"No," said Dampier drily. "I was kind of afraid of that, but I choked him off. Anyway, this year won't see us back in Vancouver." He paused, with a little jarring laugh. "We're going to stay up here until we find out where those men left their bones. The man who has this thing in hand isn't the kind that lets up."
Charly made no answer, but his face hardened as he put his helm down a spoke or two.
Next day the wind fell lighter, but for a week it still held westerly, and after that it blew moderately fresh from the south. Crippled as she was, the Selache would lie a point or two south of east when they had set an old cut down fore-staysail on what was left of her mainmast, and the hearts of her crew grew a little lighter as she crawled on across the Pacific. They had no wish to be blown back to the frozen North. The days were, however, growing shorter rapidly, and the sun hung low in the southern sky when at length she crept into one of the many inlets that indent the coast of Southern Alaska. There was just wind enough to carry her in round a long, foam-lapped point, and soon afterwards they let the anchor go in four fathoms in a sheltered arm, with a river mouth not far away. There was no sign of life anywhere about it, and the ragged cedars that crept close down to the beach stood out in sombre spires against the gleaming snow.
The cold was not particularly severe when she crept in, but when Dampier went ashore next morning to pick a log that they could hew a mast out of the temperature suddenly fell, and that night the drift ice from the river mouth closed in on them. When the late daylight broke she was frozen fast, and they knew it would be several months before she moved again. It was then before the gold rush, and in winter Alaska was practically cut off from all communication with the south. No man would have attempted to traverse the tremendous snow-wrapped desolation of almost impassable hills and trackless forests that lay between them and the nearest of the commercial factories on the north, or the canneries on the other hand. Besides, the canneries were shut up in winter time. They were prisoners, and could only wait with what patience they could muster until the thaw set them free again.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A DELICATE ERRAND.
There was sharp frost outside, and the prairie was white with a thin sprinkle of snow, when a little party sat down to supper in the Hastings homestead one Saturday evening. Hastings sat at the head of the table, his wife at the foot with her little daughters, Agatha, Sproatly, and Winifred between them. The latter two had just driven over from the railroad settlement, as they did now and then, which explained why the meal, which is usually served early in the evening, had been delayed an hour or so. The two hired men, whom Mrs. Hastings had not kept waiting, had gone out to some task in the barn or stables.
By and bye Sproatly took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and laid them on the table. There had been a remarkable change in his appearance of late, for he now wore store clothes, and the skin coat he had taken off when he came in was, as his hostess had noticed, a new one. It occurred to her that there was a certain significance in this, though Sproatly had changed his occupation some little time ago, and now drove about the prairie on behalf of certain makers of agricultural implements.
"I called for your mail and Gregory's before we left," he said. "I had to go round to see him, which is partly what made us so late, though Winifred couldn't get away as soon as she expected. They've floods of wheat coming in to the elevators, and I understand that the milling people can't take another bushel in."