Nearly every day Skookum John sailed over to Tacoma, ostensibly to carry his fish, but really to discover whether or not the cutter had returned, and each night he came back glum with disappointment. Bonny often asked to be allowed to go to the city with him, as he was impatient to be again at work; but the Indian invariably put him off, on the plea that if the cutter-men discovered one whom they were so anxious to capture, in his canoe, they would punish him for having afforded the fugitive a shelter.
The young sailor could not understand why the cutter remained so long in one place, for he had never known her to do such a thing before, and many a talk did he and Alaric have on the subject.
So time wore on until our lads had spent two full weeks in the Siwash camp, and had become heartily sick of it. To be sure, Alaric had grown brown and rugged, besides becoming almost an adept in the several arts he had undertaken to master. His hands were no longer white, and their palms were covered with calloused spots instead of blisters.
Two things, however, distressed Alaric greatly, and one was his clothing, which was not only ragged, but soiled beyond anything he had ever dreamed of wearing. His canvas shoes, from frequent soakings and much walking on rocks, were so broken that they nearly dropped from his feet. His woollen trousers were shrunken and bagged at the knees, while his blue sweater, besides being torn, had faded to a brownish-red. With all this he was comforted by the reflection that he still had a good suit in reserve that he could wear whenever they should be free to go to the city.
His other great trial was the food of that Siwash camp. He had never been particularly fond of fish, and now, after eating it alone three times a day for two weeks, the very thought of fish made him ill. He loathed it so that it seemed to him he would almost rather go to prison, with a chance of getting something else to eat, than to remain any longer on a fish diet. From both these trials Bonny suffered nearly as much as his companion.
One day when the boys had decided that they could not stand this sort of thing any longer, they were out fishing in the swift sailing-canoe with Bah-die, Skookum John having gone in the larger boat to Tacoma. While they gloomily pursued their now distasteful employment a sail-boat containing two white men ran alongside to obtain bait. As these were the first of their own race with whom the boys had found an opportunity to talk since coming to that place, Bonny began to ply them with questions. Among others, he asked:
"What is the revenue-cutter doing at Tacoma all this time? Has she broken down?"
"She isn't there," replied one of the men.
"Isn't there?" repeated Bonny, incredulously.
"No; nor hasn't been for upwards of two weeks. We are expecting her back every day, though."