Chapter VII. And Neptune Takes Another - Page 2

"We've missed her."

"What d'you mean?" demanded Big George, blankly.

"I mean that the storm delayed us just long enough to ruin us."

"Why--er--let's wait till the next trip," offered the fisherman.

Emerson shook his head. "She may not be back here for eight weeks. No! We're done for."

Balt was like a big boy in distress. His face wrinkled as if he were about to burst into loud lamentations; then a thought seized him.

"I'll tell you what we'll do!" he cried, with a heavy attempt at meeting the problem. "We'll put off the scheme for a year. We'll take plenty of time, and open up a year from next spring."

"No," said Emerson, with a dejected shake of the head. "If I can't put it through on the flash, I can't do it at all. My time is up. I'm down and out. All our pretty plans have gone to smash. You'd better go back to Kalvik, George."

At this suggestion, Balt rose ponderously and began to rave. To see his vengeance slip from his grasp enraged him. He cursed shockingly, clinching his great fists above his head, and grinding forth imprecations which caused Fraser to quail and cry out aghast:

"Hey, you! Quit that! D'you want to hang a Jonah onto us?"

But the fisherman only goaded himself into a greater passion, during which Petellin, the storekeeper, entered, and forthwith began to cross himself devoutly. Observing this fervent pantomime, Balt turned upon the trader and directed his outburst at him:

"Where in hell is this steamer?"

"Out to the westward somewhere."

"Well, she's a mail-boat, ain't she? Then why don't she stop here coming back? Answer me!"

The rotund man shrugged his fat shoulders. "She's got to call at Uyak Bay going east."

Emerson looked up quickly, "Where is Uyak Bay?"

"Over on Kodiak Island," Big George answered; then turned again to vent his spleen on the trader.

"What right have them steamboat people got to cut out this place for an empty cannery? Why, there ain't nobody at Uyak. It's more of that damned Company business. They own this whole country, and run it to suit themselves."

"She ain't my boat," said Petellin. "You'd ought to have got here a few days sooner."

"My God! I'm sorry we waited at the Pass," said Emerson. "The weather couldn't have been any worse that first day than it was when we came across."

Detecting in this remark a criticism of his caution, Big George turned about and faced the speaker; but as he met Emerson's eye he checked the explosion, and, seizing his cap, bolted out into the cold to walk off his mad rage.

"When is the boat due at Uyak?" Emerson asked.