In the Misty Seas: A Story of the Sealers of Behring Strait

Rude as it might have seemed to those who knew no better it was a man's work he had done, and the pride of accomplishment stirred him. It was a significant victory they had won, not by brute strength alone, for that would have been useless unless guided by the nerve and intelligence which gives man dominion over all the beasts as well as inanimate matter. The sealers also seemed to feel it, for there was something in their eyes which had not been there a few minutes earlier, and Jordan laughed softly as he turned to them.

"You fixed it quite handy, boys, though she was very near getting away from you," he said.

They laid the mast where Montreal wanted it, and that finished their task, but in the afternoon two boats went out to look for a sea otter. It was, however, blowing fresh, and when they met the long seas outside the reefs they were driven back again, and the water was ankle-deep in them when they returned to the Champlain. Jordan laughed when he looked down at the dripping men from the rail of the rolling schooner.

"I figured you'd find it too much for you," he said. "We'll try again to-morrow, and you can lazy round any way that pleases you till then."

Nobody seemed to want to go ashore, and even the lads did not find the appearance of the foam-fringed beaches and desolate grey rocks that showed through the haze and rain inviting. So while the chunk, chunk of Montreal's axe rose muffled through the doleful wail of wind they sat snug about the stove listening to stories of the sea and bush. Some of them were astonishing, for the sealer sees more than the merchant seaman does, and at one time or other most of the crew of the Champlain had marched with survey expeditions through, or wandered alone prospecting far up in, the great shadowy forests of British Columbia. Now and then the lads' eyes grew wide with wonder, but the faces of the men showed gravely intent through the drifting tobacco smoke, and it was evident they believed the tales they listened to. They were simple men, but they had seen many things beyond the knowledge of those who dwell in the cities, and even Niven sat silent, lost in the glamour of the real romance as he wandered with them in fancy over misty seas and amidst the awful desolation of ice-ribbed ranges.

At last when one of them lighted the lamp Montreal came down, and flinging off his dripping jacket stretched himself wearily.

"Can't see any more, but I'll have the contract through before I let up next time," he said. "If you want that sea otter, boys, you've got to get him to-morrow."

It may have been because of what he had helped to do that morning, but Appleby, glancing at the wet face of the tired man, realized there was a greatness in all craftsmanship which had never occurred to him before. There was, of course, very much that Montreal did not know, but if one gave him the top of a redwood tree it would under his sinewy hands become a spar that would transmit the stress and strain of the Champlain'scanvas into useful effort that would drive her safely through screaming gale and over icy seas. He could also build a boat or bridge, and Appleby had realized already that among all the things man has ever made nothing more nearly approaches the simplicity of perfection than the former, a frail shell evolved very slowly before the knowledge of them came in wonderful compliance with the great laws that uphold the universe. It was, of course, but dimly the lad grasped this, but he understood in part that now, as it was when the world was young, it was after all the toil of the craftsmen that human progress was built upon. The world, it seemed, could dispense with the artist and orator and a good many more, but it could not well get on without the smith and carpenter.

Still, reflections of this kind did not usually occupy Appleby very long, and he might have brushed them aside but that he presently heard something which gave him an insight into the responsibility that is attached to all skilled labour.

"'Tis you that's the fine carpenter, Montreal," said Donegal. "But I've been wondering what was after bringing a man who could earn his three dollars every day ashore to sea."

Montreal sat down steaming by the stove, and laughed as he took out his pipe. Then he seemed to remember something and his face grew grave again.

"That's quite simple," he said. "I was working on a big railroad trestle back there in the ranges when one morning the contractor's foreman comes along. The bridge wasn't quite ready for the metals, and I was sitting on the girder with the river a hundred feet under me, anyway. They'd lost a man or two on that trestle already, and I was getting my five dollars a day.

"'You can drop those stringer ends into the notches without the tenon, and you'll do 'bout twice as many in the time,' says he.

"'I'm not doing them that way. It's not a good joint under a big load,' says I.

"'And what has that got to do with you?' says he.

"It wasn't quite easy explaining, but I knew just a little about what bridge ties can do, and the river was a hundred feet under the trestle.

"'Well, so long as I'm notching these things in I'll do them so they'll stand,' says I.

"The foreman he didn't say any more, but I knew what he would do, and when we were through with the trestle he comes to me. 'Here's your pay ticket and you can light out of this right now,' says he.

"I went, and trade was bad everywhere in the province that year. Nobody was taking on carpenters, and when I'd 'bout half-a-dollar left I went up on a steamboat that wanted patching up to Alaska. It was there I fell in with the sealers."

Montreal slowly lighted his pipe and looked at the stove, while Donegal smiled. "Ye do not tell a story well, and 'tis after leaving the point av it out ye are," he said. "There would be no big freight locomotive going through that trestle into the river, which is a disthressful accident that is not quite uncommon in the country ye and Stickine come from. But bad thrade mends again, and ye have not told us what is keeping ye at sea."

Montreal sighed a little and did not turn his head. "My brother was raised a sealer, and he's up here or in Siberia still," he said. "I don't know that he's living, but I seem to feel it in me that if I can wait long enough I shall find him."

Donegal slowly closed one big hand, and Appleby saw the glint which showed in his eyes creep into those of the other men.

"Dead or living he's not alone," he said with a hoarseness that expressed more than sympathy. "May them that watch above send him back to ye!"

Then he turned to the others and his laugh had a little ominous ring as he pointed towards the west. "He's finding the time long, but wan day you and me or better men than us will call on them folks down there with clubs and rifles, and ask them what they've done with the men who sailed with us."

Nobody spoke, but Niven, glancing round at the stern brown faces, felt that whether they were right or wrong he would not care to be the man of whom the sealers asked that grim question.

CHAPTER XV

IN PERIL

Early next morning the lads took their places in Stickine's boat, and the chunk of Montreal's axe followed them as they pulled towards the opening in the reef. He had not spoken to any one since he finished his story the previous night, and when they last saw him he was chipping grimly at the mast. The lads, however, forgot him as they watched the long, grey seas crumble on the reef, and once they reeled out and met the swell the rowing occupied all their attention, for it was needful to watch every stroke and check the boat now and then when the top of the heave frothed a little.

There was no wind, but the sea still rolled rumbling on the reefs, and the grey shadow which apparently never lifted there lay heavily upon the waters. Appleby did not remember how long they had rowed, but the schooner had faded into the haze, when the Indian pointed to a blurred line of rocks that showed here and there amidst a white upheaval. The lads fancied there was land behind them, but the smoky vapours were rolled in thicker belts in that direction, and they could see nothing but dim seas and foam as they pulled slowly under the lee of the reef. Now and then they crept close in with a rock, where long streamers of weed swayed about them as the sea that poured in frothy cataracts down the stone rolled in and out. It did not, however, only float off from the rock, but swung up with the heave from what appeared to be deep water, and Appleby had never seen any seaweed that would compare with this. The stems of it were apparently as thick as a man's arm, and the leaves a good deal longer than the boat. It gave him a curious, unpleasant sensation while he watched it writhe and twist as if alive, as far as he could see down into the icy brine.

"Is it growing loose on the top?" he asked.

"No," said Stickine. "It comes right up from the bottom forty or fifty feet, and if there's a sea otter anywhere around you're likely to find him crawling in and out among it. Seen anything yet, Charley?"

A man in a boat astern of them shook his head. "I guess the Aleuts have them all corralled now, though there's no sign of any Indians here," he said. "Anyway, if there is one left this is the kind of place we should find him in."

Besting now and then upon their oars while the boat swung up and clown on the heave that lapped frothing about the reef, they pulled on, until at last the Indian in the bows raised his hand, and for five long minutes after that crouched motionless. No man moved or asked a question, and there was nothing visible but swaying weed and foam, or to be heard but the growling of the sea. Then the Indian signed again, and with oars dipping softly they crept nearer in, the man with the brown face crouching still and impassive with his hands clenched on the rifle barrel, though Appleby, glancing over his shoulder, could see nothing on the face of the froth-swept stone. He, however, knew that no one born in the cities could hope to equal the Indian's powers of vision, for it is the artificial life of an incomplete civilization that dulls the white man's physical faculties, and there were few things in which Donovitch, who lived in close touch with nature, was not a match for the beasts.

Suddenly the rifle went up, moved as the boat swung, and grew still again, while the crouching object in the bows stiffened rigidly. Nobody was rowing now, and the lads, glancing over their shoulders, could see the side of the Indian's face pressed down on the butt, and it and the brown fingers on the barrel were still and lifeless as copper. Then there was a flash, the muzzle jerked upwards, and the smoke was in their eyes, but so intent were they that the report scarcely reached them, and what they heard most plainly was a soft splash in the sea. As Appleby looked down something that left a train of bubbles behind it seemed to flash beneath the boat, and passed beyond his vision into the waving weed.

"Did you get him?" a voice rose from the other boat.

"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 Brulée 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 Champlainhad 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.