"Oh, don't listen to him," interrupted Ruth. "Billy, you shut up! You will have plenty of chance to talk after awhile. Captain, you tell about finding the Good Luck."
"Squashed!" sighed Little Billy.
CHAPTER IX
THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SMOKY SEA
"It won't take me long to tell my part of the story," commenced Captain Dabney. "It happened last Summer, up in Bering Sea. I dodged out of the fog-bank, where I had been playing hide-and-seek with the Russian gunboat, and saw the sun for the first time in a week, and at the same time clapped eyes upon Fire Mountain. Ay, I had my eyes then—good eyes, too."
The captain drew his hand across his sightless eyes. He had spoken in the inflectionless voice of the blind, but Martin sensed a note of bitterness, of revolt, in his voice. Ruth patted his shoulder comfortingly, and the old man continued.
"Fire Mountain, lad, is a volcano. It is a volcanic island sticking up out of the water several hundred miles off the Kamchatka coast. But I guess I had better tell you how we came to be in Bering last Summer.
"You know, lad, I am a trader. Fur is a mighty profitable trade, if you can get enough fur, and at reasonable prices, and for the last ten years I have traded every Summer along the Kamchatka and Anadyr coasts. I have left the seal rookeries alone—they are too well guarded nowadays—and traded with the natives for their furs.
"The Russian Chartered Company has a monopoly of the fur trade in Eastern Siberia, and, like any monopoly, they gouge. They insist upon about five thousand per cent. profit in their dealings with the natives. Naturally, the natives are more than anxious to trade with a free-lance. The Russian Government keeps a little tin-pot gun-boat cruising up and down to prevent poaching, and if you are caught it means the mines for all hands. But, Lord! Any live Yankee can dodge those lubbers. They have chased me every year for ten years, and I have won free every time.