and rum when he suddenly looked up at LaBarge who had stumbled wearily to the fire. 'Fog go,' Katlecht said. 'Fog go soon.'
Jean glanced at Kohl, and their faces were grim. Indians were excellent judges of weather; if Katlecht was right their time was short. He sent a messenger to the men at the gun to stand by for trouble, then had guns brought from the ship's armory and passed around to the men to be kept close to hand in the event of attack.
Despite their weariness the men returned to their labors with a rush. The water ahead of them meant escape and freedom; to be caught here meant death or worse, a Siberian prison camp. The Tlingits, filled with their age-old hatred of Russians, fell to with a will and to the tune of chanteys they shoved and pushed on the capstan bars. It was slow, painstaking, backbreaking labor, but the schooner moved and the water lay ahead of them, only a short distance away now. But the fog was thinning...
Jean glanced up and saw a star ... then other stars. 'Pope,' he said, 'take the gunner, Gant and Turk, and go out and relieve the men at the gun. Don't take any unnecessary risks, but do what damage you can.' He hesitated. 'Wait until she's close, Pope, and for God's sake, hurt her.'
Within the hour the fog was gone and darkness had come. Once more torches were lighted and the heavy blocks were shifted again, new anchor trees had been chosen and marked out. The shifting of the gear took less time now that the movements had become familiar. Once again the capstan was manned. The schooner was moving.
Taking his rifle, LaBarge started back toward the Tenakee side, Helena walking beside him. Bundled in furs against the penetrating chill of the night, she walked easily beside him, showing little of the exhaustion she must feel. 'Can we get into the water before daylight?'
'If the men hold out. They're weary now; how they keep going I can't guess, and Indians never work like this, anyway.'
The skids had been torn up and taken to the opposite side to use again, and there was little evidence of what had been done except the cut brush and the trampled earth. Standing together they looked out upon the dark and silent water. There was no sound but the soft rustle of the water on the shore, and above them the vast sky, studded with stars. The sounds of working men, the creak of tackle, the groaning of the schooner's timbers and occasional cries of the men seemed farther away than they actually were. A coolness came off the water. Somewhere out on the inlet a fish splashed. 'Even if we make it here,' Jean said, 'we've far to go.'
'I'll be in my own country, and I'll be safe.'
'Siberia is not Russia,' Jean replied bluntly. 'You know that as well as I do. It's full of thieves and renegades with a corrupt administration to whom it won't matter at all that you're a niece of the Czar ... if they believe you they'll be afraid of what you might report.'
'There's still no reason for you to come.'
'I'm coming, so don't bother your head about it.' They stood hand in hand watching the stars above the dark rim of the pines. There had been too few moments like this, and life without them was nothing. Their love was like no other love, for they could not speak of it, and each was on guard against desire. A word, a touch, it would take so little. Nearing the lighted area, LaBarge suddenly quickened his step. 'Something's wrong,' he said.
The men stood about, muscles heavy with weariness, their faces showing their despair.
Kohl came toward them. 'Captain,' he said, 'we're in trouble. Fifteen feet short of the downhill side and she won't budge an inch. We just don't have the power to take her over the hump. We're stuck!'
He led the way up through the cut-down brush and trampled ground to where the hulk loomed black against the night, the towering masts like leafless trees, stark and strong against the sky.
It was what Jean had feared. The power of the capstan and the arrangement of the blocks had enabled the men by their slow, steady push to move the schooner, inch by inch, out of the water and along the skids, heavily greased to aid them. The huge blocks and careful rigging had more than quadrupled the power they could exert; but now, near the highest point above the water, their combined strength was not enough to move the schooner farther.
'We can't budge her,' Kohl said. 'We broke a couple of capstan bars trying.' Glancing at the stars he could see they still had several hours of darkness remaining, but the men were exhausted. He believed he knew what to do, but he would need rested men to do the work that lay ahead. Despite the fact that the fog was gone, that the coming of the patrol ship was imminent, there was but one thing to do. 'Barney,' he said, after a moment, 'have everybody turn in and get some rest. I'll stand by the gun myself. I'll want two men to stand watch here at the ship; the rest to sleep until four a.m.' 'Lord knows they need the rest,' Kohl said, 'but what about the Susquehanna? The Lena will be along at daybreak.'
'If she heaves her hook at daybreak it will take her all of three hours to get this far. I'll be standing by the gun. If you hear a shot, turn the men to and rig those shears as I told you. And send four men to me.' Kohl put his cap back on his head and started to turn away, then stopped. 'Cap'n,' he said slowly, 'I figured I was a better man than you, that I should be master of this ship, but believe me, I've learned better. You've pulled off things this trip that I'd never have tackled.'
'Thanks, Barney.'
LaBarge turned to Helena. 'You'd better get some sleep. You'll need the rest.'
'I'm coming with you.'
'But, look--'
'I'm coming with you.'
Together, they walked to the promontory where the gun had been placed, pointing its dark muzzle down the channel. The men arose as they approached. 'Nothing yet, Cap'n.'
'Turn in ... you'll be turning to again at four a.m.' When they had gone he made a place for Helena between the trails of the gun, folding some blankets and placing them over a pile of evergreen boughs. When she was settled he lit his pipe and settled himself for the long hours of waiting. He was tired, but he forced himself to remain awake. Somewhere out in the forest a pine cone fell, and upon the water a fish jumped, while far over the trees a night bird called. The rest was silence and the darkness.
The earth was soft beneath him with a deep carpet of pine needles and damp from the fog. A vagrant wind stirred in the pines and he could hear the far-off rushing of wind, a strange, lonely, wonderful sound that is a part of every evergreen forest. He listened, liking it, and listened to the water along the rocks below. These were old sounds, familiar sounds. 'It's a grand country,' he said.
'I love it. I shall always love it.'
'I've always lived close to the forest,' he said. 'I'm at home there. I like the wild lands.'
Far-off in the forest a wind began. It had started somewhere in the pines along the rim of the world and it came down, awakening new ranks of trees to stirring life, moving the pine needles, brushing the arms of the spruce. It came down across Alaska and moved through the forests and then scattered itself among the coastal islands. It was a long, long wind and it was cold. The wind rustled the pines above Tenakee Inlet and talked among the trees over the manless beds of Hoonah village, then felt its way along the bare flanks of the Susquehanna, so unnaturally naked without the shielding water. Jean listened to the wind. 'You'd better sleep,' he told Helena, 'we're going to have snow.'
Chapter 26
Jean came sharply awake, aware instantly that something had happened. Snow was falling gently and steadily through the pines, but it was not this that had disturbed him. Silently, so as not to awaken Helena, he got to his feet and rubbed his legs to restore the circulation.
When he could move quietly, he walked away from the gun and stood in a small opening in the forest, listening. There had been many such times when he waited in complete stillness, ears keyed to the slightest sound ... and now he heard it.
It came from, far off, but it was a noise not of the forest. The forest's sounds he had known since boyhood, and this was no murmur among the trees, this was the steady advance of a large number of men.
On still cold nights sound travels amazingly, and the men were several miles away. They were not Indians, for even a large body of Indians would not have been heard; these men were unaccustomed to travel at night in the forest. LaBarge quickly realized what the movement implied: Zinnovy was sure of taking the Susquehanna; men had been put ashore to prevent the escape of himself or his crew. Undoubtedly the Lena was now moving upstream and had landed these men to take up posts on shore. The attack was to be both by sea and by land, and there were to
