THE STORM
The following morning was sunless. The air was still and heavy with
foreboding. Leaden-colored waters heaved under a gloomy sky and though
the sea appeared smooth to the eye the hollow roar of distant surf
sounded louder than usual. There was a strong smell of kelp and salt
brine, and a new, wild note in the cries of the gulls.
"I say," Boreland called to Kayak Bill, who was tying back the flap of
the tent in which he slept. "It looks as if there's a storm brewing.
But I never saw the sea smoother. I think, if we're quick about it, we
can get a boat-load of grub down here before she breaks. What you say,
Kayak?"
Kayak spread his legs and leaned back to take a long look at the sky,
just as Harlan came down over the hill and joined them.
"I'm yore man, Boreland," he said at last. "But we'd better be spry
about it, for it'll be Davy Jones' locker for us if we get caught in a
gale off the reefs."
A hasty breakfast over, Ellen joined the men and the four left for the
West Camp to select the most important things with which to load the
whale-boat.
Arrived at their destination they worked swiftly, Ellen making her
selection of necessities while the men skidded the boat down to the
water's edge. It was soon loaded. A small pile of lumber from
Katleean for making sluice-boxes and furniture was made into a raft to
be towed.
"About three more trips with the boat, and we'll have everything down
at the cabin," said Ellen, as she tied the flap of the tent. She had
noted that while he worked, Shane had glanced uneasily from time to
time at the grey sky. It was rapidly taking on a purple tinge, though
the sea was still as oily-smooth as it had been early in the morning.
When the last sack had been stowed away and the raft made fast to the
boat, Ellen saw Harlan call her husband aside. In a low voice she
heard him make some suggestion which Boreland dismissed with a gesture.
"Thanks, old man," he said, "but this is a job for all three of us,"
and he turned to join Ellen who was standing at the edge of the water.
"We'll be home in time for supper, El," he said, with forced
cheeriness. "Don't worry, now--mind!" And he patted her hand
reassuringly before he turned to the boat.
As she watched the craft slip away from the shore she conquered a wild
impulse to reach out and drag it back again. Shane and Harlan shoved
on their oars with long, slow strokes, as they faced the reefs that lay
between them and the open sea; Kayak Bill steered. Ellen watched them
move in and out between the protruding rocks. On the grey slope of the
sullen swells that rose and fell unbroken about them the raft in tow
shone wetly yellow. From time to time she caught glimpses of streaming
tangles of kelp which somehow suggested the floating hair of dead
women. . . .
The boat crept off-shore to get outside the most dangerous of the
reefs, and once free, Boreland, small now in the distance, looked back
to wave a hand at her. At last, having seen the craft swing and move
slowly southward on the home stretch round the Island, Ellen sighed
with relief, and turning away from the sea, started down the beach
toward the cabin.
Across the dark pall of the sky in the southwest clouds were beginning
to form in heaving sombre masses. A breeze, coming at first in
scarcely perceptible breaths, freshened almost in a moment, until the
glassy surface of the sea was wrinkled and streaked far out with black.
It was impossible to see the whaleboat now because of the barrier
reefs. Ellen's heart grew heavy with foreboding. The wind . . .
Remembering the tales of quick-rising wind and sea, she prayed that
these fitful puffs might not be the first breaths of a borning gale.
She found Jean and Loll on the beach below the house. They had felt
the danger of the coming storm and were looking out anxiously for a
first glimpse of the boat.
Only rearing waters and lowering sky bounded their vision.
The wind increased.
Silence grew upon them.
The cloud banks in the southwest separated into weird-shaped masses
which detached themselves and began to travel swift and low toward them
across the sky. Some menacing quality in this relentless, headlong
rush increased Ellen's fears, and in growing alarm she watched the tiny
white-caps that were beginning to form on the waves.
As they hurried down to the point off the bluff to command a wider view
of the waters, the wind whipped their skirts about them and tore at
their hair.
Three grey gulls flew swiftly overhead with plaintive, long-drawn cries
quite different from their usual raucous screams. In her anxiety Ellen
remembered that these wild birds of Kon Klayu had as many moods as the
sea, and were prophetic of them. Loll, holding tightly to his mother's
hand, looked up at her with grave eyes.
"Mother," he said, "Senott told me one time that sea-gulls are the
souls of little dead Indian babies and they always cry for their
mothers before a storm. Hear them now?"
Immeasurably sad and longing the bird call struck through the sound of
increasing surf. Above, the whole sky was a mass of swiftly moving
clouds. The wind increased steadily.
Another dragging hour went by with no sign of the whale-boat. With the
incoming tide the wind had risen until Ellen's heart quaked with a
great fear for the men who must row against it. Her senses tingled
with the welter of torn, tempestuous sea and clouds that seemed to
mingle and snatch at her with stinging, salt fingers. Her straining
eyes smarted from the high-flung spray of increasing combers.
Bracing against the gale, she suddenly found herself aching from the
stress of trying, by sheer will, to keep back the force of the storm.
Some pagan thing within her had endowed the elements with a godlike
personality. She caught herself praying, beseeching the sea to rise no
higher; to be kind to her loved ones tossing somewhere on its seething
bosom. Both wind and tide were against the whale-boat now, and looking
out across the rearing waters it seemed to her that no small craft
could live in such a sea.
A few drops of rain stung her face. Afar off from the southwest more
was coming. . . . She turned hopelessly from it, then almost at once
her dull misery was changed to joy.
Half a mile out a blurred, dark thing rose for an instant on the crest
of a billow. She started to point it out to Jean, but simultaneously
the rain-squall struck her, drenching, stinging, cutting off for a
moment her view of the sea. From under the grey curtain of the driving
rain combers of muddy green raced in, spouting high in wind-torn fury
against the rocks and rolling swiftly toward her to fling themselves
roaring at her. . . . Again in a lull she caught a glimpse of the boat
tossing skyward . . . dropping from sight . . . rising again and
creeping slowly, slowly onward. . . .
Hatless and coatless Boreland and Harlan were standing in the bottom of
the boat shoving on the oars with every ounce of their strength. Twice
she saw the younger man take the oars alone while her husband bailed.
Kayak Bill, rigid, watchful, sat in the stern his hand on the tiller,
ready with the instinct that comes of long experience for every motion
of the sea.
Inch by inch they battled their way around the point in the face of
flying spray and driving rain. Behind them, like a live thing tugging
on the rope the raft rose and fell on the combs of the dark swells.
Pathetic and tear-compelling was the courage of these three men pitting
their puny strength against the pitiless violence of the elements.
Once the little boat seemed to stand still a long time, swashing up and
down in the hollows of the waves, while over it the chop of the sea
splashed in spiteful fury. . . . At last it advanced again slowly and
Kayak swung broadside, turning in towards the beach on which the
anxious woman stood.
A gust of wind caught viciously at the tarpaulin spread over provisions
in the stern. It carried its fluttering blackness straight back into
the white and green of a giant comber directly behind. The onrushing
breaker reared its cruel head . . . then just as another rain-squall
broke, hiding it from view, it curled down swift, terrifying, and the
whale-boat disappeared in its foaming maw. . . .
With a cry of despair Ellen rushed to the very edge of the surf,
straining her eyes over the wild sea. Had the force of the breaker
swept everyone from the whale-boat? Had the canvas stretched tightly
over the provisions been sufficient to keep the water from filling and
swamping the boat? Would the violence of the tide and wind bring them
in if--if--Kayak Bill had not been torn from his post? Suddenly she
knew that on Kayak depended everything: Kayak Bill who had once been a
pilot at surf-bound Yakataga; Kayak Bill who had run the raging bars of
the delta-mouthed Copper River. Would he be equal to the surf of Kon
Klayu? Could he keep his hold on the tiller? . . . Oh, if the
rain-curtain would only lift! If she could but see out there in that
foaming, roaring swelter of water!
She dashed a hand across her face tearing aside the wet hair that
flattened itself against her eyes. . . . The squall was letting
up. . . . She could see now, but there was nothing--nothing but
breakers. . . . A sob tore itself from her throat. She started to
turn away. Then dimly, she saw. . . .
Low in the water, veiled by flying white-caps, they came--Boreland and
Harlan bailing desperately, and in the stern Kayak Bill, his hand still
on the tiller, keeping the oarless boat steady a-top the swift, rushing
wave that was sweeping them on to the beach!
With outstretched, welcoming arms Ellen waded out into the foam of the
spent breaker that grounded the whale-boat almost at her feet. . . .
That evening the adventurers sat in the warmth of the crowded cabin
living over again the events of the day. Every available corner was
piled high with the wet provisions that had been unloaded from the
whale-boat that afternoon, but contrasted with the gale outside the
place was satisfyingly snug and comfortable. Still lingered the savory
aroma of the duck mulligan that had been their supper. In the Yukon
stove the fire roared and crackled as if in defiance of the terrific
blasts that shook the cabin. The sense of kinship that comes to those
who have fought their way together through some great danger was strong
upon them all tonight.
"Holy Mackinaw, boys!"--Boreland emphasized his remarks with the stem
of his pipe--"I wouldn't have given a hoot in Hades for our chances
when that wave broke! Thought it was all day with us then. Kayak,
Harlan, a fellow never realized what small potatoes he is until he
looks _up_ from the hollow of a wave!" He stretched his long arms
comfortably and laughed. "But . . . after you've been up against a
proposition like that, and come through, it certainly makes a man feel
like a _man_!"
"It certainly does, Skipper!" Harlan's eyes glowed. He appeared more
alive than at any other time since his landing, beginning to
understand, evidently, something of the hard freedom of the North, for
which men must either fight or die.
Of the three men Kayak Bill alone had been silent concerning his
sensations. Ellen thought that the praise of the others had smitten
him with a strange shyness. Loll was sitting astride the old man's
knees, questioning him about that moment when the giant breaker had
engulfed the boat.
Determined on an answer, the boy was urging for the fifth time:
"But, Kayak, what did _you_ feel like?"
"Wall, son,"--Kayak's hazel eyes twinkled--"I just couldn't' figger out
for a minute whether I was a clam . . . or a pond-lily."
In the laugh that followed Harlan took up a roll of blankets and went
into the other room. There was no thought of his crossing the Island
tonight. Kayak Bill's tent had blown down during the afternoon and he
was, as he put it, "forced to seek better anchorage." He and Harlan
were to spread a bed on the floor of the adjoining room.
Kobuk, with appealing whines and tentative pawings at the door, had
finally won an entrance and was curled up in front of the stove. Just
before supper Shane had come in lugging the pigeon's cage, which he
placed carefully on top of a tall packing box. Ellen felt the bird's
presence in a way that was beginning to trouble her. Tonight it seemed
to wear a sullen and dejected look, unlike its usual bold air. All
evening it had sat motionless in the bottom of the cage. The only sign
of life it displayed was in the deep orange pupils of its eyes which,
she was sure, followed her about wherever she went.
She forced herself to look away from the cage. A hush had fallen on
those in the room. The shrieking of rising wind challenged attention.
Ellen listened with a feeling strangely compounded of delight and
terror. Never before had she known such a wind. It swept down on the
roof of the cabin in woolies, threatening to blow it in, and then
seemingly sucking it out again. The log walls quivered. Every joist,
and board creaked and strained. The box on which the lamp stood
vibrated, and the flat yellow flame flickered. The air reverberated to
the thunder of surf that crashed against the hundred reefs on Kon
Klayu. Ellen had a feeling that the little Island trembled in the
splendid abandon of wind and sea--trembled, yet exulted in the freedom
of the elements. She found herself paradoxically fearing, yet hoping
that the next blast of the gale might be heavier.
Harlan had finished spreading the blankets in the other room.
"Skipper," he said, "I've been wondering how the whale-boat is. Before
we turn in I think I'll go down and see that we made the old girl
fast." He took up his oilskins from the floor and slipped into them.
When the door had closed behind him, Kayak Bill looked at Boreland and
nodded.
"I make affirmation," he drawled, "that there's a paystreak in any man
who looks first after his hoss--or his boat."
While the significance of the old man's remark was dawning on Ellen,
there was an odd lull in the storm. Surprisingly a new sound came to
them. It was a sound blown from the south cliffs; a sound that was,
yet was not of the storm; a hollow reverberating roll that was deep and
mellow, thrilling and strange. Boreland and Kayak rose simultaneously
and looked questioningly into each other's eyes.
"What--" Boreland's words were cut off by the flinging open of the
door. White-faced and dripping Harlan staggered in, slamming it to
shut out the driving rain. He leaned heavily against it.
"God--Skipper," he gasped. "The whale-boat-- It's gone!"
At that moment, like a happening in a sinister dream, Ellen was aware
that the pigeon perched high on the packing-box, had suddenly come to
life. It was flapping its wings diabolically, exultingly.