Chapter IX: Fate Lends a Hand

Strangely enough it was Fate, in the form of an automobile accident in far away Seattle, that cast the final vote deciding their choice between the _Stormy Petrel_ in Bristol Bay and a glacier bear hunt with Smokey Joe.

Spring had come at last. Steadfastly refusing to go in debt, the Dawsons, with Johnny’s help, were attempting to clear their land without the help of a tractor.

At first it was fun. With blasting powder and dynamite they blew the larger stumps into shreds. The boom—boom—boom of blasts might be heard for miles.

There remained thousands of smaller stumps. To force these from the tough sod and heavy black soil with pick, shovel and bar, was back-breaking labor.

“Give me time,” Johnny would groan when morning came. “There’s a place in my back somewhere that bends. I’ll find it. Just give me time.”

Joke as they might, they could not but feel that progress was woefully slow and that seed-time would find them all unprepared.

One bright day an automobile came bumping over the uneven road to pause before their field. Out from it popped an old friend.

“Blackie!” Johnny exclaimed. “I thought you’d be in Bristol Bay by now.”

“I’m on my way,” Blackie puffed. “And so are you.

“Mr. Lawson,” he exclaimed, “I must draft your boys into my service.”

“What about these stumps,” Mr. Lawson straightened his stiff back.

“What’ll it cost to have ’em out with a tractor?” Blackie demanded.

Both Johnny and Lawrence looked at him with gleaming eyes.

“Why do you need my boys?” the man among the stumps demanded.

“Two of the men who were to accompany me have been crippled,” Blackie explained. “They were in an auto accident in Seattle. I had a wire this morning. They were so badly hurt they could not let me know sooner. And tomorrow we were to sail. Already there has been news of trouble in Bristol Bay.

“I tell you, Mr. Lawson,” Blackie was pleading now. “It’s for Alaska and her greatest enterprise I ask it. Yes, and for every humble American who makes a simple meal from a can of salmon. As I see it, it’s your patriotic duty to let them go.”

Then Blackie did a strange thing for him. He quoted poetry—

“‘Not once nor twice in our fair Island’s story
Has the path of duty been the way to glory.’

“Mr. Lawson!” he exploded, “let them go. Here!” he waved a roll of bills. “I’ll pull your stumps. I’ll plow your land and sow your seed. Let them go.”

Who could have refused? Surely not a man with Tom Lawson’s patriotic soul. “Al-all right, boys,” he said huskily. “Go get your clothes. And—and Blackie, I must trust you to bring them safely home.”

“No need to worry,” Blackie reassured him. “We’ll all be back to shoot fire-crackers with you on the Fourth of July. And may your fields be green by then.”

Twenty-four hours later Johnny and Lawrence found themselves standing on the narrow deck of the _Stormy Petrel_ watching a familiar shore-line fade from their sight.

To Johnny this seemed just one more journey into the great unknown. To Lawrence it was something more, his first long trip away from his own family. Strange emotions stirred within him. Questions he could not answer crowded through his mind. How long was this journey to last? What strange, wild adventures would he meet? What would be the outcome? Would they be of some real service?

Through his thoughts ran Blackie’s two lines of verse,

“‘Not once nor twice in our fair Island’s story
Has the path of duty been the way to glory.’”

What did it mean? He had only a vague notion.

“MacGregor,” he said to the gray-haired engineer who thrust his head up from the engine room, “what do these words mean?” He repeated the lines.

“Well, noo, me lad,” said the friendly old Scotchman, “I’ve never been too good at poetry. But it seems to me it says if ye think first of yer country and her needs, ye’ll be likely to get the things you want most fer yerself; that is, I meant to say, in the end.”

“Thanks.” Once again the boy paced the deck. Was this true? He wanted a tractor, a humble, earth-digging, sod-plowing, stump-pulling tractor. It was a strange thing for a boy to want, he knew. Most boys would have wished for an automobile, but he wanted a tractor. Would he get it?

As they left Seward behind and headed west to follow the Alaskan Peninsula until they could cross over into Bristol Bay, it seemed to him that they were heading directly away from his heart’s desire. The pay they were to receive was small. It would help very little. “And yet,” he thought with a firm resolve to do his best in his strange new position, “Sometimes fate does seem to take a hand in making things come out just right. Here’s hoping.”

The _Stormy Petrel_ was a sturdy boat with powerful motors. She was small—little larger than a good-sized speed boat. But how she could go!

There was a small after-cabin with six bunks ranged along the sides. Here George, the colored cook, presided over a small stove producing glorious things to eat. The coffee was always hot. And indeed it was needed, for, as a gray fog settled down upon them, the air became bitter cold.

Johnny was to take watch for watch with Blackie as steersman. Lawrence was to exchange watches with MacGregor and preside over the motors. Had this been a week’s cruise simply for pleasure, nothing could have been more delightful. Johnny loved boats. Lawrence listened to the steady roar of his motors and was joyously happy.

And yet, there hung over them a sense of approaching danger.

“Say-ee!” Johnny exclaimed on the third day, after taking their position and studying the chart. “We’re closer to Asia than we are to Seattle.”

“Aye, that we are, me lad,” MacGregor agreed.

“Yes, and that’s why it’s so easy for these Orientals to slip over here and trap our fish,” Blackie exploded.

“And that,” he went on quietly, “is why you settlers in Matanuska Valley are given so much financial aid. Your old Uncle Sam wants you there. He’s going to locate more and more people along these Alaskan shores. You watch and see! Why? To give them homes? Not a bit of it. To have people here to watch those Orientals, that’s why.”

“Well,” said Johnny with a laugh. “Looks like we’d learn a lot of geography and current history on this trip.”

“No doubt about that, me lad,” MacGregor agreed.

They had been on the water for five days when, touching Johnny on the shoulder, Blackie pointed at two spots of white against the sky.

“That’s snow on two mountain peaks,” he explained. “The cannery we’re heading for is built on the banks of a small river close to these mountains. We’ll be there before dark. And after that,” he took a deep breath. “After that our real work begins.”

“A new world,” Johnny murmured dreamily.

“You don’t know half of it,” said Blackie. And Blackie was right.