The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound Part 22

They ran on for a couple of hours, seeing nothing but the ranks of tumbling combers, except at intervals when the haze thinned a little and they made out a shadowy ma.s.s which might have been high and rocky land over the port side. In the meanwhile the seas were steadily getting bigger, and a good deal of water came in at irregular intervals. By and by, the boys were kept busy bailing it out, and the Indian who was not steering held the sheet of the larger sail.

At length, when the tops of two or three seas splashed in over the foam-washed stern in quick succession, the helmsman raised his hand and there was a wild thras.h.i.+ng as his companion loosened the after-sheet.

Rolling the sail together he flung the mast down, and the canoe ran on with only the forward one set, which seemed to Frank quite sufficient.

The sea was on her quarter, and each comber that came up boiled about her in a great surge of foam, and heaved her up before it left her to sink dizzily into the hollow. Each time she did so Frank was conscious of a curious and unpleasant feeling in his interior.

He had, however, no difficulty in eating his share of the crackers and canned provisions Mr. Oliver presently handed around, and after that he was kept too busy bailing to notice anything until late in the afternoon when he heard the two Indians muttering to one another. The result of the discussion was that one of them pulled the sprit out, and folding down the peak left only a small three-cornered strip of sail. Frank understood the cause for this when he glanced at the seas, which looked alarmingly big. It was disconcerting to realize that they could take no more sail off the canoe unless they lowered the mast altogether, and where the beach was he could not tell. He had seen no sign of it for the last two hours, and it was now raining viciously hard.

n.o.body seemed inclined to talk, and there was only the roar and splash of the combers behind them as they drove wildly on, until when dusk was close at hand the dim shadow of a hill rose up suddenly on one side of them. Then the Indian hauled the sheet, and presently when the water became smoother, called to his companion, who thrust the sprit up again.

After that the canoe put her lee side in every now and then, but very soon a foam-fringed point stretched out ahead. They swept around it, and after skirting a half-seen, rocky beach ran with spritsail thras.h.i.+ng into a little basin down to which there crept rows of mist-wrapped trees.

Frank was thankful to get out when the helmsman ran her ash.o.r.e, and the work of a.s.sisting the Indians to chop branches and make a fire put a little warmth into him. They made supper when darkness closed down, and afterward the Indians erected a rude branch-and-bark shelter, while the white men and the boys huddled together in the tent. It was better than sitting in the foam-swept canoe, but Frank longed for the sloop's low-roofed cabin.

He went to sleep, however, wet as he was, and after an early breakfast next morning they started again, with both spritsails up in torrential rain. The water was comparatively smooth, though the doleful moaning of the firs fell from the half-seen hills, and Mr. Oliver announced that the entrance to the ca.n.a.l they had come down was not far away. Frank had learned that on the Pacific Slope ca.n.a.l generally means a natural arm of the sea.

They reached its entrance presently, sailing close-hauled, and on stretching across it the canoe plunged viciously on a short, white-topped sea. The wind was blowing straight down the deep rift in the hills, and Frank remembered with regret that Alberni stood a long way up at the head of the inlet. They came back on the other tack, making almost nothing, and the Siwash pulled the masts down before one of them spoke to Mr. Oliver.

"I suppose they can't get the canoe to windward?" suggested Mr. Barclay.

"He says we'll have to paddle," Mr. Oliver answered. "There seem to be four paddles in her and that will leave two of us to relieve the rest in turn."

Harry and Frank took the first spell with the Indians, and they had had enough of it before an hour had pa.s.sed. The wind was dead ahead of them, and though they crept in close with the beach they were met by little, spiteful seas. It was necessary to fight for every fathom, thras.h.i.+ng her slowly ahead by sheer force of muscle. Frank's hands were soon sore and one knee raw from pressing it against the craft's bottom. He got hot and breathless, the rain was in his face, and his side began to ache, and it was a vast relief to him when Mr. Oliver finally took his place.

The mists were thinning when he sat down limply in the bottom of the craft, and great rocky hills and dusky firs crawled slowly by, except when now and then a fiercer gust swept down, whitening all the inlet, and they barely held their own by desperate paddling. Then as it dropped a little they forged ahead again. It was dreary as well as very arduous work, but there was no avoiding it, for their provisions were almost gone and there was no trail of any kind through the bush. Frank felt that even paddling into a strong head wind was better than smas.h.i.+ng through continuous th.o.r.n.y brakes and floundering over great fallen logs.

One hand commenced to bleed when he next took his turn, but that was, as he realized, not a matter of much importance. They had to reach Alberni sometime next day, and his chief concern was how it could be done. Then the pain in his side set in again and became rapidly worse, and he set his lips tight as he swung gasping with each stroke of the splas.h.i.+ng blade. They won a foot or so each time the paddles came down, and it was somewhat consoling to recognize it. He felt that if he had been called upon to do this kind of thing after sleeping wet through upon the ground when he first came out he would have immediately collapsed, but he was steadily acquiring the power to disregard bodily fatigue.

There was no change as the day slipped by. It rained pitilessly, and the wind continually headed them as they labored on wearily with set, wet faces and straining muscles. The stroke must not slacken, for the moment it grew feebler the canoe would drive astern. They kept it up until nightfall, and then beaching the canoe lay down once more in the tent, which strained in the wind. They were aching all over when they rose next morning, and the work was still the same, but they reached Alberni, worn out, early in the evening. It was a very small place then, though it afterward sprang up into a mining town. Two or three ranch houses stood in their clearings beside a crystal river, and a few more buildings cl.u.s.tered at the head of the inlet half hidden in the bush.

There was a store and a frame hotel among them, and Mr. Oliver, who took up quarters in the latter, told the boys that the stage would start on the following morning. The Indians were given shelter in one of the outbuildings, and the hotelkeeper insisted on locking up the dog, who growled at everybody about the place.

"I'm not scared of dogs," he explained, "but that one of yours won't let me get about my own house. Besides, I guess he'd eat some of those Chinamen before morning if you leave him loose."

They were standing near a window, and Mr. Oliver glanced at one or two blue-clad figures lounging under the dripping trees.

"You seem to have a number of them about," he remarked. "I saw another lot as I came in. What are they doing here?"

"Stopping for the night," was the answer. "They're camping in a barn of mine and going on to the gold creek at sun-up, though they may start earlier if the rain stops. Quite a few of them have come in over the trail lately."

"Then there must be a regular colony in the bush," broke in Mr. Barclay, who had strolled up.

"No," replied the hotelkeeper, "that's the curious thing. They keep on coming in by threes and fours, but Blake from the ranch higher up the river was through that way not long ago, and he said he didn't see many of them yonder. About two dozen, he figured, but more than that have come through here to my certain knowledge."

"It looks as if the gold-was.h.i.+ng didn't pay and the rest had gone on somewhere," Mr. Barclay suggested carelessly.

The hotelkeeper looked bewildered. "Well," he said, "this is the only trail to the settlements, and they certainly haven't come back this way.

It's mighty rough traveling through the bush, as you ought to know."

Mr. Barclay smiled ruefully as he glanced down at his torn clothing and badly damaged boots. "That's a sure thing. Besides, they'd have their truck to pack along, which would make it more difficult. Those fellows generally bring a lot of odds and ends with them."

"Oh, yes," a.s.sented the hotelkeeper. "Most of them have their slung baskets on poles. Anyway, I've no fault to find with them. They make no trouble."

He walked off, and when Mr. Barclay and Mr. Oliver went out, Harry gave a triumphant glance at Frank.

"Now," he said, "you see what our friend has found out without giving himself away. The question is, where do those Chinamen who don't stay with the gold-was.h.i.+ng get to?"

Frank laughed. "I expect Barclay could give you an answer. There's another thing he could probably guess at, and that's what they've got in some of those slung baskets."

Then they moved back toward the lighted stove, for the rain drove against the frame walls and it was damp and chilly in the big bare room.

CHAPTER XV

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

It was getting dark when the boys retired to their room, in which two beds were standing at opposite corners. Harry chose the one nearest the door, and they left the window open. The room was, as usual in such places, very scantily furnished, but it appeared very comfortable after their camps in the dripping bush, and Frank found it a luxury to get his clothes off and lie down upon a comparatively soft mattress.

A draught blew in at intervals through the window, and the door, which would not shut, swung to and fro. It was raining as hard as ever, for Frank could hear a m.u.f.fled roar upon the s.h.i.+ngled roof, and the pines outside were wailing dolefully. He soon went to sleep, however, but was awakened later by the sound of voices and a soft patter of feet below.

The rain seemed to have stopped at last, though he could hear a heavy splas.h.i.+ng from the branches of the firs close by, and he fancied that the Chinamen must be starting. There was, however, no sign of morning when he glanced toward the window, which showed only as a faintly lighter square in the surrounding obscurity. In fact, it seemed unusually dark, which struck him as curious, since there was a moon, but the hotel stood in a valley shrouded by giant trees and he supposed that the sky was thick with cloud.

He heard the voices grow fainter and the footsteps gradually recede until they were lost in the moaning of the pines, and he felt that he did not envy the Chinamen their journey. He wondered why they had not waited until sunrise before starting, and then remembered that a rancher he had met had told him that a trail led out of the settlement for some distance. He supposed it would be light before the Chinamen should reach the end of it and plunge into the forest. About a quarter of an hour had slipped away when, lying half asleep, he thought that he heard some one in the room. He could see nothing but the window, and could hear little else than the sound of the wind among the trees, but raising himself very cautiously on one elbow he distinctly heard a faint sound that suggested a stealthy movement. This seemed very curious, for he felt almost certain that if his companion had had any idea of trying to find out something about the Chinamen he would have told him, besides which, the Chinamen had gone.

While he lay still listening with tingling nerves there was a soft sc.r.a.ping and presently a very pale blue flame broke out, showing a shadowy figure in a loose robe bending over Harry's bed with a light in its hand. Frank did not pause to consider what the stranger's intentions might be, but reached for his boot, which was a heavy one, and flung it with all his might at the shadowy object's head. It struck the boarded wall with a startling crash, the light suddenly went out, and he sprang from his bed in the darkness with a cry of "Harry!"

"Well," said his companion drowsily, "what's the matter?"

"Where's the Chinaman?" shouted Frank, darting toward the door.

He ran out into a pa.s.sage with Harry blundering half awake behind him, and noticed that there was an open window near the door which had been shut when he had last seen it. On reaching it he espied what seemed to be the roof of a low outbuilding not far below, but there was very little else to be seen except the loom of the dusky pines which were beginning to stand out against the sky. Then he heard a rush of pattering feet and a yelp on the stairway close by, and a furry body flung itself against his knee. He recognized the dog, who almost immediately darted into the room. It came out again, sprang to the window ledge, and bounded to the roof beneath. He heard a soft thud on the s.h.i.+ngles and a bark that sounded farther off, and then for a moment or two there was silence again.

It was broken by the sound of a door flung open, and Mr. Barclay came along the pa.s.sage very lightly dressed, with a lamp in his hand. Telling them to follow, he walked into the boys' room, and placed the lamp on a bureau before he sat down on the nearest bed.

"Now," he asked, "what's the cause of this commotion?"

"I don't know," said Harry. "Perhaps Frank can tell you. He seems to have been throwing his boots about."

Frank, a little nettled, narrated what he had seen. Mr. Barclay smiled.

"You say the man was standing by Harry's bed," he observed. "Did you notice if he had a big knife in his hand?"

"He'd nothing but a match," Frank answered shortly.

"Now that's curious," said Mr. Barclay. "Do you suppose he meant to set the bed on fire, or have you any idea what he was doing?"

Frank heard a slight sound and looking around saw Mr. Oliver standing in the doorway, while just then a shout came down the pa.s.sage, apparently from the hotelkeeper.

"What's the trouble? Is there anything wrong?"