Part 42

Week after week, hour after hour, and, as it seemed, almost inch by inch, the cutter crawled on around the wild coast of Kadiak, tapping each arm and inlet, literally combing out the full extent of the broken shore-line. So gradually they passed below the southern extremity of the island, worked up from the southeast, and one day came to anchor not far from the native settlement known as Old Harbor. Here a breakdown to their machinery kept them waiting for ten days. Meantime, the boat crews were out at their work. One day a young lieutenant came in and with some excitement asked to see the captain.

"I have to report, sir, that I think we've got word of those boys!" he said, eagerly, as he saluted.

"How's that? Where? Go on, sir!"

"There's a big boat party back from Kaludiak Bay, sir. They were in there on a whale-hunt several weeks ago. They saw a camp with three white boys and one refugee Aleut."

"Arrest every man Jack of them and bring them in!" roared Captain Stephens.

"Already done that, sir!" reported the lieutenant. "They are in the long-boat alongside."

"Then bring them here at once!"

A few moments later he and Mr. Hazlett found the deck crowded with a score of much-frightened natives.

"Who's the interpreter here?" commanded the captain.

A squaw-man who for some years had lived with the natives was pushed forward. He was none too happy himself, for he expected nothing better than intimate questions regarding certain wrecking operations which for years past had gone on along this part of the coast.

"Now tell me," began Captain Stephens, "what do you know about those boys over there? Why didn't these people bring out word to the settlement? What are you looking for here? Do you want me to blow your village off the rocks? Come, now, speak up, my good fellow, or you'll mighty well wish you had!"

Suddenly Mr. Hazlett uttered an exclamation and sprang toward one of the natives who carried a rifle in his hand.

"That gun belonged to Jesse, the son of my neighbor Wilcox at Valdez!" he exclaimed. "Tell me where you got it, and how!"

As may be supposed, it was the Aleut chief whom he addressed, and the latter now engaged in a very anxious attempt at explanation. He declared at first that the boys had given him this rifle as a present; then he admitted that he had promised to take a message up to Kadiak, going on to say that he had intended to do this, but that his wife had been sick, that he had been kept at the village by many things, etc.

"He's an old liar, without doubt," said Captain Stephens. "Half of this band of natives down here are afraid to come to Kadiak because of the debts they owe the company store. They are wreckers, renegades, and thieves down here, and you can't believe a word of them. I've half a mind to hang the lot of them at the yard-arm, and good riddance of them at that!"

The old chief understood something of what was going on, and now began to beg and blubber.

"Me good mans!" he repeated, beating on his chest.

"He says that he's got a boy of his own over there with the others in Kaludiak Bay. He's got a message written out by the boys, but the truth is he was afraid to go to town with it. Says the renegade Aleut over there was a good hunter, but a dangerous man--he stole their sacred whale harpoon here and made away with it--"

"But the message!" insisted Mr. Hazlett.

So at last the old chief fumbled in his jacket, and pulled out a soiled and crumpled paper nearly worn in bits. Enough of it at least remained to show the searchers that when it was written the boys were all alive and well, and were expecting help.

"The old fellow says he was expecting to take the paper up to town sometime this fall," went on the interpreter. "Says the boys had plenty to eat--fish and birds, and they had killed three bears--"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Captain Stephens.

"Yes, says they had killed an old she bear and two cubs, and had the hides hung up--says the Aleut man had run away when they left--says they all killed a whale before they left, and left the boys as well fixed as they are here in this village. He can't understand why you should be anxious about them, when his own boy is over there, too. Says he can take you over there all right if you want to go."

"The little beggars!" said Mr. Hazlett, smiling for the first time in weeks. "We may get them yet."

"Get them? Of course we will!" growled Captain Stephens. "We'll have them aboard by this time to-morrow. Their camp isn't more than seventy-five miles from here at most."

The whistle of the Bennington once more roared out, and with the rattle of her anchor chains again the cutter pushed on up the coast, carrying with her, without asking their consent, the entire party of natives, who now fell flat on the deck in terror, supposing that they were being carried off to the white man's punishment for native misdeeds.

XXXII

THE DESERTED CAMP