“Er, excuse me, boys,” he apologized. “That sounds an awful lot like bragging. We didn’t catch the Shadow that passes in the fog last season. We didn’t do those Orientals much harm, either. Too slick for us, I guess. But wish me luck next time. The biggest industry in Alaska, the run of red salmon, depends on us.”
“Here’s luck,” said Johnny, lifting a cup of coffee just poured by Joe’s motherly wife. “Here’s luck to the service.”
“And may you be my buddy!” Blackie added.
That night Johnny and Lawrence walked home in silence. The great white world was all about them and the blue-white stars above. Their thoughts were long, long thoughts.
Arrived at their log cabin home, they dragged out a tattered map of Alaska to study its shore-line and most of all the shores of Bristol Bay.
“May,” Lawrence said at last. “That’s a long time yet.”
“Yes,” Johnny agreed, “and there’s plenty to get excited about tomorrow. What do you say we turn in?”
CHAPTER III
FAT AND FURIOUS
Anyone who had watched the two boys skating slowly up the river next morning would surely have been puzzled. Before them, now darting up a steep bank and now scurrying along over the snow, were two brown, fur-clad creatures. Neither dogs nor cats, they still appeared quite domestic in their actions. Once when they had gone racing ahead too far Johnny let out a shrill whistle and they came dashing back to peer up into his face as if to say, “Did you call me?”
“They’re great!” Lawrence chuckled. “Got a dog beat a mile. They never bark.”