The Shadow Passes

  CHAPTER II BLACKIE'S STORY

  "Tell us how you got that game leg of yours, Blackie," Joe Lawrence, thePalmer store-keeper, said to Blackie, as they all sat about the roaringsteel-barrel stove three nights later.

  "Oh, that--" Blackie did not reply at once.

  Johnny and Lawrence were by the fire. They had walked in from the claim,a frosty three miles, with the thermometer at twenty-five degrees below.They were not the sort of boys who loaf about stores and pool halls,listening to cheap talk. Far from that. They had come to make a purchaseor two and, in an hour, with the steel-blue stars above them would be ontheir way home. Just now the fire felt good.

  "Sure, tell us," Johnny encouraged.

  "Hello! You here?" Blackie demanded, as if he had not seen them before."What'd you come in for on a night like this?"

  "Wedges," said Johnny. "Steel wedges for splitting logs."

  "Wedges." There came a hoarse laugh from the corner. It was Jack Mayhornwho spoke. "Who wants wedges in this country? Do like I do. Cut down thetrees that split easy."

  "They've all got tough spots," Johnny replied quietly. "Where the limbshave been cut off."

  "Oh, the knotty pines!" Jack laughed again. "Roll 'em into the fence rowan' leave 'em. That's the way we do."

  "We don't," said Lawrence. "We aim to take them as they come, tough ornot tough, they've got to bust."

  "Why?" Blackie fixed his piercing black eyes on the boy.

  "I--I don't know why," was Lawrence's slow reply. "I can't explain itright." The boy hesitated. "But I--you know--I sort of hate being licked,even by a tough log. So I--we sort of take 'em as they come."

  "That's great!" Blackie slapped his knee. "And I suppose you feel thesame way?" he asked of Johnny.

  "Sure do," was Johnny's prompt reply. "They can't come too tough for me."

  "Can't come too tough for little old Johnny." There was a sneer in JackMayhorn's voice. "But he's afraid to set traps or carry a rifle."

  "Not afraid," Johnny replied quietly. "Just don't want to."

  "Tell us, Blackie," Joe, the store-keeper, broke in, sensing a possiblerow, "tell us how you got that leg."

  Even then Blackie did not comply at once. Turning to the boys, he said ina low tone, "You boys are dead right. No use letting a log or anythingelse lick you." Dropping his voice still lower he added, "I might takeyou with me next spring on that coast guard boat. I just might, that is,if you still want to go."

  Then in a changed voice he said, "All right, Joe, I'll tell you all aboutthat leg of mine, though I'm not fond of doing it. It always makes mehopping mad, just thinking about it.

  "You see," he went on at once, "I was up a river in Asia. Doesn't matterwhich river. I was in the navy. Less than six months ago, although itseems two years. I was on a small U. S. gunboat. What one? That doesn'tmatter, either. She's at the bottom of the river now." He paused to stareat the fire.

  "We were laying up the river. There was fighting down below. We'd comeup-river to get out of the way. The fighting was foolish enough, but noneof our business.

  "We were there to protect American citizens. There were twenty or more ofthem on board, reporters and missionaries and the like.

  "I'd just come on duty when a big bombing plane came hovering, like avulture, over us. It circled off again. 'Good riddance,' I said to mybuddy.

  "I hadn't finished saying it when it came zooming back. This time higherup and--" Blackie took a long breath. "The bloomin' infidels! What do youthink? They let go a bomb that missed us by inches.

  "You should have seen us scatter," Blackie laughed in spite of himself.

  And then, of a sudden, the lines between his eyes grew deep and long."They bombed us. They sank our ship. My buddy was killed. I caught it inthe leg. I got a lifeboat off, doing what I could to save the women.

  "Me," he faltered. "I'm no sort of a story teller. But I hope I'msomething of a fighter. This old leg will be good as new next spring.And, sure's I'm living, I'm going hunting little brown men up there inBristol Bay. They stole a cool million dollars' worth of fish lastseason. How many'll they get this year? That depends on the Coast Guardmen and, glory be! I'm one of them. I'm out of the navy, invalided home,back on the good old job, and there'll be plenty of things a-popping inMay.

  "Er, excuse me, boys," he apologized. "That sounds an awful lot likebragging. We didn't catch the Shadow that passes in the fog last season.We didn't do those Orientals much harm, either. Too slick for us, Iguess. But wish me luck next time. The biggest industry in Alaska, therun of red salmon, depends on us."

  "Here's luck," said Johnny, lifting a cup of coffee just poured by Joe'smotherly wife. "Here's luck to the service."

  "And may you be my buddy!" Blackie added.

  That night Johnny and Lawrence walked home in silence. The great whiteworld was all about them and the blue-white stars above. Their thoughtswere long, long thoughts.

  Arrived at their log cabin home, they dragged out a tattered map ofAlaska to study its shore-line and most of all the shores of Bristol Bay.

  "May," Lawrence said at last. "That's a long time yet."

  "Yes," Johnny agreed, "and there's plenty to get excited about tomorrow.What do you say we turn in?"