“Hope so,” rejoined Rob, now rolling up his fishing-line, and again kicking his codfish out of the road of the gathering crowd. “He’s probably got something for us if he is.”
“How far is she out?” inquired Jesse. “She blows like the Yucatan, but maybe she’s the old Portland coming in.”
“If she’s the Portland my father might be aboard,” said John. “If it’s the Yucatan, and Uncle Dick’s coming, then we’ll get my new rifle, sure.”
“One apiece, then,” said Rob. “If each of us had a gun we could all go hunting together.”
“Pack-train just came across the divide yesterday,” said Jesse, “and they had four bear-skins. They got ’em less than thirty miles inland. The fellow that killed them threw away two skins because they were so heavy he didn’t want to bother to pack ’em. But I don’t suppose they’d let us go bear-hunting yet,” said Jesse, hesitatingly.
“The biggest bear in this whole country,” began Rob, who was posted on such matters, “are over toward Kadiak Island. I heard a trader from Seldovia saying there were a few sea-otters over there, too.”
“Wouldn’t you like to go over to Kadiak—just once?” said John. “A big bear-skin or two, and maybe a sea-otter—we could cash in our fur for enough to buy a mining claim, like enough! My uncle Dick’s due to go over there, too, before long,” he ruminated. “You know he’s employed on the government survey, and they’re making soundings on that part of the coast.”
Rob drew a long breath. “Well, maybe sometime we could get over there,” he said; and the others nodded, because they had come to look on him as something of a leader in their out-door expeditions.
“Priddy soon dat fog shall lift,” remarked Ole Petersen, an old sailor who was lounging about the dock. He nodded toward the mouth of the harbor, where now all could see the heavy veil of mist growing thinner. Little by little, even as the steady boom of the steamer’s whistle came echoing in, the front of the fog-bank thinned and lifted, showing the white-capped waves rolling beneath. Suddenly a strong shift of wind descended from the cañon between two of the many mountain-peaks which line the bay, and broke the fog into long ribbons of white vapor. The sun shone through, and its warmth sent the white mist up in twisting ropes, which faded away in the upper air. At last there came into view the red-topped smoke-stacks and the gaunt, dark hull of the great ocean steamer, whose funnels poured forth clouds of black smoke which drifted toward the farther shore of the bay.
“Yucatan!” sang out Rob—and Ole Petersen calmly seconded him with a nod—“Yucatan!”