Tom was the first to notice that, although they had been rowing for an hour or more, the dory was still rolling on the heavy swells of the open sea. Suspecting that something was amiss, he signaled to the men to stop rowing. Without a change of expression, the flat-faced, lank-haired Aleuts rested on their oars.
Everything about the tossing dory was silent except for the swish and sigh of the waves as they swept under her. Listen as they would, they could hear no other sound from any quarter.
"I don't like the appearance of things much," said Tom in reply to a question from Jack; "we ought to have reached the dock by now."
"Looks that way to me," was the response.
"How far did the captain say it was?" inquired Sandy.
"Not more than half an hour's row from the ship. If these fellows know their business, we ought to be there by now."
"That's evident. How silent it all is," said Jack in a rather awestruck voice. "Surely if we were near the town even, we would be able to hear something."
"Just what I was thinking, more particularly as fog exaggerates sound," responded Tom. "What makes it worse, too, is that the steamer has stopped sounding her whistle. We can't even get back to her now."
"I wish we'd stuck to the pilot boat," put in Sandy dismally.