CHASED BY A REVENUE-CUTTER
As Phil picked himself up from the cabin floor, his whole frame
ablaze with anger, he muttered through his clinched teeth, “If that
brute thinks I am going to stay down here like a rat in a hole, he is
mightily mistaken, that’s all.”
Then, with a boldness born of his bitter feelings, he made his way
through the narrow passage into the galley, out through it to the
deck, and walking deliberately aft, assumed his former position. Now,
however, he keenly watched Captain Duff’s every movement, feeling
certain that the latter was too great a coward to strike him while he
was on guard.
The captain glared savagely at the only member of his crew who dared
to openly defy him, but seemed uncertain how to act. Perhaps it was
fortunate for both of them that in this emergency their attention was
directed from each other by a third shot from the cutter. This time
the range was so perfect that the hurtling missile passed through the
schooner’s main-topsail, in which it tore a jagged hole.
Although this being made a target for cannon-balls was a thrillingly
novel sensation to our young hunter, his state of mind was such that it
caused him neither fear nor anxiety. After standing still a minute or
so longer, he walked slowly forward to find Serge, and ask him how he
was enjoying the experience.
Ere the cutter could fire another shot darkness had so set in that
neither vessel was visible from the other, and only a red glow at the
top of her funnel marked the pursuer’s position.
Little by little Captain Duff altered his course by hugging the wind a
trifle more closely, until at length even the glow above the cutter’s
funnel was no longer to be seen, nor the beat of her screw heard. Then
the red-faced master of the _Seamew_, realizing that he had escaped the
clutches of the law, gave a hoarse chuckle of satisfaction.
Phil found Serge quite as indifferent to the result of the chase as
himself, though somewhat more nervous concerning the shots, and much
relieved when he found there were to be no more. When, an hour later,
supper was served aboard the schooner, the lads ate theirs together
on deck. Then when Serge was relieved from watch, Phil crept into the
narrow forecastle bunk with him, and they shared it together for the
rest of the night.
While our lad was not willing to trust himself within reach of Captain
Duff’s arm during the hours of darkness, he was so ready to defy him by
daylight that in the morning he returned to the cabin for breakfast,
during which meal both he and his table companions, including the
captain, preserved an unbroken silence.
The schooner, having been kept under full sail all night, was felt by
all hands to have placed many miles of safety between herself and her
pursuer by sunrise, or at least by the time the sun was supposed to
have risen beyond the dense fog-bank in which the _Seamew_ was again
enveloped. So confident was Captain Duff that he was beyond his enemy’s
reach that, his cupidity being aroused by the sight of a sleeping seal,
he determined to have one more day of slaughter before leaving those
waters. He therefore ordered out the boats, and charged the hunters to
do their best, as this would be their last chance of that season to
make any money by seal-killing.
To the amazement and consternation of the entire crew, the youngest of
the hunters, boldly facing the bully, of whom they stood so greatly in
awe, refused point-blank to fire a shot at a seal.
“I said last evening, when I discovered the crime of which I had been
guilty, that I would never shoot another seal, and I never will,” said
Phil, with all the decision of which his voice was capable.
“Mr. Coombs,” said the captain, in the blandest of tones, stepping to
the rail and addressing the mate, who had already entered his boat,
“will you oblige me by passing up that water-breaker? Thank you. And
that bag of biscuit, if you please? Now, ye mutinous young swab!” he
roared, turning to Phil with an abrupt change of voice and manner, “get
into that boat, quick! afore I throw ye in!”
“Certainly, sir, I will get into the boat, for I do not intend to be
mutinous, but I have promised myself not to shoot any more seals, and I
cannot break a promise.”
“Humph!” growled Captain Duff, “we’ll see what your promises amount to.
There is neither food nor water in your boat, and I’ll see that neither
you nor those with you get a mouthful of either till ye bring back a
load of seals or their skins. You may choose to make your companions
suffer for your fool notions, but I rather guess they’ll find a way to
make you change your mind. Shove off!”
When the schooner was lost to sight in the fog, Serge rested on his
oars, and turning to his friend, asked, “Do you mean to stick it out,
Phil?”
“I certainly do not intend to shoot a seal this day,” was the quiet
reply.
“Well, then, though I can’t exactly understand your feelings in this
matter, I’ll see you through with it, and stand by you to the end, and
here’s my hand on it.”
“Thank you, old fellow!” and with the warm handclasp that passed
between the two lads the young hunter felt that his cause was won.
“Is it a clear case of conscience with ye, lad?” inquired the mate.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Then ye can count me on your side too; for, as old Kite Roberson uster
say, ‘any man as’ll go back on his conscience ain’t no right to call
hisself a man,’ and them’s likewise my sentiments.”
In the meantime seals were gambolling about the boat on all sides, and
gazing fearlessly at them from the wave crests raised by a rapidly
freshening breeze, while the distant sounds of rapid firing told of the
work being performed by the other hunters. The occupants of the mate’s
boat talked in low tones of their situation and its possible results,
while their craft drifted with the wind for nearly an hour.
Suddenly Jalap Coombs lifted his hand for silence, and listened
intently for a moment. Then he said, “There’s a screw-steamer bearing
down on us, and she’s not far away.”
The commanding officer of the United States revenue-cutter _Phoca_ was
a far shrewder man than Captain Duff had given him credit for being.
Although he had been disappointed at not overhauling the _Seamew_
before darkness hid her from view, he by no means gave up all hope of
capturing the saucy schooner, cleverly as she had escaped him for the
time being. Watching her through a powerful glass, long after she was
lost to the unaided vision, he noted that she was gradually hauling
on the wind, and shaped his own course accordingly. Shortly before
daylight he stopped his engines, and set a dozen pair of the keenest
ears among his crew to listening for any sounds that might come over
the fog-obscured waters. He, too, heard the splashing of frolicking
seals, and wisely concluded that a skipper who was so anxious to secure
a few skins as to be willing to run the risk of hunting them in Bering
Sea would, in his present state of fancied security, try for a few more
before leaving it for good. Not long after this the correctness of
his judgment was proved by the sound of shots borne faintly down the
wind through the heavy air. Quickly was the _Phoca_ got under way, and
stealthily, like the white ghost of a ship, she sped through the mist
in the direction of the shots.
“We’ll pick up the hunting-boats and their crews first,” said the
commander to his first-lieutenant. “Then Mr. Skipper will find himself
too short-handed to make sail in a hurry, and I rather guess that, like
Davy Crockett’s coon, he will conclude to come down.”
The plan worked so well that in less than an hour from that time
Captain Duff, Ike Croly, Oro Dunn, and the rest of the _Seamew’s_
company found themselves prisoners on board the revenue-cutter _Phoca_,
while their own craft was in charge of a prize-crew of bluejackets
detailed for that duty.
In the excitement attending this capture, and the hurried transfer of
crews, the fact that a boat containing the schooner’s mate and two
others was missing was entirely overlooked until the vessels were again
under way. Then, though guns were fired, and several hours were spent
in search for the lost boat, no trace of it was found. In the meantime
the wind freshened so rapidly into a gale that finally, fearful for
the safety of the craft in his charge, with the rugged rocks of the
Aleutian Islands under their lee, the commander gave the reluctant
order to run for a pass, and the open waters of the Pacific.
Thus it happened that the boat in whose occupants we are most
interested was left tossing alone on the storm-lashed waters of that
desolate sea. Although its crew were thus placed in a most unpleasant
and even dangerous position, it was one for which they had only
themselves to blame. So close had the _Phoca_ passed to them that they
might easily have hailed her and been picked up, had they chosen to do
so. Instead of this they kept perfectly quiet, or only conversed in low
tones, and congratulated each other that, owing to Phil’s firmness,
no shots by which their presence would have been betrayed had been
fired from their boat that morning. Their reason for this action was
that they were unanimous in desiring to escape capture――Jalap Coombs,
because he had no liking for an imprisonment, or at least a long
residence on shore in enforced idleness; Phil, because his heart was
set on reaching Sitka as soon as possible, and he fancied the captured
schooner would be taken to Seattle or San Francisco; and Serge on
the general theory that it is a bad thing to be captured under any
circumstances.
Besides, when by the sounds that came over the sea the mate felt
assured that the _Seamew_ had been taken, he proposed a plan which
seemed so feasible that both lads readily agreed to it.