“Shouldn’t be any three-mile line,” he continued. “All our shore water belongs to us. So do the fish. It’s food, son! Food for the millions. And these Orientals would have had fish on their own shores if they hadn’t exterminated them.”
“We’re going out right now,” said Blackie. “Going to have a look for that shadow that passes in the fog. We’ve got a nice swivel cannon up there forward. Don’t know whether you can hit a shadow, but it won’t do any harm to try.”
“All the same, this is a serious situation,” said Blackie as they headed out into the fog. “These Alaskans are a strange people. They are like the men of the old west, the west that’s gone forever; fearless men with hearts of gold, fighting devils when they know they’ve been wronged. And this Oriental raiding business is an outrage, providing it’s true.”
“But is it true?” Johnny asked.
“That,” said Blackie, “is what we’re going to find out.
“Johnny,” he said after a moment, “go up forward and remove that box. Let our little brass messenger swing with the boat.”
A moment later, up forward, a small swivel cannon swung from side to side. As it did so it seemed to point, first right, then left.
“This way or that?” Johnny thought. “I wonder which it will be.”
Hour after hour the fog hung on. Hour after hour Johnny squinted his eyes for some moving object in that blanket of gray fog. The cold, damp ocean air chilled him to the bone. Stamping his feet, he held doggedly to his post. When his watch was over he went below to soak in the heat of the stove that George, the colored cook, kept roaring hot. He drank two cups of scalding black coffee, downed a plate of beans and a whole pan of hot biscuits, then spread himself out on a cushioned seat to close his eyes and dream.
In those dreams he saw creeping gray shadows, darting fish and a pair of laughing eyes. The eyes closed. When they opened the face wore a frown.