The Bungalow Boys Along the Yukon
Page 9
CHAPTER IX.
WILD WATERS.
Early one morning the boys were awakened by the steady booming of the_Northerner's_ whistle. By the lack of vibration they knew that shewas proceeding slowly. Wondering what could be the cause of thereduced speed and the constant raucous bellowing of the whistle, theyhustled into their clothes and met each other on deck.
It was at once apparent what was the matter. Thick, steamy sea-fogenveloped the ship. Through a fleece of blanket-like vapor, she wasforging ahead at a snail's pace. The boys made their way to thebridge. There they found their elders in anxious consultation. Andthere, too, the blowing of the whistle was explained to them. It wasnot, as they had at first thought, for fear of encountering othervessels that the big siren was kept incessantly roaring its hoarsewarning.
The whistle was sounding to enable the captain to get his bearings inthe dense smother. Sea captains along the part of the coast where theywere now steaming, keep their whistles going in thick weather so as tocatch the sound of an echo. When they hear one reverberating backthrough the fog, they know that they are in dangerous proximity to thecliffy, rockbound coast, and keep outward toward the open sea.
"Where are we?" was naturally the first thing that the boys wanted toknow.
"We are somewhere off the coast of Afognok Island," was the rejoinder.
"That's a misnomer for it," declared Jack.
"How's that?" unsuspectingly inquired Tom.
"Why, it's the last place I'd think of calling A-fog-not," rejoinedJack, dodging quickly to a place of safety behind a stanchion.
"Are we near a harbor?" inquired Sandy.
"As well as I can tell, we ought to be off the mouth of Kadiak Harborsoon after breakfast," rejoined the captain, squinting at the compassand giving a brief direction to the man at the wheel.
Sure enough, after breakfast the anchor was let go with a rattle androar and the _Northerner_ came to a standstill. The whistle was blownin impatient short toots as a signal to the pilot to come off, if, asthe captain was certain, they were really near the harbor mouth. Mr.Dacre was anxious to go ashore, as he had some friends living in theAlaskan town whom he had not seen for many years.
At last, out of the fog came the sound of oars, and then came a roughvoice roaring out through a megaphone a message to the _Northerner's_company.
"Steamer, ahoy! Who are you?"
"Northerner, under charter, San Francisco to St. Michael," rejoinedthe captain succinctly. "Are you the pilot?"
"Aye! aye!" was bellowed back through the all-enveloping mist.
"Come aboard then, will you?" admonished the captain, and jerked thewhistle cord sharply so as to give the pilot his bearings.
In a few minutes a big, capable-looking dory, manned by two Aleutsappeared alongside. In the stern sat a grizzled, red-faced man inoilskins. This was Bill Rainier, the pilot.
"How about taking her in, pilot?" demanded the captain anxiously.
The man grinned.
"All right, if you've no further use for her, cap," he rejoined. "Ifyou don't mind piling her up on the rocks, we'll go right ahead."
"Mr. Dacre here is anxious to go ashore," responded the captain. "Hehas some goods to give to some friends of his, Mr. Beattie and hisbrother. How long before this fog is likely to lift?"
"Can't say," was the noncommittal reply; "it may last a week. Buttell you what you do. The Beatties are good friends of mine. I'll takeyour man ashore if you like."
But here arose a question about carrying the goods which Mr. Dacre hadfor his friends, who were storekeepers, and which he had brought upfreight free. The question was finally decided in this way: A ship'sboat would be used to transport the goods and Bill Rainier and Mr.Dacre would go ashore in her. The boys, who had begged to go ashore,too, would follow in the pilot's dory with the two natives as guides.
It did not take long to get out the goods from the hold and lower themoverside. Then the boys scrambled down and took their places in thedory, while the natives, with grinning faces, stared at them.
Bill Rainier roared something at the Aleuts in their native tongue andoff glided the dory into the fog, bearing three happy, excited boys ascargo.
Mr. Dacre, busy superintending the work of getting the goodstransferred, did not notice their departure till some minutes later.Then he asked sharply:
"Where's that dory gone?"
"That's all right, cap," rejoined Bill easily, "I sent it ahead. ThoseAleuts know the way as well as I do."
"Just the same, I wish they had waited for us," said Mr. Dacre with aslight frown.
"Oh, they'll be waiting for us when we get there," declared Billconfidently, and no more was said.
But when the steamer's boat reached the dock, no dory was there. Norhad any of the loungers hanging about seen one.
"Maybe they've got into another channel and gone down Wolf Islandway," suggested Bill, looking rather grave. "Don't you worry, sir,they'll be along."
"Well, if an Aleut can do anything pig-headed and plum foolish,that's what he's a-goin' to do," opined the dock superintendent, whoknew the facts in the case.
"I'd suggest we get up to the store with these goods," said Bill, "andby the time we're through that dory'll be here."
"But it should have reached here long ago," said Mr. Dacre. "I tellyou, Rainier, I don't half like the look of this."
"No harm can come to 'em," Bill assured him.
But nevertheless, for some time both men stood motionless, with lipscompressed, staring out into the blanket of fog without exchangingspeech.
In the meantime, the dory was being rowed through the fog by the twostolid natives without the boys suspecting in the least that anythingwas wrong. As a matter of fact, the two natives, for reasons apparentto those who know the native Aleut, had decided to take a short cutthrough a passage behind Wolf Island. But the fog had shut in thickernow and they were not at all sure of their bearings, skilled boatmenthough they were. They rowed stolidly on and on through the drippingmist without speaking.
Tom was the first to notice that, although they had been rowing for anhour or more, the dory was still rolling on the heavy swells of theopen sea. Suspecting that something was amiss, he signaled to the mento stop rowing. Without a change of expression, the flat-faced,lank-haired Aleuts rested on their oars.
Everything about the tossing dory was silent except for the swish andsigh of the waves as they swept under her. Listen as they would, theycould hear no other sound from any quarter.
"I don't like the appearance of things much," said Tom in reply to aquestion from Jack; "we ought to have reached the dock by now."
"Looks that way to me," was the response.
"How far did the captain say it was?" inquired Sandy.
"Not more than half an hour's row from the ship. If these fellows knowtheir business, we ought to be there by now."
"That's evident. How silent it all is," said Jack in a ratherawestruck voice. "Surely if we were near the town even, we would beable to hear something."
"Just what I was thinking, more particularly as fog exaggeratessound," responded Tom. "What makes it worse, too, is that the steamerhas stopped sounding her whistle. We can't even get back to her now."
"I wish we'd stuck to the pilot boat," put in Sandy dismally.
"See if you can get anything out of those Aleuts," suggested Jack.
But although Tom tried to get something understandable from thenatives, they only grinned and shook their heads. But at last theyfell to their oars again.
"They don't know where they're going, but they're on the way," saidJack with a rather weak attempt at humor.
The sea began to come tumbling up astern of them in long black waterrows that broke and whitened with spray now and again. The dory swungskyward and then plunged down as if bound for the bottom of the sea,as the swell nosed under her keel.
The boys exchanged serious glances. Their faces looked several shadespaler than when they had left the steamer. The fog lent a ghastlygrayish
hue to everything. The dismal quality of the weather onlyadded to their perplexity and alarm.
The Aleuts rowed steadily on without a shade of an expression on theirgreasy, yellow faces.
"Maybe they do know where they are going, after all," said Tomhopefully. "We may be ashore in a short time and laughing over ourscare."
The others did not reply and the Aleuts rowed stolidly on like twoimages as lifeless as Sandy's totem. But in spite of Tom's hopefulprophecy, there was no sign that they were approaching land andfriends. Instead, the water grew rougher, the white caps morefrequent. The boys exchanged looks of dismay. In all their lives theyhad never been in such wild waters as these.