"No, sir," said Stickine. "Not that time, anyway. When they last saw the land they were well off shore."
"Then the Russians had no right to seize them, and the Canadian Government could have made them pay up thousands of dollars," said Niven.
A little, grim smile crept into the faces of the men. "That," said one of them, "is where you're wrong. They had all the right they wanted when they had the men and guns, and who's going to believe a poaching sealer when an officer in kid-gloves tells quite a different story?"
"And have British subjects no redress?" asked Appleby with a little flush in his face, and Montreal grinned at him with grim approval.
"Oh, yes, when they can get it—and they do now and then, though they don't usually worry the Government folks at Ottawa," he said. "They took them to Peter Paul, Stickine?"
"They did," said Stickine. "And they kept them most of eight months there cooped up in a loghouse with a little dried fish to eat, and 'bout half enough sour black bread. They wouldn't tell the officer where that schooner was, you see, and when they're not put down on the papers men in prison get kind of forgotten in that country."
"And you believe it has happened—to Canadians?" asked Niven with a little gasp of anger.
The veins swelled up on Montreal's forehead. "Well, there are sealer's boats, British and American, that get lost, and nobody but the partners of the men who pulled in them and a woman or two away down south worries very much," he said. "I had a brother in one of them."
There was silence for almost a minute before Stickine went on again. "Two of them got very sick, and they all got thin, until when the spring came they were walked out every day with a guard to take care of them. Perhaps the officer figured it would be kind of awkward if they died on his hands and then somebody remembered them. Well, one day nigh sundown the mate and a sick man were sitting on the beach looking at the sea, and wondering if their folks in Canada would ever hear of them again. They were to be sent away from that place in a day or two.
"Now, there was an old schooner that must have been getting shaky when the Russians seized her years before moored in front of them. The oakum was spewing from her seams, her bulwarks were worn and weather-cracked so you could put your fingers in the rents in them, and it wasn't much use telling a sealerman what kind of canvas she would have after lying there since the Russians took her in the rain and wind. Still, she looked kind of homely, and they sat there watching her until they heard the boom of gun and there was a Russian soldier signing to them. Now, some of those folks were kind enough, but this was a bad man, and when the sealer who was sick couldn't get along fast enough he kicked him hard, and where it would hurt him."