Chapter XIV: A Voice in the Fog

Forty-eight long hours the _Stormy Petrel_ haunted the gray fog. During far more than his fair share of that time, eyes blinking but tireless, Johnny stood on deck studying the small circle of black waters.

Three times his heart leaped as a dark bulk loomed before them. Three times he heaved a sigh of disappointment.

“Only one of the gill-net boats returning to the cannery,” was the answer.

“They’re running strong,” was the joyous report of one fisherman. “Full load first trip. Looks like a grand season.”

“Poor luck,” came from the second. “We tried hard. Got only half a load. Have to come in anyway. It’s the rule. Fish must always be fresh.”

The third boat had had even worse luck. It was going back all but empty.

“No new calico dress for Nancy this time,” the youthful skipper groaned.

“No gitta da dress,” his Italian companion agreed.

At last, out of gas, with her crew half-blind from watching, the _Stormy Petrel_ headed for the harbor.

“They’re out there somewhere,” Red McGee insisted, as he met them at the dock. “Must be anchored up north of here somewhere. It’s the boys who go up that way who come back half-empty.

“But the wheels are turning,” he added with a touch of pride. “Ever see a cannery in operation?” he turned to the boys.

“No, never have,” was the quick response.

“Rusty,” said Red, turning to his daughter, “how’d you like to show these boys through our plant?”

Did Johnny detect a frown on the girl’s face? If so, it was gone like the shadow of a summer cloud.

“Sure! Come on!” she welcomed. They were away.

Somewhere Johnny had heard that a fish cannery was a place of evil smells and revolting sights. Dirty coolies gouging into half-rotten fish—that was his mental picture.

A surprise awaited him. Not a coolie was in sight. The place smelled as fresh as a May morning. To his ears came the sound of rushing water.

“Where are the coolies?” he asked a man beside a machine.

“This is him,” the man chuckled. “An iron coolie.”

As the two boys watched they saw the machine seize a large salmon, sever its head and tail, remove the scales and fins, clean it and pass it on in a split second.

“Jimminy crickets!” Lawrence exploded. “And I used to think I was the champion fish cleaner!”

Rusty favored him with a gorgeous smile.

When, a little later, Johnny made a try for that same young lady’s smile, the cloud once again passed over her face, but no smile. He was not, however, entirely discouraged. It was, he thought, more as if she could not forgive him than that she did not want to.

“We saw the shadow pass,” Lawrence confided to the girl, as at last they stood before a canning machine.

“Oh!” the girl breathed. “Did you? And what—”

“It vanished into the fog.”

“I have a small motor-boat,” the girl said, in evident excitement. “It’s the _Krazy Kat_. I—I’m going out to look for the shadow in the fog.”

“You—you’d better not do that,” Johnny spoke before he thought. “You’d be—” He did not finish.

“I was practically born and raised here.” She spoke to him, as an old-time Alaskan might to a newcomer.

Johnny did not resent it. He had spoken out of turn. And yet he was disturbed. He did not care to think of this fine young creature out there in the fog alone. Supposing she did find the Orientals setting nets. Suppose they found her, alone out there in the fog?

“None of my business,” he told himself fiercely. “Just none at all.”

The _Stormy Petrel_ remained an entire day in port. Blackie spent his time listening to reports from the various fishing grounds. The shores of Bristol Bay are hundreds of miles long. Next time he went out he wanted to go to the right spot, if there were such a spot.

Johnny made the acquaintance of Kopkino, the Eskimo. From him he learned much about salmon, Orientals and the shores of Bristol Bay. And then, just at midnight, he passed the sturdy little man standing beside a dark pathway. There were three little men with him and they were all talking. They were not Eskimos. He was sure of that. But they were Orientals. He had heard enough of the languages to know.

At once his mind was filled with questions. Was Kopkino betraying his employer for Oriental gold, or was he acting as a spy for his big white brother? Who could say?

“He’s an Oriental,” Johnny told himself. “All Eskimos are. But after all—” He came to no conclusion.

Just before dawn the _Stormy Petrel_ crept out into the fog. She was bound for an unannounced destination.

“Action,” Johnny said to Lawrence. “This time we are to have action. I feel it in my bones.”

One thing puzzled Johnny not a little. They were provisioned as if for a long trip, two weeks or more.

Several hours later the _Stormy Petrel_ was once again circling about in the fog.

“Seems like it’ll never end, this fog,” MacGregor said to Johnny. They were on deck working out their watch. “Looks as if nature was on the side of those Orientals.

“Orientals,” he continued musingly, “I don’t suppose they’re much different from the rest of us, only just some of them.”

“Just some of them,” Johnny agreed, giving the wheel a turn.

“Come to think of it,” MacGregor went on, “there are a few white men who are not so honorable.”

“Quite a few,” Johnny agreed.

Truth is, Johnny was dead tired. He wanted nothing quite so much as to crawl into some warm corner and sleep for hours and hours.

“I don’t hate them all the same,” MacGregor squinted his eyes to look through the fog. Then he demanded low, “Hear anything, Johnny?”

“Not a thing.”

“Thought I heard a voice coming out of the fog.”

For some time after that neither spoke. They were listening with all their ears for some sound that might tell them the mysterious moving shadow was about to pass.

“What is this shadow?” Johnny asked himself. “Submarine, some fast, silent craft, or a whale?”

He liked the idea of a submarine. The Orientals had them. Why not use them for laying nets? Easy enough to vanish when danger was near.

“Hate, me lad, is destructive,” the aged man’s voice was solemn as he took up the thread of conversation he had dropped. “Hate destroys you as well as the people you hate.”

He broke off short to cup a hand behind his ear.

“There _was_ a voice,” he insisted in a hoarse whisper.

“Yes, I heard it,” Johnny replied, tense with sudden excitement.

Ten minutes had passed. They were beginning to relax when the sound came again.

“Over to the right,” MacGregor shrilled. “Turn her about quarterin’ them. Give her top speed.”

“Right.” Johnny twisted the wheel. The motors roared. It was a bold step that might have led to disaster. Should there be a boat out there setting nets, and should they crash at that speed, what would it mean? Johnny did not dare to think.

“There!” MacGregor gripped the boy’s arm.

“Oh—ah!” Johnny groaned. “We missed them.”

It was true. Off to the left, for the space of seconds, they saw an unmistakable dark, gray bulk. And then it was gone.

“Our own speed defeated us,” declared MacGregor. “Ah, well, better luck next time.”

“Or worse,” Johnny grumbled.

Had he but known it, it was to be worse, much worse.

“As for me,” MacGregor said a half hour later, resuming his talk, “I don’t hate anybody. It’s not worth while. Sometimes I hate the things they do. Mostly, I try to think of good people and the good things they do.

“And that,” his voice rose, “that’s what I like about this job of ours. If we can drive these Orientals from our shores we’ll be doing good to our own people, a whole lot of ’em.

“Know what I see when I’m tired and I close my eyes?” he asked suddenly.

“No. What?” Johnny grinned good-naturedly.

“Children,” MacGregor said in a mellow tone. “Children playing before an open fire and their mother puttin’ the crust on an apple pie in the kitchen. And those, Johnny, are the children and wives of men way up here scoutin’ around in the cold and fog for salmon. We’re servin’ them, Johnny, or at least we’re trying to.”

Just then Blackie’s head popped up out of the hatch.

“See anything?” he demanded.

“Plenty,” said Johnny.

“Yes, an’ heard ’em,” MacGregor added.

They told Blackie what had happened.

“So you think you heard them?” he asked.

“Think?” MacGregor roared. “We _know_ we heard ’em.”

“Might have been a seal barking to his mate, or mebby a loon. You can’t be sure. Question is, if they’re here, where’s their nets?” Blackie came up on deck.

“Turn the boat north by east,” he said to Johnny. “We’re going in for a rest.”

“Rest? What’s that?” Johnny opened up a grand smile.

“Something we don’t have much of,” said Blackie. “But this fog burns your eyes. You’re no good when you’ve been out too long.

“There’s a cabin on shore if only we can find it,” he explained. “A trapper’s place, snug and warm. Red McGee told me about it. Trapper’s gone south with his furs. We’re to make ourselves at home.”

Make themselves at home they did. After tying the _Stormy Petrel_ up at a narrow dock they helped George up to the cabin with kettles, pans and food supplies. Then, while a jolly wood fire roared in the huge stove made of a steel gasoline barrel, laid on ends, they sprawled out on rustic chairs to sniff the odor of roasting beef and baking pies and to dream dreams.

With his eyes closed, MacGregor was seeing “children and their mothers putting the top crust on apple pies.” In his dream Blackie held a struggling Oriental by the collar of his coat and the seat of his trousers. As for Johnny, he was seeing a round, freckled face all rosy with smiles. Then, to his dismay he was seeing that same face take on a somber look.

“Rusty,” he thought once again. “Will she ever forgive me?”

The feast George had prepared was one fit for a king or even a big league baseball player, and the sleep they had in that cabin resting among the bleak Alaskan hills was the soundest Johnny had known for many a day. Well it was that this should be, for Fate had much in store for him.