Chapter XXVI

Through the long hours of that chill, October night Captain Skinner drove his vessel down the island shore and south and east into the Inside Passage. Here only power vessels could follow him, and he had the best chance to avoid pursuit in the maze of islands. He was making for an American port, there to turn over his furs, the runaway prisoner, and the Russian guardsmen to the strong arms of Uncle Sam. It now seemed likely that Jeff would be as glad to return to home shores as he had been to leave them.

Captain Skinner was taxing his engines, hoping to gain such a head start on the Company ships, which were sure to follow, that he could not be overtaken. No wonder the slow dawn found him standing on the bridge, looking down his long wake through a glass.

A tiny gray cloud hung motionless just at the further curve of the earth, and this he watched for a long time. To most eyes it would have been almost invisible; to any eye but one trained by the sea it would have had no definite meaning. Captain Skinner, however, understood only too well. He left his post and gave certain orders to the boatswain. Then he went into his cabin where Jeff and Molly were waiting.

His determined look stopped their talk and instantly fastened their attention. “The _Resanof_ is after us,” he told them simply.

“The fastest boat in the Company’s fleet!”

“Yes. Their flagship. Fitted out with Whitworth and Armstrong guns. She has half a knot on us in speed, on inside waters. That means she’ll overtake us sometime to-night.”

Jeff got up, and his head all but touched the cabin ceiling. He paused to smile into the girl’s white face. “I expected nothing else,” he said, rather quietly. He had learned a great self-discipline in these last days. “I suppose you aren’t very much surprised, either, Captain.”

“I thought maybe something like this would happen, sure enough. We could have skinned all hollow the other Russian ships. The _Resanof_ wasn’t in the harbor when we left; I guess she came in since.”

“Sure. And she’s already overtaking us.” Once more he smiled to reassure the heartsick girl, at the same time wondering that one of her basic strength should ever need his reassurance. He remembered how she had reacted to every crisis they had met together, and he knew now, that when this affair reached its inevitable climax, she would be one to lean on rather than to support. “Cap’n, there is only one possible course.”

“What is that?”

“Give ’em the furs. It may be, if we let them have ’em, they won’t try to take me.”

“But they will take you, anyway,” the girl cried. “Don’t you see they will? They’ll be afraid that you’ll make trouble for them through the government if they let you get away. That is the system, Jeff; you will be taken where there’s no chance of you making trouble for any one.”

“Give up the furs,” Jeff repeated, “and if we can’t get out of it, I’ll go back with them.”

The man from North Carolina was not posing. He was in earnest, and he wished to be taken so. He had not conquered fear—fear is as much a part of the world as sunshine or rain or any other of nature’s devices—but he had declared what seemed to him the only possible thing to do, the only decent course for him to follow. Accompanying his new maturity a redundant decency had lately come upon him, and was now an imperious instinct. Facing Siberian exile was no easier than facing death whose look must ever humble the stoutest heart, but in these adventurous times there were several things that mattered more.

“We haven’t a chance on earth to fight, and you know it,” he went on. “They can stand off and hammer us to pieces with those long-range Armstrongs. It just means sacrificing you and the lives of half the men aboard, without saving me. The thing to do is to let ’em take me, if we can’t bribe them out of it. Then you go on to Washington and do all you can to get me free.”

“You might be dead before then,” Skinner answered. “Just the same, you told the truth when you said there was no use trying to fight. I don’t intend to fight. I’ve got another scheme—the only possible scheme under the circumstances. Jeff, we have to let you off.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that.”

“About noon we’ll turn into the passage back of Upreanof Island—beyond Frederick Sound. Here is deep water and quiet, and we’ll put you off opposite the mouth of the Stikine River, in that native skin-boat we’ve got aft. It’s light and handy as a canoe, and I’ve told the bo’sun to fill it up with a winter’s supplies—flour, rice, and other necessaries. You will have a rifle and plenty of shells for taking your meat, a few tools, a light camp outfit, and a wolf-skin robe. You should cross the flats into the Stikine, and paddle or line your way up the river as far as you think best, then go up some little tributary and make a camp. I don’t think they’ll ever find you; they won’t see you get off, and when they overtake us and find we haven’t got you aboard, I think they’ll just take the skins and never trouble to look for you. If they did look for you, they wouldn’t know where to find you, because they wouldn’t know at what point along these hundreds of miles of island and mainland shores we let you off.

“This scheme’ll give you your best chance. Of course, your skins are goners—unless a miracle happens—but, at least, you’ll get away. I guess you won’t feel bad about them skins if you save your own skin, and that’s what it’ll amount to. You’ll make out somehow for the winter, and meanwhile I’ll go below and state your case to the President. When we come up to look for you, we’ll come in a gunboat.”

Molly got up and now stood beside Jeff. “It’s the only thing, of course,” she told them. Then, turning with a mysterious look to Captain Skinner, “Uncle Dave, are you sure the men are putting in plenty of supplies?”

“Sure. Enough to carry one person over the winter.”

“There isn’t going to be one person. There are going to be two.” Her face flamed; they saw its light beyond that of the dawn; and she lifted her arms in a noble gesture. “Oh, do you think I can let him go alone!”

To Jeff Sharp, lost in his wondering thoughts, this was simply destiny. Somehow he knew, as well as she, that he could not go alone. There was no known reason why; it had just been ordained. He was pale, but his eyes glowed like lanterns; and he sensed the inexorable movement of events.

“After all I’ve been through with him, do you think I could let him go alone?” she asked, turning first to one and then to the other. Her voice broke, and she sobbed and laughed in the same breath. “Am I to be thrown out like ballast? Besides—who would take care of him, if not me? Uncle Dave, he can hardly find his own clothes, much less find his way in the woods. Oh, of course I am going with him.”

The Captain eyed her, but he did not attempt to dissuade her. He had wisdom even beyond that of his long years. He glanced once at Jeff, smiled wanly at his bewildered look, and turned toward the door. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, in a tone that Jeff had never heard on his lips before. Plainly it was something learned long ago and which had lingered in his body until this hour when it should again be fitting. In it was that assurance of strict obedience that was still the tradition of the sea. Skinner was not speaking as a master now, but as a seaman to his officer. “I’ll see about it right away.”

He turned and left the two together. Perhaps he was glad to escape from a scene in which his presence would only be an unnecessary complication. Jeff still seemed unaware of her.

She glanced covertly into his face, and at last she stood before him and touched his arm. “You are not angry with me, Jeff, for being so forward?” she asked, her voice low as distant bells. “You know I have to play this thing through with you to the end, now I’ve started, and I could have waited forever and you wouldn’t have asked me to go.”

“I couldn’t ask you—to take such a risk—for me.”

“I know you thought you couldn’t. That is why I had to ask myself. You couldn’t go alone, Jeff; you always must have some one to take care of you. It was either a case of speaking or staying here on the ship while you dropped off, and that couldn’t be. Jeff, the girls you like aren’t so bold, and they let you take care of them instead of taking care of you, but just the same I couldn’t hold back. You won’t hold it against me, will you?”

“My God, Molly!” he cried fervently. “How could I hold anything against you? You’ve been my guardian angel, all the way through.”

“Just the same, I know how you regard me.” A dim smile lighted her tender lips. “We’ll be getting off, then—together.”

“Yes.” Their eyes met with no evasion. “It’s a blessing I never deserved.”

This was not just polite talk. He had told many chivalrous lies, in his short days, and many times he had concealed his true thoughts from this girl who now strained to read his every glance; but for once Jeff Sharp was speaking from his heart. In his hour of deepest humility he had received the highest honor ever paid him; and although he could not begin to understand, at least he was ready to kneel at her feet in gratitude.

She slipped away to make a few preparations; joining Jeff before noon on the deck. The boat of tough leather was loaded almost to the gunwales, now, and the ship was drifting to a slow stop. When at last it floated easily on the tide the bidarka was lowered, and the two stood ready to climb down into it.

“Good-by, you two children,” Captain Skinner told them. The familiar grin was gone from his weather-beaten face; and some nobleness upon it—still veiled from Jeff’s eyes—called forth Molly’s honored and honoring tears. “Take care of yourselves.”

“We’ll try to,” Molly replied with her old warm, wistful humor. “I don’t see how you’re going to run the ship without me.”

But Jeff was in no mood for gayety, even though the laughter came through tears. “I’ll take care of her,” he promised Captain Skinner. “I just want to tell you this—”

“Yes—”

“She will help me more than I can help her, but I want to tell you that no harm—of any kind—will come to her while she is in my charge. Much of the old South is lost, Captain Skinner. Much is gone, never to bless us again. But there’s one thing that is left—at least it is still an ideal with us. It is—honor to womanhood! Your niece will be safe in my care.”

The master shook Jeff’s eager hand. “I know she will,” he assured him. Then, because this scene was getting beyond him, he added slyly, “I’m not worried about _that_ gal.”

“Then good-by, Cap’n!” said Jeff. The girl echoed the parting word.

“Good-by—and don’t worry about me not coming back to look for you. You won’t, will you?”

“No,” Jeff told him earnestly. “We know you’ll help us all you can.”

“We Americans have got to help one another these days, when so many people want to see us fall.”

“Yes.” The man from North Carolina looked him in the eye. “We Americans must look after one another.”