Jordan laughed softly. "Well," he said, "I guess he'll feel kind of sorry he did before very long."
As he spoke there was a flash astern of them, and while yellow vapour whirled about the steamer the lads heard the roar of a gun.
CHAPTER XVI
STICKINE MAKES A DEAL
Nobody on board the Champlain showed that they had heard the gunboat's warning shot, and the sound was lost in the roar of the surf which was now spouting white close in front of her. The shadowy crags were, however, falling away, and Jordan still sat on the house unconcernedly, though there were apparently only foam-swept reefs before him, and the war-vessel was coming up rapidly behind.
"I've been worrying about her draught when I've got it all the time," he said. "Bring me the handy book up, Stickine."
Stickine disappeared, and when he returned with a battered volume in which Appleby had once or twice seen the skipper writing, the two men's faces showed up sharp against the dimness as they bent over it in the faint radiance that came up through the skylights of the house. Jordan's was quietly contemplative as he turned over the pages.
"Here she is," he said at last. "Four-expansion engines; still that's not what we want. Now we're coming to it. Small displacement vessel for coast-wise service. Depth moulded. Here it is. Draught in seagoing trim!"
Stickine followed the skipper's pointing finger, and then laughed softly as he looked up. "Two feet more than the Champlain, and he's coming in," he said. "Well, he's not going to find it so easy to take her out again. We'll have the haze down thick as a blanket before we're through."
Appleby who heard them understood but little of this, though its meaning became apparent later, and his attention was too occupied for him to wonder much about it just then. The reefs were unpleasantly close to them, and the gunboat coming on, though the vapours that drove past the schooner left very little of her visible. The men were silent, and Donovitch held the wheel, while another Indian stood forward calling out to him.