CHAPTER XVI.
UNCERTAINTY.
"Run! Run for your lives! Run!"
Tom panted out the words as he pointed behind them. The others sawalmost as soon as he, and quickened their pace, though they had beenrunning almost at their top speed before. There was a reason for Tom'sthus urging them to hurry, although they had a good start of thebears. The tide, as he had seen, was low. The dory lay at somedistance from the water.
That the craft was a heavy one he knew, and it was likely that itmight take some time for them to get her to the water's edge. In thecircumstances even a brief delay was a thing to be avoided, and it wasimportant that they should gain every second that they could.
They reached the boat and seized hold of her on either side. Butalthough the beach was hard and sloping, it was terribly slow work todrag the heavy craft along.
Tom spied some dead limbs lying below a cottonwood tree and they usedthese as rollers, after which their progress was swifter. But just asthey reached the water's edge the bears were upon them. One good shoveand they were knee deep in the water.
"She's afloat!" cried Jack gleefully.
He sprang into the boat. Sandy was not a minute behind him. But Tom'sfoot caught on a boulder as he shoved off the bow, and he fellheadlong into the water. As he fell, he was conscious of a hot breathand a deafening roar almost in his very ear. Then he heard somethingcrash downward with a dull thud, followed by a scream of pain.
The next instant Jack had him in a strong grip and pulled him on boardthe dory. Sandy plied the oars furiously. In a few moments more theywere out of danger and Jack was telling Tom how, just as the big bearprepared to seize him, following his unlucky stumble, it had come intohis, Jack's, head like a flash of inspiration that in the grapple thatlay in the bottom of the boat was a weapon that could be utilizedagainst the monster.
He had snatched it up and whirled it around his head for an instant,and then let the weighty mud-hook, with its sharp points, comecrashing down on the bear's head. One of the points had wounded thecreature too badly for it to give its attention to anything but agaping cut for the next few seconds, during which the dory had beenrowed far out of reach of the big bears of Kadiak with which the boyshad had such a thrilling encounter.
"Well, where away?" asked Sandy, as they gazed back at the shore.
On the beach stood the three bears, while beyond them the smoke ofthe fire they had kindled towered high into the sky in a waveringpillar.
He let the weighty mud-hook ... come crashing down onthe bear's head.--_Page 154._]
"We'll pull right along the shore," decided Tom after a moment'sthought, "we may fall in with some ship, or at any rate a nativecanoe."
Accordingly the oars were manned and the dory rowed along the coast,while the boys all kept a sharp lookout to seaward for any sign of avessel.
"There's one good thing," said Tom presently; "the smoke from thatfire would attract the attention of anyone who might be in theneighborhood and lead them to make inquiries."
"Yes, but there's not a vessel in sight," objected Jack.
"Never mind. That smoke must be visible at a great distance. I don'tdoubt that the _Northerner_ is out hunting for us and they would notbe likely to neglect such a clue as that smoke column will afford."
"I think you're right there," agreed Jack, "but they may have startedthe search in another direction."
"That is a chance we shall have to take."
The brief darkness of the Alaskan night fell without a single sign ofa ship being detected on the lonely ocean. Thoroughly disheartened,hungry and half crazy from thirst, the boys rowed on till Tom orderedJack and Sandy to take some sleep. They obeyed and were soon wrappedin deep slumber. Tom allowed the dory to drift. Rowing only increasedhis thirst, and in any event could not accomplish much good.
They would have rowed ashore long before and searched for water, butthe land off to their right was a frowning escarpment of rugged cliffwhich offered no hope of water. The boy found himself wishing thatthey had had the foresight to stock up the dory in case of theirleaving the cove hurriedly; but it was too late for such regrets now.
Tom caught himself dropping off to sleep. He dozed half awake andhalf in the land of nod for some time. How long it was he did notknow, but he was suddenly awakened by a harsh shout that appeared tocome from the air above him.
"Hard over your helm! It's a boat!"
"Where away!"
"Right under our bow! Sheer off! Hard over!"
Tom sprang to his feet, broad awake in an instant. Right above, likean immense black cliff, towered the bow of a steamer. He could see thebright running lights shining like jewels.
"Jack! Sandy!" he bawled out. "Get up! They'll run us down!"
The huge black bulk of the strange craft did, indeed, appear as if itmust inevitably cut the drifting dory in two. But the outcry of thebow watch had come in time. Just as Jack and Sandy sprang up and Tomwas thinking that everything was over, the great bow swung off. Thesteamer rushed by so close that Tom could almost have touched her withhis hand.
"Ahoy!" roared a voice from the bridge. "What boat is that?"
"It's a native canoe," came another voice.
"Not on your life it isn't," yelled Tom. "This is an unofficialexploring expedition and----"
"Tom Dacre!" bellowed a voice from the bridge.
"Ahoy, uncle!" hailed back Tom, who had caught the word _Northerner_on the steamer's bow as she was swinging by.
"Tom, is it you? Are you all right?"
There was a ring in Mr. Dacre's tone that showed how he had sufferedsince the strange disappearance of his nephews and their chum.
"We never were better in our lives," cried Tom, deftly catching a ropethat came snaking down as the steamer's speed diminished. "But how inthe world did you come to run across us? Talk about a needle in ahaystack!"
"Never mind the details now, my boy. Come on board at once. I canhardly wait till I see you."
Not many minutes later, in the comfortable cabin of the _Northerner_,Tom, Jack and Sandy, ragged and begrimed, were telling, betweenintervals of eating and drinking, the tale of their strange adventuressince they were lost in the fog. When they had concluded the tale, Tominquired of his uncle how it was that he had so miraculously foundthem.
"If you hadn't almost run us down we'd never have seen you," Tomcontinued, "for I was too sleepy to keep my eyes open."
Mr. Dacre's story was soon told. The two Aleuts who had apparentlydeserted the boys had really come back from the village with food.They were terrified when they found the boys and the dory gone, forthey knew that it was time for the daily tide-bore to sweep throughthe straits. Getting a native canoe, they made their way to Kadiak,sought out Mr. Dacre and told him what had happened. The _Northerner_was at once put in commission for the hunt, although Mr. Dacreconfessed that he had had a dreadful fear, not unshared by Mr.Chillingworth and the captain, that the boys had been caught in thetidal bore and lost.
From the captain's knowledge of the coast, they had been able to makea fairly intelligent search. Just before the brief darkness closed inthat night they had made out a column of smoke rising on the horizon,and more as a forlorn hope than anything else, had made toward it,hoping against hope that it had been kindled by the young castaways.
"And so it was," laughed Tom happily, his hand finding his uncle's."After all, maybe those bears were a blessing in disguise. If ithadn't been for them, we wouldn't have lighted that fire, and if ithadn't been for the fire, you'd like as not never have found us."
The Bungalow Boys Along the Yukon Page 16
