Chapter VII: Part 7

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."

It was probably ten minutes before the ladder was hung over, and leaving one man in the boat the others went up, while Appleby stared about him with interest when he reached the deck. The gunboat looked very big after the _Champlain_, and even in the haze he could see that she was very trim. Lights blinked about him, there was a simmering of steam, and the long wet deck, tall spars, swaying funnel, spotless paint, and the neatness of everything gave him a sense of security and comfort which he had not been used to on board the schooner. He had, however, little time to look round, for as the sealers stepped in through the gangway a cluster of bluejackets closed in about them, and one of them laid his hand on Stickine's shoulder. The sealer shook his grasp off, and swung round, doubling up a great fist.

"Hello! Are you wanting anything?" he said.

An officer stepped out into the light. "You're under arrest! The Commander is waiting aft," he said.

Appleby was almost surprised into a little gasp of consternation, but he saw that Stickine was smiling dryly and checked it. Then they tramped aft along the deck, and finally stopped outside a cabin in the poop.

"I'll bring the leader in first, sir?" said their conductor.

"That's what I am wanting," said Stickine. "Still, as somebody has got to hear what he has to tell me, this lad's coming along."

He grasped Appleby's arm and shoved him into the cabin, and for a moment or two the lad stood blinking about him. At first, being still a trifle dazzled by the light, he only noticed that the little cabin with its snowy paint, varnished panelling, and curtains on the brass-ringed ports, seemed very luxurious after the hold of the _Champlain_. Then he saw that a young officer sat at a table, while another stood behind him. His face was not unpleasant, though just then he looked angry, and in his trim uniform he formed a striking contrast to Stickine, who stood, bronzed and lean, in curiously fashioned garments of fur and canvas, smiling at him.

"It's a kind of thick night," said the latter with a little nod. "Now, as I'm going to talk to you neighbourly, I've no use for the boys outside there. Because it wouldn't have been quite square to you as Commander I didn't object to them before."

There was something very like a grin in the face of the officer who still stood in the doorway, and the Commander's cheeks flushed a trifle. Stickine, however, met his gaze with complete unconcern, and finally he raised his hand and a patter of feet on deck showed that the guard was retiring.

"You don't seem to understand that unless you give me a very good reason for not doing it I'm going to take you prisoners to Alaska," he said.

Stickine laughed a little. "Well," he said dryly, "I don't figure you will. In the first place, you can't take us anywhere until you get out of here, and unless you and me agree it's when you try to the trouble will begin. She's not holding with you now, and we'll have it thicker still until the wind piles the sea in to-morrow. When you've got a holt on that we'll go on."

The other officer leaned over the Commander's shoulder, and said something Appleby did not hear. Then the Commander sat silent a while as he watched Stickine. "Well?" he said at last.

Stickine's eyes twinkled a little. "First time you've been up here after the sealers? You don't know us yet. Now, I was wondering when you were going to offer us something to eat and drink."

The Commander stared at him, while the other man, who appeared divided between anger and laughter, turned away his head. Then, as if it were in spite of him, a little smile crept into the former's face.

"Sit down. You deserve anything we can give you for your assurance," he said. "Well, have you any especial fancy?"

Stickine appeared to reflect, "Champagne would be good enough for me," he said. "The last time I had any a Russian officer I did something for gave it me. The lad will have coffee. That is, if the cook has any fire in his galley."

The Commander touched a bell, and the other officer flung himself, laughing, into the chair. "I guess you'll get on with him better that way, sir," he said. "I've had a good deal to do with these fellows, and generally found them difficult to bluff."

In a few minutes a man brought in a big cup of very good coffee, and set some glasses and a box of biscuits upon the table, but while Appleby fell to when the Commander nodded to him, Stickine did not touch his glass.

"Now I'm going to talk," he said. "In the first place, I've shown you where you are. Next, the schooner's waiting outside the reefs, and unless the boat's back inside an hour with a note from me to the skipper he'll get sail on her, and you can take us and your ship to Alaska, if you can get her out of here. To put it quite plain, we've got the best end of the stick, and we know enough to keep a holt on it."

Somewhat, to Appleby's surprise, the Commander laughed. "I almost believe you have," he said.

Stickine nodded, and once more Appleby wondered. A few months earlier it would have appeared incomprehensible to him that a rough schooner sailor should so quietly enforce his right to be treated as an equal by a naval officer, and prove a match for him. The Commander now appeared quite willing to recognize it.

"Well," said Stickine, "we'll take you out to-morrow for----" and he asked a sum that astonished Appleby.

"No, sir," said the Commander. "I'll have the boats over at sun up and find my own way out."

"I guess not," said the sealer. "You've been looking round and coming right upon a fresh reef at every turn already, while there's a sunk ledge in one of the openings, and before you're through you'd have the gale in on you."

The two officers conferred together half-aloud, and finally the Commander said, "I couldn't pay more than half what you're asking."

"Well," said Stickine dryly, "it strikes me it would be a long way cheaper than losing your ship. The dollars would come in quite handy to us but they wouldn't count for very much with the U.S. Treasury."

The Commander drummed on the table with his fingers. "The trouble is I don't know I could send a bill of that kind to the Treasury," he said. "I'm not a rich man, and the dollars would take a good deal of raising if I had to find them myself."

Stickine nodded sympathetically. "Then I'll come down a hundred, but we can't take less. I've got to do the square thing by the boys."

The Commander sat still again, and Appleby could not quite understand the expression of his face. Then he said, "I should be taking a risk. You're not fond of us, anyway, and even you mightn't know all the reefs."

Stickine stood up very straight and grim. "You've just got to trust me, as we'll trust you for the pay. We wouldn't have made that deal with you unless we knew we could put it through."

"Sit down," said the Commander with a little smile. "We'll make it a deal. Take us out, and you'll get your dollars. Put us ashore and we'll shoot you. It's quite plain you're taking a few risks too. And now if you will join me in a glass of wine."

Stickine nodded, and laughed silently as he held up his glass. "I'm taking those dollars from you, as you'd have taken the pelts or the schooner from us, if you had the chance, and that makes us square," he said. "Every man to his own business, but that's no reason he should hate the folks who are now and then too much for him."

Ten minutes later and Appleby and the rest were in the boat pulling for the _Champlain_ with a note asking Jordan to send the Indian across to the steamer.

*CHAPTER XVII*

*THE PLEDGE REDEEMED*

The light was slowly creeping through the mist when Appleby, who had returned with two of the Indians, sat with Stickine in the gunboat's cabin. It was very early in the morning, and though there is no actual darkness in those seas at that season, the haze provided a very good substitute, and now it was sliding past as thickly as ever. Appleby also felt clammy all through, for they had had a hard pull from the schooner against a freshening wind, and nobody is very vigorous at four o'clock on a very cold morning. He shivered a little as he sat with a steaming cup of coffee before him watching his companions. Their faces showed curiously pallid in the dim light, and Stickine's was grave, while the two Americans appeared more than a little anxious. Outside the wind was wailing through the rigging, and every now and then there was a jarring grind of cable as the gunboat swung up her bows.

"You believe we had better make a start right now, and you can pick up the passage?" asked the Commander.

Stickine nodded. "The haze is not going to lift to-day, and you'd find it hard work to hold her here when the sea rolls in. There's a nasty reef close astern of you too. Now, before we start we'll go over the deal again and see if you've got it straight. Our skipper has your cheque, and I'm to take you out. You're to take our word we've killed no seals in American waters, and leave us to go just where we're wanting once you're free of the reefs."

"Yes," said the Commander. "I pledge myself to that, but you've overlooked one thing, and that's the one that's going to happen to you if you make a blunder."

There was a moment's silence, and during it the naval officer pulled his belt round a trifle and rubbed a speck of dust off his pistol-holster. The hint was plain enough, but the sealer only smiled.

"That's all right, but I want the lad up on your bridge with me," he said. "If there was any trouble he could tell folks I did the square thing by you!"

The Commander signified agreement. "Who is the lad, anyway?" he said. "He hasn't the hard look of the rest of you."

Stickine glanced at Appleby. "I don't quite know. We picked him up, and his partner told a kind of curious story. Allowed his father was a big man back there in the old country."

A little smile crept into the Commander's eyes. "Well, I shouldn't wonder if it was the right one, but that don't concern us now. Would you like more coffee before you begin?"

"No," said Stickine. "You can tell them to start the windlass when you're ready."

The windlass was rattling and the chain grinding in when they crossed the sloppy deck and climbed to the bridge. A jet of steam roared away into the haze from beside the funnel, and the tinkle of iron came up from the gratings, while Appleby noticed that every boat was swung out ready for lowering at a moment's notice. Except for one or two men forward the bluejackets were drawn up in little groups about the deck and stood motionless, apparently watching the sealers' boat that heaved in the haze ahead. Then the windlass stopped rattling and there was for a moment or two a curious silence while the steamer rolling lazily slid sideways with the stream.

"Keep your anchor at the bows," said Stickine. "Back her until she comes round under a starboard helm."

The Commander touched a handle, there was a tinkle below, the bridge commenced to tremble, and with a thud-thud of engines the steamer crawled astern. Then when her bows had swung round Stickine raised his hand.

"Ahead slow!" he said. "Just keep her going."

The engines thudded once more, and then commenced a monotonous rumbling as they crept on into the haze, while with every man pulling hard the sealers' boat slid towards them. Donovitch the Indian was standing in the bows, and Appleby, glancing round a moment, saw that the faces of the two officers on the bridge were grim and set. Neither of them or the men below, however, moved an inch, and the stillness and the silence through which he seemed to hear his heart thumping affected Appleby curiously. He felt cold beneath the old fur waistcoat Jordan had given him, for he had more than a suspicion that Stickine would only have the one chance of blundering now, and that if he did it a good many of the gunboat's company would never get ashore. A long swell heaved through the passage, roaring ominously as it seethed upon the reefs.

Then the Indian in the bows swung up an arm, and while Stickine signed to the helmsman who stood rigidly still gripping his wheel the sea was rent ahead and there rushed upwards a great cloud of spray and foam. It whirled high and a deep rumbling followed it, while another hoarse roar rang through the haze in front of them, and Appleby saw the officers glance at one another. He knew, as they did, what would happen if lifted by the swell they struck that froth-swept stone, and he felt that swift death was very near them all just then.

Still, Stickine only nodded to the helmsman, and the bows swung slowly round, while when the long swell foamed again the reef lay a score of yards away from them, and the growl of another grew louder. Appleby could faintly see the filmy cloud that whirled about it, and held his breath as he realized that the stream was carrying them towards it, and wondered if the helmsman could swing the ship clear in time. Then he gathered a little comfort from a glance at Stickine, whose face was unconcerned.

"Give her steam," he said.

For a moment the Commander stood quite still with his fingers motionless on the handle that would quicken the engines, and Appleby could guess his thoughts. If they drove the steamer faster now, and she would not swing, in less than another minute her bows would be crumpled in.

"You're taking your chances with us," he said.

"Oh, yes," said Stickine. "Unless you're quick with that telegraph I'm not going to have any. Give her steam."

The Commander thrust down the handle, there was a tinkle below, and while the engines beat faster Stickine turned his hand round as he glanced at the helmsman. Then Appleby saw nothing but the spray ahead, and heard a hollow rumbling sound that sent a shiver through him as once more a white cloud whirled up. His eyes grew dazed as he watched it blow away until the foam about the reef beneath it was blotted out by the steamer's bows. Next he became dimly conscious that the helmsman was spinning his wheel, and noticed nothing further until the horrible white confusion was sliding away behind them. There was only the haze before them now, and it seemed to be growing thinner.

"Slow!" said Stickine signing with his hand, and while the rumble of engines slackened a faint cry came out of the dimness.

Then the sealer turned to the officer, and his bronzed face was as unconcerned as ever, though his hands seemed to tremble a little. The Commander was standing very rigid, but there were beads of moisture on his forehead.

"We've left your boat astern," he said.

"Well," said Stickine gravely, "we're not going to want her. I guess I've put this contract through, and you can whistle for the schooner."

Then the tension suddenly slackened, and there was a half-audible murmur from the men below when the scream of the whistle was flung into the fog. It screamed twice before the thin tinkle of a bell rose up in answer.

"That will be your schooner. She's not far away," said the Commander.

Five minutes later the steamer stopped her engines, and while the boat crept up again the _Champlain_, rolling under her jibs and trysail, grew out of the haze. Stickine touched Appleby's shoulder, and turning towards the Commander held out his hand.

"It's about time we were going now. A deal's a deal, and I've kept my part of it," he said.

There was a little grim smile in the Commander's eyes, but he shook hands gravely with the sealer. "And I'll do mine," he said to Stickine as he went down the ladder. "Still, you can tell your skipper that if I ever find his schooner inside our limits again, I'll have much pleasure in sinking her."

Stickine made no answer, but he grinned.

In another minute they were pulling towards the _Champlain_, and when with the froth streaming away across the sea behind her the steamer forged ahead, a red flag with a beaver and maple-leaf in a corner fluttered aloft to the _Champlain's_ masthead. Appleby smiled as he watched it stream out and sink again, for there was, it seemed to him, something almost ludicrous in this assertion of equality between the little rolling schooner and the big war-vessel, and he waited to see if the Commander would return the salutation or steam past in contemptuous silence. As he watched, a figure on the gunboat's bridge raised a hand, and the scream of her whistle vibrated across the waters. Again it hurled out its greeting while the schooner's flag rose and fell, and then with a last great volume of sound ringing above the clamour of the surf the gunboat steaming at full speed swept into the haze.

Next minute the boat was under the _Champlain's_ rail, and Jordan looking down on them with a little, dry smile.

"I've no use for riling folks when it can be helped, and that fellow took his licking well," he said.

They climbed on board and hove the boat in, and Stickine followed Jordan into the cabin while Appleby sat down to tell the story to every unoccupied man of the _Champlain's_ company. There was a broad grin on the listener's faces when he had finished, and one of them said, "There's not many men who could come out to windward of Ned Jordan."

Montreal nodded solemnly. "No," he said. "I guess you'd get tired considerably before you found one of them."

By and by Stickine came out of the cabin. "We'll have the reefed mainsail on her, boys," he said. "Now we're here and the wind's hauling westerly so we can't get back, we're going to run a little further east to a place where we might pick up a few pelts cheap from the Indians."

It blew hard presently, but the haze still followed them, and towards the close of the afternoon they hove the _Champlain_ to, and lay with the stinging drift whirling about her plunging to a sea that frothed white as snow. Most of the men were sleeping or sitting snug in the hold when Stickine came below, and shook his head at Niven and Appleby. "The skipper's wanting you," he said.

Both lads felt a trifle uneasy as they went out on deck. They could not recollect any offences they had committed, but there was an unfortunate resemblance between Stickine's intimation and others they had received at Sandycombe when unpleasant things had followed the headmaster's request to see them in his study.

"I wonder if he means to put us ashore when we get to the place we're going to," said Niven.

"Wouldn't that please you?" asked Appleby with a little smile.

Niven appeared thoughtful. "No," he said, "it wouldn't, or you either. That is, if it meant we had to go back to the _Aldebaran_. Still, by this time she should be half-way to China, or somewhere else as far."

They had, however, reached the house now, and when they went in Jordan was sitting by the little stove, with a big lead-bottomed ink-pot standing on some papers on the table beside him. The lads stood still a moment, and waited somewhat anxiously for him to speak.

"You've folks in the old country who would worry about what had become of you?" he said.

"Yes, sir," said Niven. "It has troubled me a good deal now and then."

Jordan nodded. "You can write and tell them where you are," he said. "Sit down right here and do it now. If we've better weather we'll run for the harbour I'm making for to-morrow, and now and then a boat from St. Michael's looks in there. She would take any letters I left to Vancouver."

Niven sat down at the table, and Appleby felt very lonely as he watched the smile creep into his face, and the rusty pen scratch across the paper. He knew that other eyes would brighten when they read that letter, but there was nobody to grieve or rejoice over him, and once he coughed for no reason that was apparent to Jordan, who was watching him.

"And you. Haven't you got anybody? There's another pen," said the latter.

Appleby was never quite sure what prompted him, but the skipper's tone was kindly, and fumbling in an inner pocket he pulled out a little leather case and took from it a picture of a sandy mound with palm fronds drooping over the wooden cross at one end of it.

"That is all I have, sir," he said.

Jordan took the photograph, and his eyes grew softer as he returned it with a little nod of sympathy. "It's rough when you're young, but a lonely man's not always the worst off, my lad," he said.

Niven, however, looked round with a flush on his face. "That's not straight talk, Tom," he said. "You know my mother would do almost anything for you, and there's the rest of them. Even Nettie, and she has the faddiest notions, took to you."

"Hadn't you better get on with your writing, sonny?" said Jordan dryly. "She's your mother, and not his, anyway."

Niven made another dab at the inkpot, and though it was difficult to keep his feet at the table as the schooner rose and fell he finished his letter. He was about to fold it up when Jordan glanced at him. "You've put something 'bout me and the _Champlain_ in?" he said.

"Yes, sir," said Niven.

"Well," said Jordan, "I'd like to hear that part of it."

Niven flushed a trifle, and sat still a moment twisting round his pen before he said, "It isn't worth listening to."

"Still," said Jordan grimly, "I'm waiting to hear it. Start in."

Niven looked round at Appleby, but Appleby only grinned, and then with the colour showing plainer in his face read a line or two. "The skipper has, taking it all round, been very good to us. He's----" The lad stopped for a moment. "This piece isn't of any moment. I'll leave it out, sir."

"I can tell better when you've read it," said Jordan.

Niven made a little half-conscious gesture of dismay, but he had reasons for remembering that when Jordan asked for anything it was wise to give it him, and he continued hastily, "He's quite a clever man in his own way, though nobody would fancy it from his appearance."

Appleby could not quite restrain a chuckle, and saw a twinkle in Jordan's eyes. He nodded as he said, "I can't find fault with that, anyway. Go on with the rest of it."

"If you saw him in his usual rig you would take him for something between a stuffed sealskin and a navvy on the tramp," said Niven.

"Now, I don't know what a navvy is," said Jordan.

Niven looked at his comrade again, and Appleby tried not to laugh. "He's a man who digs drains and makes railways in our country, sir," he said.

"Well," said Jordan dryly. "It can't be tougher work than sealing. Go on."

"Still," said Niven, turning again to the letter, "he has been quite decent, and treated us a good deal better than they did on board the _Aldebaran_, and I fancy it would be a nice thing if----"

He stopped again. "I can't read any more of it, sir," he said, growing very flushed in the face.

"Then," said Jordan, "I figure your partner can, and one of you is going to."

Niven set his lips a moment, and then went on with a little groan, "It would be a nice thing if you wrote one of your Canadian friends to give him a cheque. There can't be much profit in sealing and----"

"I guess that will do," said Jordan, whose face grew suddenly grim. "Get hold of your pen, and knock the last piece out of it. You've done it? Then you can put this in. 'Don't worry 'bout me. Skipper Jordan will see I earn every dollar's worth of anything I get from him, and before I get home he and Donegal have hopes of licking a little sense into me.' Got that down--all of it?"

"Yes, sir," said Niven, who was apparently almost suffocated, hoarsely.

"Well," said Jordan with a little, dry smile, "that will set your folks' minds at rest, and I guess your father will be grateful to me. Now you can tell the rest of them to get any letters they want sent home ready."

They went out together, and Niven kicked at the first thing that lay in his way savagely. As it happened, it was one of the iron pump fastenings, and it hurt his toe, while as he hopped about the deck Appleby laughed uproariously. Then almost before he knew it Niven was laughing, too, and when they climbed down into the hold there was water in both their eyes.

"Have ye been after hearing anything funny in the cabin?" asked Donegal.

"Well," said Niven with a little chuckle, "I can't help fancying the skipper did, since you want to know. Sure, now, Donegal, 'tis a testhimonial he's been after giving you."

"Tell me," said Donegal, seizing him by the neck and nipping it while the lad struggled fruitlessly.

"It's no use. I wouldn't tell any one a word of it if you strangled me," he said.

They made sail again early nest morning, but in the forenoon the wind fell away, and it was late on the following day when they crept into sight of a grey blurr that lifted itself out of the misty horizon. They could just make out that it was land, but Jordan, who went up the mast hoops with his glasses, saw something more.

"No chance of a deal now we've got here, boys," he said. "There's a steamer coming in. She'll be heading south at this season, and it's not going to take them long to heave a few bundles of furs on board her, so if you've any letters to go along with mine you'd better be handy getting the boat over."

They had her out in about two minutes, and as it was Stickine's boat the lads who sprang down refused to come out of her. She was also the biggest boat they had, and had in all probability seldom travelled faster than she did for the first mile or so. There was scarcely a breath of wind now, and the long swell ran with them, while Niven remembered what the letter he had written would mean to those who had long waited for news of him at home as he put all his strength into the oar. Appleby also recollected the tenderness he had now and then seen in Mrs. Niven's eyes as she looked at her son, and her kindness to him, and strained every muscle, for now at least it seemed he could do a little to repay her.

So they sent the boat foaming over the long swell, but each time she rose the land seemed very little nearer, and when at last a smear of smoke rose out of the greyness that hung about it, Stickine spoke.

"The steamer's firing up! You've got to stretch out, boys."

Panting and gasping they swayed up and down, the oars thudding, and the grey sea frothing under them when the boat surged forward quivering at every stroke. Still, when the veins on Appleby's forehead felt swollen to the bursting and Appleby's eyes were dim the land was at least a mile from them, and a jarring rattle came off across the water.

"Windlass going! She'll be off soon as they heave her anchor. Stiffen up," said Stickine.

The lads did what they could, for they knew it was a good deal they were rowing for. The letter they carried would bring relief from torturing anxiety to those who loved them, and tranquillity to a mother's mind, while Niven, half-choked as he was, nerved his aching arms as he remembered how in all his follies his father had borne with him. Appleby was aiding him loyally, his lips set, his face almost purple, and still, though Stickine and Donegal made the oars creak and groan, the land was only crawling towards them.

"You've got to do it, boys! There's folks back south worrying 'bout most of us," said Stickine when the scream of a whistle came off to them.

Neither of the lads had more than a hazy recollection of the last ten minutes. They had no breath left, every joint was aching, but their arms still moved almost without their will, and they were dimly sensible of the thud of oars, gurgle of water, and lurch of the quivering boat beneath them. They felt they could not be beaten now. At last while the whistle screamed again something big and black bore down on them, and they heard the thudding of engines and the flap-flap of a slowly-turning propeller.

"Stop pulling. Hang on to her," gasped Stickine, and then while the oars rested in their palms the lads could see that the bows of a steamer hung almost over them. Next moment there was a crash, and they were being hauled along with the froth splashing about them and Donegal holding on to something desperately. A man was shouting above them, and while the foam that was piled about her bows sluiced into the boat Stickine roared out hoarsely, "Letters!"

"Give us a grip of them. Let go before she goes over with you," shouted somebody, and a man swinging himself over the rail clutched at the packet held out to him. Then Donegal loosed his grasp, and they were rocking on the white wake as the steamer went on.

"Just 'bout did it," said Stickine. "I guess it was worth a pull."

Neither of the lads said anything, for they were dazed and dripping, and had no breath to waste, but they forgot their pains in a supreme content. It had been a good race, perhaps the best they would ever make, for they knew as they watched her roll away into the mist that the letters the steamer was bearing south would lift a dark cloud from an English home.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*TREACHERY*

Here and there a streak of ripples crept across the water as they returned to the schooner, and when they stopped rowing, Jordan called to them.

"You can pull her head round before you come on board."

They pulled hard before they swung the schooner round, and when they had hoisted the boat in Stickine glanced at the skipper.

"We're going back west?" he said.

Jordan nodded. "Right now," he said. "We've lost two weeks already and the season's getting through."

They close hauled the schooner, and the lads went below when she slowly crawled away. They had questions to ask, and it was Donegal who answered them.

"And what would be the use av going on when Jordan knew the steamer had got all the skins there was?" he said. "'Tis a week this journey will be costing him, and ye will observe 'tis not sitting still and complaining that 'tis hard on him the skipper would be doing. ''Tis the best av it, we've got to make and get back at wance, or sooner,' sez he, and there's folks as don't know better call him a--fortunit--man."

Niven made a little grimace, and swung himself out of reach of the sealer's hand. "Sure 'tis a priest or a schoolmaster ye should have been," said he.

It was some time before they worked their way back to the sealing ground, and then, although the boats were out all day, they got very few skins. The holluschackie had, it seemed, all crawled out on the beaches, and the men grew gloomy as they saw the prospect of returning home with dollars to draw growing rapidly smaller, until at last one morning Stickine came forward after a talk with Jordan.

"There's just 'bout nothing to be done here, boys, and we're going west to see what we can find," he said.

There was a murmur of approval, and Appleby fancied he understood the curious expression in the men's bronzed faces, for it was Russian waters they were making for. It was, however, some time before they reached them, and then they found few seals, while the men were growing anxious again, when at last one wild evening they beat in to an anchorage under an island. Like the others the lads had seen in those misty seas it was a desolation of wet rocks and foam-licked beaches; but worn out by a week's bitter gale, they were glad when the _Champlain_ ceased her wild plunging at last and swung to her anchor on the long, smooth heave.

Nobody wasted much time in stowing the canvas, and when they sat listening to the swish of the rain and the growling of the surf in the stuffy hold, Appleby turned to Stickine.

"What have we come in here for?" he asked.

"You can't always catch seals, but you can buy them now and then when you know where to go," said Stickine. "The further it is from the market the more likely you are to get a bargain."

"Then there is somebody living here?" asked Niven.

"Sure!" said Donegal. "There's no place that forlorn a man can't somehow raise a living out av it, but the one Ned Jordan's after visiting is not what ye would considher a favourable specimen."

Charley looked up and laughed. "Meaner than a shark. There's nothing too low down for that man to do."

Donegal evidently saw the curiosity in Niven's eyes and nodded gravely. "'Tis Charley that's speaking thrue. Now, some men are bad on occasion, and ye will now and then find sailors and sealers doing things that are no credit to them by way av diversion, but they work, and that and the lashing of the bitther seas is the saving av them. Still, there's things no man may do continual."