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

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'srail, 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 Champlainin?" 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."

Stickine smiled dryly. "That's quite right," he said. "The sea, and just the sea – that sets Donegal talking like one of those patent medicine books – and if we had a thousand dollars which of us wouldn't be glad to leave it? Still, I've no use for a man who goes back on his own country, and if it's solid meanness and wickedness you're wanting, you'll find them and Motter quite close together."

"He must work if he catches seals," said Niven.

Charley grinned ironically. "I guess you've found that out, but when Motter has any pelts to sell it's tolerably plain figuring he stole them. Tricked the Indians out of them – though they're not Indians on this side either – and they didn't belong to them, anyway."

"Then why don't the Russians run him out?" asked Appleby.

Stickine laughed softly. "I guess the ones who would do don't know," he said. "This is a kind of curious country."

Just then Jordan flung back the scuttle. "Get your boat over, Stickine. I'm going ashore," he said.

Stickine rose, and Montreal, who had been sitting gloomily silent, looked up. "If you've any use for me I'd like to come along," he said.

Jordan shook his head. "It 'pears to me you're better where you are," he said.

Montreal sighed, but said nothing, and in a few minutes Niven and Appleby were pulling the skipper ashore. It was raining when they stepped out on the beach, and saw for the first time a ramshackle wooden house that seemed falling to pieces beneath a dripping crag. Two great dogs growled at them as they picked their way towards it amidst a litter of fish-bones and offal that had been apparently flung out of the windows. Then somebody beat off the dogs, and when they went in a man who lay in a skin chair by the stove nodded to them. A smoky lamp hung above him, and the lads felt a curious disgust as they glanced at him. His eyes were red and bleary, though there was a blink of evil cunning in them, and his puffy cheeks overhung his chin. He seemed horribly flabby, and wore greasy canvas garments which looked as though nobody had ever washed them. Appleby realized as he watched him that loneliness is not good for a white man unless he has work to do.

"How are you, Motter?" said Jordan. "This place hasn't made you tired yet? It's kind of forlorn for a Britisher."

Appleby fancied there was a little half-scornful inflection in the skipper's voice, which was not altogether astonishing, for the building had a horrible smell, and here and there the rain dripped in, but Motter laughed.

"Well," he said, "I was an American too, and I guess I'm a Russian now. Up here it pays one better – but it's business you came after?"

Jordan nodded, and the contrast between his lean, bronzed face and steady eyes and that of the other man did not escape the lads' attention. "Got anything to sell?" he asked.

"I might have," said Motter. "Still, I'm in no way anxious, because by and by there's a steamer coming along, and I've no great use for dry talking."

He thrust a bottle towards the skipper, but Jordan shook his head. "That's a stuff I'm not used to, and I don't like the smell," he said. "Well, now, let me hear what you've got and I'll make you a bid. This place is a little too open to leave the schooner long."

Appleby fancied Motter was not pleased at this, but he helped himself freely to the liquor, and for half-an-hour he and the skipper were busy bargaining. Neither of the lads quite understood all they said, and they sat vacantly listening to the rumble of the surf, until at last Motter raised his hand.

"Well," he said with a curious little laugh that jarred upon the lads unpleasantly, "you're too keen for me, and it will save worry if I let you have the skins. I want one hundred dollars down for the bundle I've got here, and you can take them with you or leave them until you come back again. The rest are lying at Peter's Bay, but I'll be there to hand them over or send one of my people along the beach, and across by the skin boat. It's going to take you some time to get there with the wind ahead."

"It's a deal," said Jordan, counting out the dollar bills. "We should fetch the beach by to-morrow evening. You haven't seen any gunboat round here lately?"

"No, sir," said Motter. "There's none nearer than Peter Paul, and I'm going to be a richer man if they'll keep away. By the way, I heard they had a Canadian at the sealing post."

"Are you sure of that?" asked Jordan. "What would he be doing there?"

Motter fumbled at his glass. "Well, I don't quite know," he said. "Still, I scarcely figure he was there because he liked it. Anyway, the folks could tell you more about him at Peter's Bay."

Somebody was waving a lantern on the schooner and the roar of the surf had grown louder when they returned to the beach, while it was with difficulty the lads got the boat afloat. Jordan did not seem pleased at something, and bade them pull their hardest, for the wind had gone round and the sea was working in.

"It's kind of unfortunate Motter didn't remember he'd lost his store key before he got my dollars," he said reflectively. "Still, it's no great risk, because he knows we could pull the place down for him when we come back."

The schooner was plunging viciously when they reached her, and while they swung the boat in Jordan said, "Get the trysail and foresail on her, and we'll let her lie to when we're round the head." Then he signed to Appleby. "You'll not tell them anything about that Canadian."

They beat out of the bay they had only a few hours earlier beaten into, and, for the sun was going back to the south now, it was quite dark when on the next night they crept into an inlet hemmed in by smoking reefs. The wind was fresh and astern of them, but when they brought the schooner to off the first of the reefs Jordan stopped Stickine who was about to lower her forward sails.

"It's not going to take us long to bring off a boatload of skins, and you'll keep the canvas on her," he said. "I've no use for taking chances with a man like Motter."

Appleby, of course, understood that as there was evidently a seal rookery not far away it would be perilous for Jordan to be discovered within Russian limits, but he could not see how he would run any risk since there was no gun-boat in the vicinity. He had seen that Jordan could be daring, but he fancied he was almost needlessly cautious when, although only one was wanted for the skins, he had two boats swung out. He also sent back Montreal, who would have gone in one of them, and bade the men bring their sealing-clubs with them, which seemed curious, since if they fell in with any Russians, it would be a proof that they were prepared to kill seals ashore.