Chapter IV: Part 4

Donegal laughed softly. "A hare," said he. "She would come an' sit on the turf-wall winking--impudent at me, an' with one of the guns that was out in '98 in the cabin, what would anny man of intilligince do? She was a good gun if ye gave her time and had something sthrong to lean her on, but the magistrate--an' me owing him tin pound rint--did not agree with me. There was no Ground Game Act thin, an' ye tuck the chances when ye went shooting in my counthry. Would ye be finding the lads another loaf--one is no use to them--Brulee, and now Mainsail Haul, was it the mate or the skipper who did not agree with ye?"

Appleby realized that speech was direct here and he must hold his own. "I fancy you all know how I came here, by this time, as well as I do," he said, glancing towards Stickine. "That man was about the cabin when I told my story--and they bring you a joint when you're through with your second course in the old country."

"Hear him!" said Donegal. "Sure now, for a sailorman, 'tis Stickine that romances tremenjous, an' he told us the other one was an earl's son from the old country. 'Turn the _Champlain_ round and put me ashore--at once. What's the value of ten schooners to the father av me?' says he."

Niven looked somewhat foolish, but Appleby laughed. "Well, there was an Emperor's relative who went to sea in a merchant ship not very long ago," he said.

Donegal shook his head solemnly. "The man was mad. All thim royal families but our one is," he said.

"In the meanwhile I'd like to know a little more about where we're going and what we're going to do, now I'm one of you," said Niven. "You see, I couldn't ask the skipper too many questions."

"'Tis his condescending modesty," said Donegal. "'One of you,' says he! Sure, 'tis ten years it would take to make a man of ye, an' it takes ten more to make a man into a sealer. Stickine, will ye enlighten the son av the ducal earl?"

Niven fidgeted, for he realized that education is not everything, and that even in speech he had not shown himself the seaman's equal; but Stickine tapped on the table. "It works out like this," he said; "we're going to hear the bear growl, and the eagle scream, and if it's a white-flag gunboat, put a pinch of salt right on the beaver's tail."

"Russia," said Niven, "and America, the beaver's Canada, but what have the gunboats to do with the seals?"

"Sure," said Donegal, "'tis plain they did not teach ye very much at school. Now, the seal, ye will observe, lives most of his time where no man can get at him in the lonely sea, but wanst in the year he crawls out on the rocks of St. Paul and St. George, up in the Behring Sea, and when it is not convenient for ye to find him there ye may call at one or two reefs in Russian water or the Copper Islands."

"Well," said Niven, "where do the warships come in?"

"'Tis patient as well as modest ye are," said the sealer. "Now, 'tis not discreet of a youngster to hurry a grown man, an' that they would have taught ye wid the thick end of a gun whin ye were in the marines!"

"I was never in the marines," said Niven a trifle hotly, and Donegal sighed.

"Sure," he said, "'tis a pity, but I will prolong the discussion. Now, by the laws of the three nations ye may kill the seals at sea, though they will not help ye to find them, that being left--with other things--to the sealerman's devices, an' the sea, ye will remember, is not the sea until it's more than three miles from land."

"That's a little mixed," said Appleby, glancing at the rest of the company.

"No," said Donegal. "'Tis reason. When you are inside the three miles you are in Russia, America, or Canada, because that's just how far a big gun could blow the head off ye."

"There was once an American who figured it was ten," said Stickine dryly.

"Fighting Bob!" said somebody, and there was a hoarse guffaw, during which Donegal said quietly, "An' the lashings of dollars it cost him."

"Now, 'tis strictly prohibited to any one but the American company that rints them Pribyloff islands to kill the seals on land, an' if ye come too close on others I could tell of the Russians are not kind to ye. There was wanst a fifty-year-old schooner came home manned by starving men, an' they'd ate the last tail of the rats aboard her. 'Twas that or Siberia with them, but Stickine will tell ye the tale again."

"Then where do you catch the seals?" asked Appleby.

There was a little quiet laughter, and Donegal shook his head. "Asleep anywhere eight and ten miles out at sea, as 'tis entered in the logbook," he said. "Still, ye may discover that under circumstances unconthrollable the sealerman kills the holluschackie--where he can."

Appleby, glancing at the men's bronzed faces, fancied that their merriment was a trifle grim, but a voice came down through the hatch just then--

"If you are quite through with your talking you might come up and get more sail on her."

They went up in a body, for though Appleby had noticed already that discipline was not especially evident on board the _Champlain_ he was also to discover that nobody loitered when there was work on hand. The lads followed, and the first thing that occurred to them was that the schooner was ridiculously small. After the great length and height of the _Aldebaran_ she seemed a toy ship with two dainty little masts. Still, Appleby saw that they were tall for her length and made of the beautiful figured redwood which affords the maximum of strength. Her bowsprit was tilted high to lift the men who crawled out on it above the icy seas, and the great boom along her mainsail's foot ran out at least a fathom beyond her stern. Then he began to notice her slenderness forward in spite of the breadth of the beam that gave her stability to carry a press of sail, and the lift of the deck towards the bows which the rail carried higher in a bold curve that would keep her dry when she thrashed to windward. Between the masts stood a nest of boats packed one inside the other with their thwarts lifted out, and Niven wondered what so small a vessel did with so many. It was evident she did not carry them as a precaution, for he could see that everything about her suggested strength and safety.

About the boats stood a few Siwash Indians, squat, broad-shouldered men dressed in jean and canvas, and looking, except for their brown colour, very much like the rest of the crew. They were, it seemed, by no means savages, but again Appleby wondered, for they were doing nothing, and the _Champlain_ carried almost men enough to work an English merchant ship. Aft with half his lean height showing above the deckhouse skipper Jordan stood swaying at the wheel, and he swung one hand up when he saw the lads.

"Feeling quite pert this morning?" he said when they came aft. "Well, you can go up and loose the fore-topsail."

Though this was not the kind of order the lads had been used to they went forward, and felt that the skipper's eyes were on them when they stopped abreast of the foremast. There were no rattlings on the _Champlain's_ shrouds, and Appleby was wondering how they were to get aloft when Niven pointed to the hoops the big foresail was bound to which ran like a ladder up the mast.

"I fancy those would do?" he said.

They went up, and it was an easy matter to loose the little three-cornered topsail which stretched when set from the masthead to the end of the gaff. Then they stood still a moment or two perched high on the cross-trees looking down on the slender strip of hull and the white-topped sea. The _Champlain_ was swinging over it, and the foam that roared off from her bows and swept away down the white wake showed the pace at which she was travelling. Niven drew in a deep breath of contentment as he swung in a wide sweep to and fro, the blue of the sky above him and the blue and white of the sea below.

"I'm not sorry the _Aldebaran's_ at Port Parry, and we're here," he said. "She's a beauty, and they feed you well, while I never fancied anything twice her size could tear along like this."

"Hallo! Going to sleep up there?" said somebody, and Appleby glancing down saw a little twinkle in the eyes of Stickine.

"Topsail's all clear for hoisting, sir," he said, and one or two of those about the big man laughed. "What's the quickest way of getting down, Chriss?"

Niven stooped and grasped a rope. "Topsail tack, I think. It should do," he said.

In another second the rope was rasping between his ankles and through his hands, then it yielded suddenly and he fell at least a fathom with Appleby's feet just above his head. It held again, however, and he slid to the deck, while the rest were setting the big maintopsail with a yard along the head of it when he went aft. The skipper glanced at him a moment, and then turned to the men.

"We'll goosewing her, boys. Get your boom foresail over," he said.

He span the wheel a trifle, the long narrow foresail lurched across, and when it swung outboard on the opposite side the _Champlain_ lifted her head a little and the foam that lapped higher swept almost to her quarter-rail.

"She's flying," said Niven. "Going like a train."

Then he felt that the skipper was watching him, and wondered whether he had done anything unfitting when he saw his little, dry smile.

"It was a straight tale you told me--most of it. Stick to that kind of talk," he said.

Niven flushed a trifle, and was about to answer when Appleby kicked him, and he said, "Yes, sir," instead.

Jordan nodded. "Rich men's sons don't go to sea," he said. "Well, now, there's a thing you can remember. Never swing yourself down by anything until you know just what it is and what it's made fast to. We've no use for show tricks on board this packet, and I figure the cook will find something you can do."

They went forward, Appleby grinning, Niven somewhat flushed, and it was that night before they quite understood the skipper's meaning. The wind had fallen and the sky was hazy when they sat talking on the forehatch. Donegal leaned upon the rail not far from them, Stickine swung black against the dimness at the wheel, and the _Champlain_ was sliding slowly north, a vague moving shadow across the great emptiness. It seemed to Appleby that he could feel the sea as he had never done on board the _Aldebaran_. It was so close beneath him, and life and zest of it throbbed through everything he touched. Niven, however, was looking at the sealer.

"You were aft when the skipper spoke to us, Donegal," he said. "What did he mean by saying he knew we'd told him the right tale?"

The man turned round and regarded him gravely. "Mr. Callaghan--an' Donegal to my friends--an' for the son of a ducal earl there's a lot of things you don't know," he said.

"Then," said Niven, "how am I going to learn them if I don't ask questions?"

"Now," said Donegal dryly, "ye are showing ye have some sinse, an' if it's searching for knowledge ye are, I will enlighten ye. The moral av ut is that while ye speak the truth, the little things ye do don't stand up and conthradict ye. Now, when ye knew where the topsail was that showed ye had been to sea, but they've rattlings on the shrouds av a square-rigger, an' it was easy to see that when ye could not find them it perplexed ye. Then when ye were sleeping Ned Jordan had Stickine bring some of the things ye tuk off into the cabin, an' there was names done nice in red on wan or two of them. 'It's all quite straight but the last ov it, an' there's lads who can't help talking big. Many's the time I've tried to teach my own ones better--wid a fence rail,' says he."

Donegal looked hard at Niven, but Appleby, who laughed softly, kicked his comrade's leg.

"We'll not worry about what he told your skipper any more--but it's true," he said.

Donegal said nothing further, but his eyes twinkled curiously, and there was silence for a space until a blink of light crept out of the dimness astern. The moon had risen, but was hidden by a cloud-bank in the south-east, and there was nothing to be seen but the light that grew steadily higher and brighter. Then a red one became visible, and while a vague black shape grew into form there was a blink of green. Stickine struck the deckhouse with his foot as he pulled over the wheel, and the _Champlain_ swung round a little, but still the lights seemed to follow her.

"A steamer," said Appleby. "What can they be after? Our canvas is plain enough against the sky."

Donegal grunted. "A top-heavy coal basket of a gunboat, sure!" he said. "How is it I know? Well, ye will have a better acquaintance by and by with the ships-of-war, an' any one could see the way she's rolling if he looked at her."

Appleby could see the higher light reeling to and fro, and a long smear of smoke that streaked the sea below. While he watched it the dim hull lengthened out, and he saw the white froth boil beneath the flung-up bows. They came down amidst a spray cloud, and the slanted masts swung wildly as the long roll of the Pacific lapped about the shadowy hull. The steamer was close upon the _Champlain's_ quarter now.

Suddenly there was a faint twinkle of brightness on board her, and then a great shaft of light smote a glittering track across the waters and rested on the schooner's stern. Jordan's lean figure was forced up against it, and Appleby could see the little dry smile in his face as he nodded to Stickine at the wheel. He pulled it over a spoke or two, and the _Champlain_ swerved a trifle, while Jordan's smile became a trifle grimmer, for the light also swinging still blazed upon her stern. Then it beat into the lad's eyes and dazzled them, swept forward and lighted all the foresail when it rested on the boats, flickered up and down the deck, forcing up every rope by its brilliancy, and vanished so suddenly that Niven afterwards said he could hear it snap. Next moment the steamer drew ahead, and the last he saw of her was her shadowy stern lifted high on the shoulder of a long smooth sea.

Jordan laughed a little as he paced up and down beside the wheel. "American," he said. "That fellow will know us if he falls in with us again."

*CHAPTER IX*

*A TRIAL OF SPEED*

It was early one morning rather more than three weeks after the lads had fallen in with the _Champlain_, and a little breeze had just sprung up with the sun when Appleby, who was scrubbing down decks just then, turned upon Niven who stood close by with a dripping bucket in his hand.

"I want the water here, and not all over me," he said, pointing with his bare toes to the sand he had sprinkled on the planking.

Niven grinned, and stooping, rolled his trousers to the knee, after which he commenced a little step-dance up and down the forehatch, and his laugh rang lightly when a drowsy growl rose from beneath.

"You want good thick clogs to do it well, but I fancy this will bring him up," he said. "Did yez sleep all day in the old country, Donegal?"

Now few men would have ventured to do what Niven was doing on board a merchant ship, where the time for sleep is scanty, but as the _Champlain_ carried twice as many men as were apparently needed, they had ample space for rest. Still, as he swung round grimacing with his back to the scuttle in the hatch, a coppery head rose up from it, and a long arm reached out. Then there was a chuckle from Stickine at the wheel, and Niven turned again just in time to receive the contents of the bucket full in his face. After that there was a scurry across the deck, and he swung himself up by the mast-hoops, while a rope-end flicked about the one from which he had just whipped his naked feet, and Donegal sat down on the hatch with a placid grin.

"Ye can stop up there and cool, me son, until Ned Jordan comes up," he said.

Niven sat down on the jaws of the foresail gaff, and wiped his dripping face. "Sure, 'tis an ungrateful beast, an' me just rousing him while the morning's fresh," he said. "Tom, if I had that bucket I could drop it nicely on his head."

Donegal gazed up at the lad reflectively. "'Tis what comes of fattening ye too quick," he said. "There was no thricks of that kind about ye on board the _Aldebaran_, and ye had a distressful hungry look when we got ye."

Niven could not find a neat rejoinder, and sat still with his arm round the throat halliards high up on the gaff, while the sun that rose with a smoky glare out of the eastern haze shone into his face. It was bronzed to the colour of copper, and it is possible that his friends would at first sight have found it difficult to recognize the lad they had last seen strutting in new uniform. He now wore jean trousers and a thick canvas jacket which Jordan had given him, and while both were considerably too large there were big smears of tar on them. His hands were as hard as a navvy's, and though he had not lost the love of frolic he had found no scope for on board the _Aldebaran_ there was a difference in his face.

The sea had set its stamp upon Niven, and the set of his lips had grown more resolute, while though they could still twinkle his eyes were steadier. Hardship and the need for quick decision and self-reliance had stiffened him, for Niven had been taught a good deal since he left Sandycombe School, and the knowledge that even a rich merchant's son was entitled to nothing he could not obtain by his native wit or the strength of his hand was perhaps the most useful of it all. Money, he had discovered, was not much use at sea, where nobody cared in the least who he was, and it was by the things he did he must stand or fall.

There was less change in Appleby, who had been early cast upon his own resources, but he, who had never been boisterous, was a trifle quieter, and had already added an inch or two to the breadth of his chest. His skin also resembled half-tanned leather, and he was picturesquely arrayed in garments of patched canvas somewhat too large for him.

In the meanwhile Niven glancing aft, and wondering by what means he could avoid Donegal, who appeared disposed to sit where he was all morning, saw the crimson glare of the sunrise beat athwart the sea. It streaked the long smooth undulations that rolled up after the _Champlain_ a coppery red, and the schooner swung over them lazily with half-filled mainsail banging. Under the sun there rolled a bank of smoky vapour, and just as Jordan came up from the little deckhouse, Niven saw something slide out of it. He was not altogether sorry, for although there was no abuse of the men on board the _Champlain_, he fancied the skipper's toleration had its limits, and when he looked down Donegal flicked a rope-end suggestively.

Next moment Jordan saw him. "Now, I figured you were washing decks. Anybody tell you to go up there?" he said.

Niven looked distinctly sheepish, and Donegal grinned. "Is ut telling that's any use to him, an' me inviting him to come down the last half-hour," he said. Just then the object that crept out of the haze grew clearer, and swinging himself up by the peak halliard, Niven stretched out an arm. "There's a schooner coming up astern, sir," he said. "Another just showing abeam!"

Donegal sprang into the shrouds, Jordan whipped up his glasses, and Niven, who saw they had forgotten him, slipped down. He had scarcely reached the deck when the skipper called out, and two or three men came scrambling out of the scuttle.

"Hand those topsails down, and get up the biggest yard-headers," he said.

There was no scurrying, but the men were very swift, and in a few minutes the little three-cornered topsails they had carried at night were down, and two big ones set. The _Champlain_ quickened her pace a trifle, but it was evident the other schooners were coming up with her. Jordan laid down his glasses.

"The _Belle_ and the _Argo_. They're bringing the breeze along with them," he said.

The sea was still only faintly rippled about them, and the smoke from the galley eddied in the hollow of the foresail, but the other vessels had grown plainer and were slanting over, while Niven, who resumed his deck scrubbing, fancied that Jordan strode up and down impatiently. Then Brulee, the French-Canadian cook, put his head out of the galley. "The breakfast is quite ready, _camarades_," he said.

The lads took their places with the rest, and when they sat down Niven glanced at the big lean-faced Stickine.

"What are we running away from those fellows for?" he said.

"Hear him!" said Donegal. "'Tis marvellous, his observation."

"Give the lad a show now and then," said the Canadian. "Well, now, when you see Ned Jordan run away you can figure there's dollars somewhere at the bottom of it, because if he didn't want to it would take quite a fleet of gunboats to put a move on him."

Brulee laughed. "You others are all lak that," he said. "_V'la la belle chose--courant en courant--la chasse de dollar_. It is so with you also in my country, the Quebec."

"Well, now," said a little man who hailed from Montreal, "there was a time when some of you made tolerably good running down there under Montcalm too. I've seen the place where that chase came off, and it's right behind the ramparts at Quebec."

"They run!" said Niven, who had read of the famous scene on the heights of Abraham, but Donegal stretched out a big hand, and he wriggled backwards with his plate.

"What come well from General Wolfe is a thrifle too big for the size av ye," he said. "They were good men, both Montcalm and him, and 'tis but the makings of one I'm after licking out of ye. Stickine, ye may purceed."

"Well," said the Canadian, "where the fur seals go to when they haul off from the Behring Sea nobody quite knows, but they're coming north, thousands of them, now, and some men can figure better than others where they'll first show up again."

"Is the skipper fortunate at finding them?" asked Appleby.

"Well, I wouldn't put it like that, just because it's tolerably plain figuring that it wants a good big head to make a lucky man," said Stickine. "It's the one who can do the most thinking comes out on top, and the things Jordan knows are the ones that work out the reckoning."

"You've hit it plump," said another man. "Ned Jordan's chased the seals that long he can tell you just what they're thinking."

Stickine nodded. "And think they can; they, and the sea otter, and the salmon they live upon. Well, now, when Ned Jordan has worried it all out for days, he has no use for a crowd of men who're too lazy to do their own thinking, hanging right on to him. No, sir. When the _Champlain_ drops right down on top of the seal herd she'll be there alone."

They went up as soon as breakfast was over, and Niven saw that one of the schooners had drawn close up on the _Champlain's_ quarter. The breeze had freshened, and both vessels were hurling the froth about their bows, and slanting over until the foam was near the rail. Foot by foot the stranger drew up, and Niven saw the reason as he noticed the length of her slanted masts. She sank to her bowsprit at every dip, and the spray whirled half the height of her tall foresail, when she swung her streaming bows up again. A man stood aft with both hands gripping her wheel, and another with a broad grin on his face leaned on her rail. His voice reached them faintly.

"We've been feeling lonely for the sight of you these two weeks," he said. "Now it 'pears to me that as the _Belle_ has got the speed, we're going to have your company."

Jordan smiled grimly as he glanced to weather. "Well, I don't know. There's more wind coming along," he said.

Appleby was sensible of a little thrill of pleasurable excitement, for it was evident that if Jordan desired to fall in with the seal herds alone he must sail for it, and glancing aft at the skipper's lean figure and quiet bronzed face he felt that he was not the man to be lightly beaten.

At noon there was no great distance between the vessels, though the _Belle_ with her tall masts had crept forward a little upon the _Champlain's_ weather-quarter, and the third one lay a quarter of a mile astern. The spray was whirling in sheets, and now and then a frothing green deluge came in, for all three were listed well down to their rails. The sea was also flecked and seamed with white, and it was evident to the lads that no skipper would have driven his vessel so hard had he not men enough to swiftly shorten sail. Then just as Brulee put his head out of the galley, the _Champlain_ heeled further by a screaming blast, buried her lee bow, and when she hove her head clear again all that side of her ran water.

Jordan glanced up at his main topmast, and there was a little twinkle in his eyes as he said, "I figure nobody would blame us for not hanging on to our sail. Boys, we'll have the topsail down."

The big sail swung down below the mainsail gaff, but when Appleby would have laid his hand upon the tack to haul it lower still Stickine laughed as he stopped him. "There's two ways of winning a race," he said. "Let her lie. 'Pears to me Ned Jordan will want her up again."

Appleby did not quite understand, but he saw Jordan's pose stiffen and his face grow intent as the _Belle_, still carrying everything, forged ahead. Then her topsail also fluttered, and he swung up his hand.

"Sheets in, and stand by your peak halliard to let go with a run," he said.

Then there was a scurry along the deck, blocks groaned and rattled, and the long booms were dragged in as the skipper put down his helm. The schooner came round, and because no vessel will carry the sail on a wind that she will going free, her lee-rail was in the sea and the deck sloped like a roof. Foam and green water seethed over her weather bow, and Appleby thrilled all through as he hung on by a pin with one hand on the peak halliard ready to let the mainsail gaff swing down to ease the pressure. He understood the manoeuvre now, for the _Champlain_ was shooting up across the other schooner's stern for the berth that would give her a free hand upon her weather. It was almost too late when the skipper of the _Belle_ realized this, but he put his helm down pluckily, and then the weight of his tall masts came into play. The _Belle_ seemed buried in a white confusion when she came up, too, and a huddle of dripping figures appeared to wash aft together when she dipped her nose in a sea. Then there was a crash as she swung her jibs out of the foam again, and her foresail blew over to leeward banging, while the _Champlain_ swept up dripping on her weather. A man sprang up in the shrouds shouting ironically, but Jordan shook his head and called him down.

"We've no use for that kind of thing here," he said.

Appleby was dripping with the spray, but his blood tingled, and his face was flushed, while Stickine, who stood close by, nodded to him approvingly.

"Neat, oh, yes. Quite neat!" he said. "Her foresail gaff's gone, and we're well up on her weather where we can do what we like with her. Still, I figure we're not going to hold on to our own sticks very long."

"Square away!" Jordan's voice rang out, and the long mainboom swung out again, while there was by contrast a curious ease of motion when the _Champlain_, rising more upright, turned her stern to the sea. It no longer thrashed in over her weather bow, but ran forward white-topped on either side of her, but the breeze was even stronger, and Appleby wondered, when the voice rose again.

"Run the gaff topsail back to the masthead, boys!"

It took several of them to do it, and more were needed before they hauled the sheet home. Then the _Belle_ dropped away behind, though the other vessel stayed where she was, half-a-mile under their lee quarter, a pyramid of swaying sail.

Jordan laughed softly as he glanced towards her over his shoulder. "Old man Carter's most as stubborn as a mule," he said. "Well, we'll have more wind by and by, and I'm figuring we'll see things then. I don't know any reason you shouldn't get your dinner in the meanwhile, boys."

They trooped below, and there was no great change when they came up, except that the _Belle_ was farther astern and the sea seemed to be getting steeper. They swept on before it all afternoon, and the men were a little more silent when, with a great rolling in of smoky vapours, nightfall came. It was now blowing tolerably hard, but while the seas frothed white as they surged past high above the rail, the _Champlain_ still drove on under all her lower sails. She was swept by bitter spray, and the man who held her straight was panting at the wheel, but the vapours rolled down thicker and the _Belle_ and the _Argo_ were indistinguishable. Niven was lying in his bunk when Stickine came down, and his face was a trifle grave, while, as he flung off his dripping oilskins, there was a great thud and gurgle forward, and something seethed across the hatch.

"Put her nose in that time," he said. "Well, we've got to shake them off, but we're taking steep chances already, and we can't press her as we're doing very long."

"Could you make the others out?" asked a man, and Stickine laughed silently.

"No," he said. "Still, we will do if the moon comes through. I know old man Carter, and he'd run her under before he'd let us beat him. It wouldn't take them long to get the spare gaff on the _Belle_."

He flung himself into his bunk as he was, and Appleby, who had heard him, asked no questions. He began to realize that these big, good-humoured sealers could on occasion be very grim, though this was not a cause of much astonishment to him, for he had seen already that it is not, as a rule, the domineering and ostentatious who take the foremost place when the real stress comes. He slept, but it was lightly, for the roar of the sea about the bows and groaning of the hard-pressed hull roused him now and then. At times he seemed to feel the great beams and knees straining above him and the tremulous quiver of the vessel's skin, while when for the fourth time he wakened suddenly a shower of brine came down with a hoarse voice through the scuttle. The light of the swinging lamp showed that Niven was sitting up wide awake, and in a few more minutes they crawled out on deck with several of the men.

A shower of stinging spray beat into their eyes, and when he could see again, Niven had a disconcerting glimpse of a big frothing comber apparently curling above the schooner's stern. The decks ran water, but when he glanced aloft every sail but the topsail was drawing still, and he clutched the rail when as they swung upwards a blink of moonlight pierced the flying vapours. To leeward of them lay a schooner, her hull just showing faintly black through the white smother that seethed about her, until she hove a breadth of it up streaming in a leeward roll. It appeared insignificant in comparison with the mass of dusky sail that swayed low again towards the rushing froth as she lurched back to weather, and then Appleby glanced aft with a little thrill to the grim set face of the man who stood panting at the _Champlain's_ wheel.

The hiss of the seas that followed, the roar at the bows, the wild humming of the blast and the whirling spray stirred his blood. They were all of them tokens of what man could dare, and the strain, that human nerve could bear, for he knew that already hemp and wire and timber were being taxed to the uttermost, and that if the helmsman gave her a spoke too much or too little the next sea would curl on board or the great black mainsail jibe over and strew the _Champlain's_ decks with ruin. Niven stood beside him, and Appleby saw that although his face was almost colourless in the moonlight, his eyes were shining.

"Oh, it's great!" he said. "Worth all we stood on board the _Aldebaran_ to have a hand in this."

"And how many hands were ye born with when I see two av them holding ye where ye are?" said Donegal, who apparently heard him. "Is ut dollars or diversion a man goes to sea after?"

Niven laughed. "Dollars. Oh, get out! You know you feel it yourself," he said. "You've got everything just throbbing inside you as I have now."

Donegal grinned broadly. "And what if you're right?" he said. "'Tis born in the blood av the likes av me, but if I was the son av a ducal earl it's sorrow on the day would find me on the sea."

He got no further, but grabbed the lad's shoulder and held him fast as the _Champlain_ swerved a little and a sea came in. It swirled about them icy cold as she rolled down to lee, and the scuppers were spouting when with a wild lurch she swung back to weather. Then Donegal thrust the pair of them aft together.

"Get a good hold an' keep it, until we have some need av ye," he said.

Then the blink of moonlight went out and the _Champlain_ was alone, while the two lads shivered and dodged the spray as she swept onwards through the night, until a faint light crept out of the east across the whitened sea. The wet canvas showed black against it, there was a doleful wail of wind, and then when man's strength sinks to its lowest something happened. The _Champlain_ put her bows in, and Jordan sprang suddenly up on the deckhouse gazing astern. What he said was scarcely audible, but the sealers apparently understood it, for the deck was filled with scrambling men. Down came the mainsail's peak, forward a slashing sail slid down, and the outer jib thrashed furiously above the bowsprit. Niven was clawing his way towards it when Stickine grasped his shoulder and flung him back.

"I guess this is going to be work for a man," he said.

Niven, who watched him crawl out along the bowsprit, held his breath when spar and man dipped into the sea, and then floundered aft to where the others were rolling up the foot of the half-lowered mainsail. It slatted and banged above them, and now and then the long boom beneath the foot of it that ran a fathom or more beyond the stern, swung in, for the schooner was coming up to the wind, but the rush and stress of the race had stirred his blood, and when it became evident that somebody was wanted there, he swung himself up on the foot-rope beneath its outer end as he otherwise might not have done. In another moment Appleby was up beside him, and Jordan standing at the wheel glanced dubiously at them. Then he nodded.

"You've got to begin sometime," he said.

It was not easy to keep a grip of the foot-rope, and more difficult still to roll up the sail and tie the reef points round it because both hands were needed and to hold on they must lie across the boom. Still, they accomplished it, and Appleby felt content when Jordan made a little gesture as they sprang down. He was not a man who said more than was necessary, but it was evident that he was pleased with them. Then they hauled at the halliards with the rest, and in a few more minutes they were once more on their way under easy sail.

"She's snug for a while, but we'll have the trysail handy," said Jordan quietly. "Old man Carter was a little slow. They're catching the heft of it on board the _Argo_."

Appleby glanced down to leeward and saw the _Argo_. She was hove down with one side lifted high above the sea, and loose canvas thrashing all over her.

"I'll figure he'll just save his masts," said Stickine. "Wouldn't snug her down till we did. Well, I figure Carter couldn't help being born a mule."

Then the _Argo_ grew dim behind them, and they swept on into an empty sea, for the race was over, and there was no sign of the _Belle_.

*CHAPTER X*

*HOVE TO*

At noon next day, Jordan once more brought the _Champlain's_ head to wind, and they put the third reef in her mainsail, while when she swept on again the sea grew steeper behind her, until the combers that raced after her apparently hung frothing above her helmsman's head. She would fling her stern up to meet them and while the man panted over his jerking wheel her bowsprit went down and down. Then she would leisurely lift her nose and surge forward lapped in seething foam, only to sink with a smooth, swift lurch again.

It was dryest aft, though there was water splashing everywhere, and the two lads hung about the mainmast where the little deckhouse partly sheltered them, watching the helmsman's grim face as he swung with his wheel. They knew, by this time, that, while it is a somewhat difficult affair to keep a hard-pressed vessel straight before the sea, unpleasant things are apt to happen to a fore-and-aft one if it is not done.

Still, the man knew his work, and did it, and at last, towards nightfall, when the sea was all spray and foam, Jordan, who came up, stood staring astern. After a minute or two he shook his head.

"We had better round her up while we can," he said. "Get the main-gaff down, and you'll be handy with the trysail."

They were very handy, and there was a good many of them, but Appleby held his breath when the foresail was lowered, and the mainsail peak swung down. Jordan was still looking astern, and he nodded after an especially big sea went smoking past them.

"We'll try it now," he said.

The man beside him swayed with the wheel, the _Champlain_ swung round to windward, and there was a roar when a roller burst into spray upon that side of her. Then she swung further yet, and as the big mainboom came down the little three-cornered trysail went thrashing up the mast. Everybody was doing something amidst a great banging of canvas, and in another few moments there was a wonderful quietness. Appleby gasped, and Stickine who went by dripping grinned at him, while Jordan nodded to the men.

"She'll lie easy now," he said.

In place of running before it the _Champlain_ lay almost head to wind, rising and falling with now and then a little lurch to leeward and a curious buoyancy. The strip of sail above her bowsprit and the trysail aft just sufficed to hold her stationary, and it was with little more than a spray wisp at her bows she bobbed in a curious cork-like fashion to the sea. Except for one or two of them the men crawled away below, and the lads, who were wet through, were glad to climb down into the stuffy warmth beneath the hatch.

It was dark down there now save for the flickering radiance of the lamp which shone upon the wet brown faces and the smears of smoke. The dusky hold reeked with the smell of steaming clothes, but the lads had grown used to odours which would have sickened them before they went to sea. Niven shook off the oilskins Jordan had given him, and as usual commenced his questions.

"The sea looked nasty before we brought her up," he said. "How was it we scarcely shipped any of it?"

"It was," said Stickine dryly. "Still, Ned Jordan knows his business, sonny."

Niven did not care for the epithet, or the grin which usually accompanied it, but he had discovered that one has to put up with a good deal that one does not like at sea.

"Of course!" he said. "But why couldn't we have gone on running?"

Montreal, the man who sat nearest the stove, laughed softly as he raised his head. "Listen to it. That's why!" he said.

There was a moment's silence, and while the _Champlain_ rolled to leeward, and the floorings slanted under them until no man could have kept his footing, all could hear the scream of the rigging ring through the roar of the wind. It was a significant answer, but it left a little that was not quite plain yet, and Stickine nodded when Appleby glanced at him.

"It works out like this. A time comes when she'll run no longer--and then it's too late to heave her to," he said.

"Yes," said Appleby reflectively. "Of course if the sea was too bad to run before it would be too big to bring her up in, because while she was swinging round she'd catch it on her beam. Still, if you had run too long what could you do?"

"Just nothing," said Stickine gravely. "Wait until she ran under and took you down."

He stopped, and there was a thud that sent a little shiver through two of the listeners as the _Champlain_ plunged into a sea, for they had been taught sufficient to see the picture the brief words called up. In the silence that followed Brulee leaned forward with a curious intentness in his eyes.

"_Comme ca!_" he said, swinging down a brown hand with suggestive suddenness. "I have seen it. We come down from Labrador in the _Acadie_ brig, and it is blow the grand ouragan."

He drew in his breath, and gazed into the dimness as though he saw none of those about him, and then with a little shake of his shoulders stretched out a finger and pointed to Niven. "I was as young as him, and it was in the clear of the moon when the _Acadie_ was hove to, one brought me to the rail to see the _Madeleine_. She was topsail schooner which load with us, and we had all the friend on board her. Whether she will not heave to, or the captain he is dare too much, I do not know, but she comes up from the spray and pass close, so close. I see the topsails black in the moon, and the jib she lift high. Then she is over run the sea, and I shut tight my eye. It is in a moment I look again--and there is no more _Madeleine_."

Again there was silence, and Donegal nodded sympathetically when the French-Canadian turned away his head. "_Ave!_" he said. "For their good rest."

It was a minute or two before Niven, who had shivered a little at the tale, spoke again. "He told us the captain dared too much," he said.

"Sure!" said Donegal. "Is that perplexing ye, an' am I to stuff ye with wisdom so ye can spill it out av ye? Still, that wan's easy. 'Tis the daring ye want at sea, but ye must dare just so far, an' when it's necessary, for the man who does not know when the conthract is too big for him is going to have it shown him what he is. Ye can follow me?"

Niven was not quite sure that he did, but Stickine smiled grimly as he nodded. "It's quite plain figuring. He's a blame fool," he said.

Appleby stared at the speaker with a faint perplexity, for while there were occasions when Donegal the sealer and his comrades talked arrant rubbish they now and then brought truths the lad had scarcely realized home to him in a fashion that carried conviction as well as astonishment with it. He wondered whether the sea had taught them, or there was something that opened the eyes of the thoughtful in the simple life they led. It was one which at least demanded qualities that were an ornament to any man, and more often than not the primitive virtues which humanity cannot rise beyond showed through what some would have deemed his comrades' coarseness. Once or twice as he listened it was dimly borne in upon the lad that while manhood was a greater thing than culture or refinement all that was most worthy in it was founded on a few eternal verities.

Niven, however, could not be serious long, and presently he laughed at Donegal as he turned over to dry his other side before the little stove. He felt luxuriously contented to lie there in the stuffy warmth, and listen to the growling of the seas.

"There was something Stickine was to tell us--about a fifty-year-old schooner, and a crew of starving men," he said.

Donegal nodded. "That ate the rats? Get up on the hind legs av ye, now, an' talk, Stickine."

There was a little murmur from the rest, and the big, lean-faced Canadian looked uneasy. "Pshaw! You've heard that tale before," he said.

"Some av us," said Donegal. "An thim would hear it again. The others has not, and they're waiting on ye anxiously!"

The men murmured approval, and Stickine shook out his pipe with a little deprecatory gesture. "I'll make you very tired, boys, but if you will have it this is how it was," he said. "It was 'bout through with the afternoon watch when the fog shut down on the four of them in the whaler in Russian water. They heard the schooner's bell, but it's kind of difficult to fix a sound in a fog, and when it let up sudden they allowed they'd lost her."

"Sure!" said Donegal. "Mainsail Haul could tell ye that in a fog ye hear the sounds in front of ye behind ye. It is digressing ye are, Stickine, but the boys is wondhering what four sealermen were squandhering their time luxurious for in a whaler."

Appleby understood the comment, for he had seen a couple of whale boats on the beach at Port Parry, and they were costly examples of the boat-builder's skill. Stickine, however, laughed silently.

"Old man Corliss got her for nothing--and she was built for the Government with flooring gratings fore and aft, but we needn't worry 'bout how he did it now. Well, there they were, with a big lump of a sea running, shut in by the fog, and they had to keep her head-to with the oars when the wind came down."

"Fog--and a breeze!" said Niven, and Donegal shook his fist at him.

"'Tis bethraying the ignorance av ye, ye are again," he said. "Up there 'tis fog for ever except when 'tis a gale, an' before it's through with that the fog crawls in again. Ye will not heed the lad, Stickine."

"Well," said the sealer, "they held her head to wind, until just before sun up a gunboat came along, and she come that sudden they'd no time to heave the seals they'd with them over before she was going hard astern close alongside of them. The first look at her kind of sickened them. She was a Russian."

"There was fog--and they stopped there?" said Montreal.

"They did. There was quick-firer turned right down on the boat," said Stickine dryly. "Well, it was all fixed up inside five minutes. The whaler was hove up, and a guard with side-arms marched them before a Russian officer, and he was quite anxious to know where they'd last seen the schooner. Now, it was kind of curious there wasn't one of the boys could remember."

"Had they been sealing inside the limits?" asked Appleby.

"No, sir," said Stickine. "Not that time, anyway. When they last saw the land they were well off shore."

"Then the Russians had no right to seize them, and the Canadian Government could have made them pay up thousands of dollars," said Niven.

A little, grim smile crept into the faces of the men. "That," said one of them, "is where you're wrong. They had all the right they wanted when they had the men and guns, and who's going to believe a poaching sealer when an officer in kid-gloves tells quite a different story?"

"And have British subjects no redress?" asked Appleby with a little flush in his face, and Montreal grinned at him with grim approval.

"Oh, yes, when they can get it--and they do now and then, though they don't usually worry the Government folks at Ottawa," he said. "They took them to Peter Paul, Stickine?"

"They did," said Stickine. "And they kept them most of eight months there cooped up in a loghouse with a little dried fish to eat, and 'bout half enough sour black bread. They wouldn't tell the officer where that schooner was, you see, and when they're not put down on the papers men in prison get kind of forgotten in that country."

"And you believe it has happened--to Canadians?" asked Niven with a little gasp of anger.

The veins swelled up on Montreal's forehead. "Well, there are sealer's boats, British and American, that get lost, and nobody but the partners of the men who pulled in them and a woman or two away down south worries very much," he said. "I had a brother in one of them."

There was silence for almost a minute before Stickine went on again. "Two of them got very sick, and they all got thin, until when the spring came they were walked out every day with a guard to take care of them. Perhaps the officer figured it would be kind of awkward if they died on his hands and then somebody remembered them. Well, one day nigh sundown the mate and a sick man were sitting on the beach looking at the sea, and wondering if their folks in Canada would ever hear of them again. They were to be sent away from that place in a day or two.

"Now, there was an old schooner that must have been getting shaky when the Russians seized her years before moored in front of them. The oakum was spewing from her seams, her bulwarks were worn and weather-cracked so you could put your fingers in the rents in them, and it wasn't much use telling a sealerman what kind of canvas she would have after lying there since the Russians took her in the rain and wind. Still, she looked kind of homely, and they sat there watching her until they heard the boom of gun and there was a Russian soldier signing to them. Now, some of those folks were kind enough, but this was a bad man, and when the sealer who was sick couldn't get along fast enough he kicked him hard, and where it would hurt him."

Montreal drew his breath, and a little grey patch showed in his cheeks.

"But," he said hoarsely, "he didn't do it again!"