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 she
was proceeding slowly. Wondering what could be the cause of the
reduced speed and the constant raucous bellowing of the whistle, they
hustled into their clothes and met each other on deck.
It was at once apparent what was the matter. Thick, steamy sea-fog
enveloped the ship. Through a fleece of blanket-like vapor, she was
forging ahead at a snail's pace. The boys made their way to the
bridge. There they found their elders in anxious consultation. And
there, too, the blowing of the whistle was explained to them. It was
not, as they had at first thought, for fear of encountering other
vessels that the big siren was kept incessantly roaring its hoarse
warning.
The whistle was sounding to enable the captain to get his bearings in
the dense smother. Sea captains along the part of the coast where they
were now steaming, keep their whistles going in thick weather so as to
catch the sound of an echo. When they hear one reverberating back
through the fog, they know that they are in dangerous proximity to the
cliffy, rockbound coast, and keep outward toward the open sea.
"Where are we?" was naturally the first thing that the boys wanted to
know.
"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," rejoined
Jack, 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 Harbor
soon after breakfast," rejoined the captain, squinting at the compass
and giving a brief direction to the man at the wheel.
Sure enough, after breakfast the anchor was let go with a rattle and
roar and the _Northerner_ came to a standstill. The whistle was blown
in impatient short toots as a signal to the pilot to come off, if, as
the captain was certain, they were really near the harbor mouth. Mr.
Dacre was anxious to go ashore, as he had some friends living in the
Alaskan town whom he had not seen for many years.
At last, out of the fog came the sound of oars, and then came a rough
voice 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," rejoined
the 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 the
whistle cord sharply so as to give the pilot his bearings.
In a few minutes a big, capable-looking dory, manned by two Aleuts
appeared alongside. In the stern sat a grizzled, red-faced man in
oilskins. 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. "If
you 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. "He
has some goods to give to some friends of his, Mr. Beattie and his
brother. How long before this fog is likely to lift?"
"Can't say," was the noncommittal reply; "it may last a week. But
tell you what you do. The Beatties are good friends of mine. I'll take
your man ashore if you like."
But here arose a question about carrying the goods which Mr. Dacre had
for his friends, who were storekeepers, and which he had brought up
freight free. The question was finally decided in this way: A ship's
boat 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 them
overside. Then the boys scrambled down and took their places in the
dory, while the natives, with grinning faces, stared at them.
Bill Rainier roared something at the Aleuts in their native tongue and
off glided the dory into the fog, bearing three happy, excited boys as
cargo.
Mr. Dacre, busy superintending the work of getting the goods
transferred, 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. Those
Aleuts know the way as well as I do."
"Just the same, I wish they had waited for us," said Mr. Dacre with a
slight frown.
"Oh, they'll be waiting for us when we get there," declared Bill
confidently, and no more was said.
But when the steamer's boat reached the dock, no dory was there. Nor
had any of the loungers hanging about seen one.
"Maybe they've got into another channel and gone down Wolf Island
way," 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, who
knew the facts in the case.
"I'd suggest we get up to the store with these goods," said Bill, "and
by the time we're through that dory'll be here."
"But it should have reached here long ago," said Mr. Dacre. "I tell
you, 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 lips
compressed, staring out into the blanket of fog without exchanging
speech.
In the meantime, the dory was being rowed through the fog by the two
stolid natives without the boys suspecting in the least that anything
was wrong. As a matter of fact, the two natives, for reasons apparent
to those who know the native Aleut, had decided to take a short cut
through a passage behind Wolf Island. But the fog had shut in thicker
now and they were not at all sure of their bearings, skilled boatmen
though they were. They rowed stolidly on and on through the dripping
mist without speaking.
Tom was the first to notice that, although they had been rowing for an
hour or more, the dory was still rolling on the heavy swells of the
open sea. Suspecting that something was amiss, he signaled to the men
to 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 and
sigh of the waves as they swept under her. Listen as they would, they
could hear no other sound from any quarter.
"I don't like the appearance of things much," said Tom in reply to a
question 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 know
their business, we ought to be there by now."
"That's evident. How silent it all is," said Jack in a rather
awestruck voice. "Surely if we were near the town even, we would be
able to hear something."
"Just what I was thinking, more particularly as fog exaggerates
sound," responded Tom. "What makes it worse, too, is that the steamer
has 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 the
natives, they only grinned and shook their heads. But at last they
fell to their oars again.
"They don't know where they're going, but they're on the way," said
Jack with a rather weak attempt at humor.
The sea began to come tumbling up astern of them in long black water
rows that broke and whitened with spray now and again. The dory swung
skyward 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 shades
paler than when they had left the steamer. The fog lent a ghastly
grayish hue to everything. The dismal quality of the weather only
added to their perplexity and alarm.
The Aleuts rowed steadily on without a shade of an expression on their
greasy, yellow faces.
"Maybe they do know where they are going, after all," said Tom
hopefully. "We may be ashore in a short time and laughing over our
scare."
The others did not reply and the Aleuts rowed stolidly on like two
images as lifeless as Sandy's totem. But in spite of Tom's hopeful
prophecy, there was no sign that they were approaching land and
friends. Instead, the water grew rougher, the white caps more
frequent. The boys exchanged looks of dismay. In all their lives they
had never been in such wild waters as these.