Stickine dryly.

As he spoke the Indian grunted in the bows, and Stickine, who bade them stop pulling, stood up for a few minutes while the lads gathered breath and looked about them. When the boat swung upwards they could see the schooner roll with slanted spars down the side of the sea about two miles away. Then they saw nothing but a dark slope of water, until they rose again, and a few little dots that swung into sight and sank became visible scattered here and there along the horizon. A puff of whiteness curled about one of them, and that was all which served to show they were boats sealing. St. George had faded into a bank of vapour, and when the boat was hove aloft again Appleby noticed that the horizon was closer in upon them. Then as a filmy streak of whiteness slid across the sea a few hundred yards away, she seemed to become suddenly very small, and the cold grey water very near them. Stickine did not apparently notice it, and Appleby, glancing over his shoulder, saw the Indian still crouching motionless, rifle in hand, in the bow.

Suddenly he spoke, and Stickine moved his oar. "Pull," he said quietly. "Steady and easy."

Appleby had seen nothing move on the long slope of sea, but he felt his heart beat, and his blood pulse faster as he dipped his oar; for the crouching figure in the bows had risen a trifle and the rifle was pitched forward now.

Then he looked aft again watching Stickine, who stood up, swaying with the boat, but otherwise very still, with his eyes fixed forward and a little glint in them. Presently he moved his head, Donegal stopped rowing, and while the lads rested on their oars there was a bang, and a wisp of acrid smoke curled about them.

"All you're worth!" said Stickine sharply, swaying with his oar, and the lads bent their backs with a will. The boat seemed to lift with every stroke, Donegal made a little hissing with his breath, and Niven gasped from strenuous effort and excitement as he heard the swish of water that swirled past them, and strove to keep stroke. He felt that another minute or two would see him beaten, when Stickine flung up one hand, and there was a curious quietness, until something brushed softly against the sliding boat.

"Get hold!" said Donegal, leaning over, and a clumsy, almost shapeless, object came in with a roll.

It was not what they expected, but both Niven and Appleby long remembered the killing of their first seal, and while they sat flushed and breathless, with the salt brine trickling from their oars, the surroundings were of a kind likely to impress themselves on any lad's memory.

In front of them a long slope of grey water rolled up against the hazy sky, and another big undulation that shut out the schooner hove itself high behind. A little, thin, blue smoke still curled from the muzzle of the Indian's rifle as he stood up in the bows with his impassive bronze face cut sharp against the sea, and Stickine was stooping over the hump-shouldered object that lay quivering on the floorings astern, in a fashion that suggested a shaken jelly. It was a dingy grey colour, and covered with long, coarse hair which did not bear the slightest resemblance to the beautiful glossy fur they had been accustomed to in England, and the lads' hands were sticky with the grease of it.

"And that's a seal!" said Niven, glancing disgustedly at his fingers. "I'd sooner claw a dog that hadn't been washed for years. They make ladies' jackets out of that beastly stuff?"

Stickine nodded, and touched the object, which quivered again, with his foot. "Oh, yes," he said, with a little laugh. "That's just a holluschack. The under-hair's quite fine enough, and--you see him shaking--he's got two or three inches of blubber under that."

"What's a holluschack?" asked Appleby.

"Riches," said Donegal. "If ye can catch wan often enough, and, by the token, the Americans who leased those islands yonder made more out av them than their Government paid the Russians for them and the whole of Alaska. How many years was they doing it, Stickine?"

"'Bout two years," said the Canadian. "There was more seals crawling round there then, but they got kind of tired of being clubbed and shot at."

"We don't know what a holluschack is yet," said Appleby.

"Well," said Stickine, "it's just a bachelor seal, so young that the bulls don't have no use for it hanging around, and that's why you find the holluschackie by themselves, which is fortunate, anyway, because it's only them one wants to catch. The cows go free--that is, mostly--and the bulls are that chewed up they're not worth killing."

"What with?" asked Appleby.

"Fighting," said Stickine. "The bull he comes up first and crawls out on St. George there, to look for a nice place for his cows to lie down in. Just as soon as he finds it another bull comes along and wants to take it from him. If he's got grit enough he hangs on to it, and when the cows crawl out of the sea the circus begins. Every bull has to fight for those that belong to him, and for six weeks anyway you can hear them roaring."

"I can't fancy that thing roaring," said Niven, pointing to the holluschack.

Stickine laughed softly.

"Well," he said, "when the bull stiffens up he can do most anything but sing, and you can hear him quite as far as a steamer's whistle. Time we were getting a move on, Donovitch."