“That’s snow on two mountain peaks,” he explained. “The cannery we’re heading for is built on the banks of a small river close to these mountains. We’ll be there before dark. And after that,” he took a deep breath. “After that our real work begins.”
“A new world,” Johnny murmured dreamily.
“You don’t know half of it,” said Blackie. And Blackie was right.
CHAPTER X
A NEW WORLD
Next morning Johnny and Blackie Dawson sat on the deck of the Stormy Petrel. A wild nor’wester was whipping up the ocean spray. Even on the river well back from the narrow bay, little whitecaps came racing in.
“No day for going out!” Blackie grumbled. “Pile up on the rocks, that’s what we’d do.”
“Yes,” Johnny agreed. Fact is, he at that moment was not thinking of the sea, but of the quiet Matanuska valley, of the snug home he and his people had built there. He wondered in a vague sort of way how far this, his latest venture, would lead him from that home. He was thinking not so much for himself as for his cousin Lawrence.
Strange as it might seem, the welcome given them by the people of the cannery had not come up to their expectations. Men had stared at them, had mumbled something under their breath, then gone about their work.
Work there was to be done, too. There was a pleasant hum of expectancy about the place. Every motor, machine and conveyor in the place was being given the once-over. Power-boat motors thundered as they went through their testing. Johnny felt a desire to become a part of it all. And yet—
“Fool sort of thing this rushing off after adventure,” he told himself. But, had love of adventure alone brought them this far, hundreds of miles from his quiet valley? Love of home was one thing, love of one’s country another. You didn’t—