It was with the feelings of a real discoverer that he read those words over and over. When he had finished he said to himself, “If ever I see one of those bears I’ll know him.”
But would he? At the present moment those bears seemed as far away as the moon. And yet, who could tell?
At dawn next morning the three of them, George, the cook, Blackie and Lawrence, carried their few supplies down to the dock, tacked a note on the door, climbed into the broad, clumsy skiff and rowed into the fog.
“We’ll follow the shore as far as we can,” said Blackie. “We’ll have to cross a broad stretch of open water, but I think I can manage that with my pocket compass.”
When at last Lawrence saw even the small island disappear from sight, he regretted the circumstances that appeared to make it necessary to leave that comfortable retreat.
When Johnny and his friends came on board that same morning, they found the fog still with them, but it was thinner. There was a suggestion of a breeze in the air.
“Going to clear,” was MacGregor’s prophecy. This, they were soon to discover, did not concern them too much, at least not in the immediate future.
When they had eaten a strange mixture of rice and meat and had gulped down some very bitter coffee, a little man with neither gold nor braid on his uniform came up to them, saluted in a careless manner and said simply, “Come.”
They followed him from one deck to another until they found themselves in a vast place of steam and evil smells.
When their eyes had become accustomed to the light and steam, they saw long rows of men toiling and sweating over apparently endless tables. Before the tables, on a conveyor, thousands of large salmon moved slowly forward.