“There’s hope in the airplane that young Dan MacMillan is bringing up,” he thought with fresh courage. “If only he’d arrive and fly over this ship we’d manage somehow to signal him and then the whole navy would be on this old freighter’s heels.”
He was thinking now of something told to him in secret by Red McGee. He had been speaking of the cannery. It had been built by old Chad MacMillan. A crusty, honest, fair-dealing man, he had managed it for many years.
“Then he died,” Red had gone on, “and young Dan MacMillan, just out of university and full of big ideas, inherited it. This winter I suggested that he hire a seaplane to go out scouting for these Oriental robbers.
“‘It’s a fine idea,’ he said to me. ‘A grand idea. I’ll buy a seaplane and learn to pilot it. You’ll be seeing me up there scouting around as soon as the salmon season opens.’
“That’s what he said to me,” Red McGee had drawn in a deep breath. “These wild young millionaires! What can you expect? He’s not here now and like as not won’t show up at all.”
“What can you expect?” Johnny was thinking over his words now. “If only Dan MacMillan showed up over this old craft all these little brown men would be scared out of their skins.”
But would he come? He dared not so much as hope.
He wondered about Lawrence and Blackie. He suffered a pang because of Lawrence. What a shame that he had dragged the boy up here! He would be far better off in Matanuska valley planting turnips and potatoes, hunting wild geese, and, perhaps, catching a glacier bear way back in the mountains.
But here was MacGregor. And he carried in his hands, of all things, two pairs of boxing gloves. Johnny had wondered where they were to come from, but now here they were.
“These little brown boys go in strong for boxing,” the old man explained.