“You answer,” was the old man’s reply. “Sh-sh—” he warned. “Here comes a big shot, one of the monkeys with gold buttons.”
As he passed the “big shot” smiled suavely at them, but said never a word.
CHAPTER XX
A BATTLE IN THE DARK
Even at lunch time the toiling trio, Rusty, Johnny and MacGregor, were not invited to have their lunch on deck. Instead, they were served, like the coolie with whom they toiled, with great bowls of some mixture that looked like soup.
“Hm,” MacGregor sighed, “fish chowder. And not bad.”
Rusty’s eyes shone. “What a lark!” She laughed outright. “I only wish we had a camera. My crowd down in Seattle won’t believe me.”
Johnny looked at her in surprise and admiration. “Here’s one girl with a spirit that can’t be broken,” he thought.
“Reminds me of a time I was on the Big Diomede Island on Bering Straits,” said MacGregor with a rumble of merriment. “We were cutting up a big walrus. I saw an old woman working over the stomach of that walrus. Know what the walrus lives on?” he demanded.
“Clams,” said Johnny.
“Right. Bright boy,” said MacGregor. “The thing that had happened was this. The walrus had been down to the bottom. He’d ripped up the sand at the bottom of the sea. He’d cracked a lot of clams and had swallowed ’em. He hadn’t digested ’em yet when we shot ’im. Know what that Eskimo woman was doing?”