“They must have got into the other channel mouth in the fog and gone down Wood Island way,” said Uncle Dick, at last, beginning to be troubled.
“Well, if an Aleut can do anything wrong, that’s what he’s going to do,” answered the dock-master. “We’ll have to send a boat over there after those people yet. By-the-way, Captain Barker, of the Bennington, is waiting for you. And he told me to tell you to come aboard in Pete’s dory as soon as you struck the town.”
“But the dory’s gone,” commented Uncle Dick. “I don’t like the look of this.”
Both men, with lips compressed, stood staring out into the heavy blanket of fog.
V
THE MISSING DORY
What happened was this: The two natives in the dory were unable to understand English, and of course the three boys knew nothing of the native language. Yet from the hasty instruction of the pilot, Pete, the natives had gathered that “the boss gentleman”—that is to say, Uncle Dick—wanted to go to the revenue-cutter Bennington. Accordingly they concluded that the boys also were bound directly for the cutter, and so instead of heading to the channel which led to the town, they proposed to take a cut-off behind Wood Island, best known to themselves. Thus they rowed on for more than half an hour before any of the boys suspected anything wrong. Rob made signs to them to stop rowing. All the boys looked about them in the fog. They were still in the roll of the open sea, and the dory pitched wildly on the long swell, but, listen intently as they might, they could hear no sound from any quarter.