After the edge of their weariness had worn off with their first heavy slumbers, the mental anxiety of the young adventurers began to return, and they slept so uneasily that when morning came they all awoke with a start at the sounds they heard outside the barabbara.
Rain and heavy wind had begun some time in the night; but now they heard something else—the swishing of feet in the wet grass and the sound of low voices.
The young Aleut was awake also, but he smiled as he sat up on the blankets.
“I don’t think we need be alarmed,” said Rob, in a low tone to his friends. “If these people had meant us any harm we’d have been foolish to go out in their boats with them and leave our guns. Now we’re here safe with all our guns and other stuff, and here’s this boy with us, too. If they had not felt friendly toward us they would never have let him stay here all night. Too bad we can’t understand their talk, and just have to guess at things; but that’s the way I guess it.”
A moment later there came the sound of a loud voice at the door. It opened, and the swarthy face of the Aleut chief peered in. He jabbered in his native language to the boy, who replied briefly and composedly. The chief now pushed his way into the hut, and, much to the annoyance of the white occupants, he was followed by a dozen other natives, who came crowding in and filling the place with the rank smell of wet fur and feathers. They seated themselves around the edge of the barabbara, and one of them presently began to make a fire.
“Dis barabbara—my peoples!” said the chief. “My families come here all light, all light, all light!”
“Just as I thought,” said Rob, aside, to the others. “It is we who are the visitors, not they. John, you act as interpreter. Ask him how far it is to Kadiak.”
The keen-witted chief caught the sound of the latter word.
“You come Kadiak?” he said. “Come dory? You no got-um schooner?”
“Schooner by-and-by,” broke in Rob, hurriedly. “Our peoples come.”