“Mr. Richard Hazlett, Kadiak.
“Dear Sir,—We are all right, but don’t know where we are, or what date this is, or which way Kadiak is. We came down in the dory. Travelled all night. Are safe and have plenty to eat, but want to go home. Please send for us, and oblige
“Yours truly, ——.”
“Do you think that’ll do all right, boys?” he asked.
The others nodded assent, and so each signed his name. Folding up the paper and tying it in a piece of the membrane which he cut off a corner of his kamelinka, Rob finally gave the packet to the old chief.
“Plenty talk-talk thing,” he said. “You bring peoples—get-um schooner—my peoples give-um flour, sugar, two rifle, hundred dollars.”
Without further comment than a grunt the old chief stowed the packet in an inside pocket of his feather jacket, and swung Jesse’s rifle under his arm, not neglecting the ammunition. He had eaten heavily of whale meat and seemed to be pretty well beyond emotion of any sort. Certainly he turned and did not even say good-bye to his son as he swung into the front hatch of his bidarka, followed by another paddler, and headed toward the mouth of the bay, almost the last of the little craft to leave the coast.
The boys stood looking after him carefully. The presence of these natives had, it is true, offered a certain danger, or at least a certain problem, but now that they were gone the place seemed strangely lonesome, after all. Rob heard a little sound and turned.
Jesse was not exactly crying, but was struggling with himself.