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Based on the cover of "Power Boating,"
January 1927, by Worden Wood (1880-1943)
Roy Glashan's Library
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RGL e-Book Cover©
Based on the cover of "Power Boating,"
January 1927, by Worden Wood (1880-1943)
Sea Story Anthology, 1948, with "The Storm Raider"
Mr. Haycox has written a ripping narration of the government's search for a Russian "terror of the coast" who had long raided the American Fishermen's traps along the southeast Alaskan coast and who had escaped among the numberless islands, bays, and indentations of that stormy rock shore.
WHEN the water began to boil on the weather shore of Annette Island the cannery tender Star swung around for Ketchikan to ride the storm, rather than cross the straits to Moria Sound. The wind rattled the window-panes of the pilot house and whipped up the boom of the breakers smashing against the jagged finger of Cape Chacon, far off. The storm clouds clamped down the fog of coming night.
Just off Dall Head, going through Nichols Pass, one of the crew lashing down the seining table on the aft deck ran forward.
"Bob, come here!"
The skipper turned over his wheel to another of the crew and came out of the wheelhouse. "Well?"
"Look—off the quarter—see!"
Bob followed the man's hand. Very dimly he could see the lithe gray form of a boat smashing through the channel. The wind, coming up the straits, pushed her on, and she piled through the water with incredible rapidity. Now she leaped high into the air, seeming to hurtle forward; now she plunged down out of sight. And always she rushed on. It seemed impossible that any boat could go so swiftly.
"The Storm Raider again!" cried the hand.
Bob ran for his binoculars and focused them on the craft. After a long inspection he nodded. "Yep. The Storm Raider."
The crew had now clustered aft, huddled closely together as rain and wind beat down on them, staring through the night at the boat which had come from some mysterious place and was now rapidly fading into the gloom of the dark horizon; a thin, phantom boat.
"Some poor devils are in for a night of it," whispered one man.
"Aye!"
"And there's three of our company traps up the way he's goin'!"
"By Godfrey, yes!"
Bob turned back to the wheelhouse. "Ah, you go down and tinker a little more speed out of those engines. We're in a Hurry to get to Ketchikan."
Thus it had always been. The first that men saw of this sinister pirate crew was the drab, lean, and swift glimpse of their boat, piling along in the teeth of an approaching storm going swiftly up some far-off channel. And then the viewers, coming into town to ride the storm, would spread the word that the Storm Raider was abroad once again.
This rakish craft was never seen save when a hard blow followed swift on its heels; and the view was but for a moment, as some great roller lifted the boat to the crest and outlined it against a dark and misting coast. That was all; the next minute it would be gone, giving the impression of a sure and swift fate bent on the execution of some decree.
The Star slid between the protecting islands. Night closed about them and the pounding of the engines was drowned beneath the pounding of the breakers inshore and the howling of the wind as it rose in volume. To the starboard were the glimmering lights of the Indian settlement, Metlakatla, now and then breaking through the fog. Buffeting down Nichols Pass they turned again into the channel and shortly were at the city float.
Bob went directly to the naval officer, Lieutenant Pack and notified him. "The Raider again," said he. "Beating up Clarence Strait, with a full wind behind her. Going like the devil."
Pack sighed. "Oh, damn! Must I go out every miserable night in Alaska? Oh, well—Thank you, Collins, very much."
After the skipper of the cannery tender left, Pack went aft to the crew's Quarters of his boat and sought out the bo's'n.
"Ferry," said he. "Go round up the rest of the crew. We're in for a night of cruising."
Ferry went in a hurry. Pack walked forward to the pilot house and drew out a notebook. Therein was a series of entries stretching over two years' time. Each entry represented a successful raid of the pirate boat. Something of a look of distaste and anger settled on the pleasant features of the lieutenant as he ran over each entry, noting the traps raised, and the direction the Raider had escaped in when last seen Underneath each record was some cryptic sentence as to the run of the tide at the time. Each time the tide seemed to buck the lieutenant and favor the Raider.
There was a curious thing, the way this evil genius who navigated the drab craft managed to utilize the boils and eddies and rips of the hundred and one arms and passageways of that broken coast. Pack took a great pride in his own seamanship; during his three years in the North he had made a careful survey of the Inside Passage and had cruised up a great many of the arms and canals. Yet each time he pursued this devilish boat—and that had been full twenty times—he had always lost her in the black of the night; now bucking against some roaring wind that crowded down the narrow walls of a canal, now fighting desperately to keep seaway in the immense inferno of water and wind that piled through Dixon's Entrance, now jockeying with a great tide rip that set the bow of his boat around and around.
Pack had become a wonderful navigator in these two years of chase; but he had never caught up with the Storm Raider.
He drew out a chart, lit his pipe, and studied the coast for a long period.
"Now," he said to himself, "he's been south of the Entrance three times running. He'll go north this time. Fish are running good around Petersburg; they're making fine hauls of sockeyes. That's his idea." He put the chart back into the map locker.
The sound of the crew coming aboard got him up. He slid into his slicker and pulled on his hip boots. A rising excitement filled his eyes with a twinkle. This had resolved itself into a duel of wits. He was pitted against the wild and reckless skipper of the pirate craft. "By George!" he cried out to the walls of the pilot house. "I'm going to get that man, or I'll leave the service!" And his fist smashed down on the chart table.
The bo's'n entered "All here, sir."
Pack recovered quickly. "Very good. We're off to the north this time, Ferry."
The sub chaser churned away from the dock and swung upstream The protected channel was quickly covered. Even here a strong chop jarred them from the port quarter. Darkness held them tight about.
"How," Pack asked himself for the thousandth time, "can a man lift a trap in weather like this?"
And that was one of the mysteries of the boat. Every fisherman in Alaska had asked that question. None had ever found a satisfactory answer. Traps are not, usually, to be lifted save in calm waters.
An onslaught of wind drove them hard a-starboard. The man at the wheel swung sharply to get back on his course. "It's a bad night, sir," he ventured.
Pack rubbed the pane and tried to peer out. "Picked up the first blinker yet?"
"No, sir."
They were jerked up, as if they had run into some immense rubber bumper. The bow went sailing. Pack clawed at the hand railing. "It's a nasty time to be out," he said.
The lookout's voice came trailing down the speaking tube. "Blinker away off on the port quarter."
"That's it," said Pack. "Now turn her north by west. I think we'll try Ratz Harbor first."
Michael Karel swung his wheel over to meet a roller. It gathered the boat beneath it and flung it up. For a moment it poised there, silhouetted against the channel coast, with the angry waters falling away below. It was at that moment that the Star, far off on the other side of the channel, saw it. Then the roller dissolved and the sharp nose of the Storm Raider cleaved the water and plunged down. Karel braced his body and eased the wheel.
He was a burly figure. Clothed from head to foot in oilskins, he looked like some mammoth bear reared on its haunches. The oilcoat was enormous, fitting tightly over great broad shoulders, and pinching the biceps of the man's arms as they swelled and fell away with each move of the wheel. He wore no sou'wester; the unkempt, blond hair fell about his head and joined a beard that came to the middle of his chest. His face was square and blocky with small, close-set eyes that constantly gleamed with some kind of malevolent and enormous humor.
He swung the wheel again and the boat slid sidewise, falling against the peak of a wave, to rebound and heel far over. He shifted a spoke, the nose came up and steadied. Some great overflowing viking spirit surged within him and a mighty gust of laughter swelled up from the throat of that enormous man, rumbled to his lips, and died away.
The compass swayed wildly from point to point. Yet he scarcely ever looked at it. Now and then he wiped away the fog from the pane in front with one of his paws and stared through. A far-off blinker was his sole guide. It was dark now and the boat pitched and tossed to the increasing gale that ripped up Clarence Strait, full and strong from the sea. Somewhere back was the pounding roar of the waters smashing on Moria Rock. And continually that gusty, base rumble of wild, barbaric amusement shook him.
He turned his head half about and let out a bellow that crashed through the pilot house.
"Chichigov!"
Shortly the trapdoor leading from the engine room opened and a man, heavily swathed in oilskins crawled up. "Yes?"
"Get out the rigging!"
"Yes—all right. Have we been sighted?"
"I think so. That navy boy will be looking for us again. Bah!"
"Some day—maybe he might—"
"Get out the rigging!"
"Yes."
A near-by blinker guided Karel. He shoved his wheel hard to port, ripping open the window to lean out. A fierce blast of rain beat in. It drenched his head and cascaded down his beard, falling in rivulets against his slicker. He slowed the boat down, still watching carefully.
Only the gleam of the near-by blinker guided him. The roar of the waters dosed in and surrounded the boat with its fury. He moved the wheel imperceptibly. The crash of the breakers swelled the higher, enveloped them, and on the next moment died away behind. They rode in easier fashion now, being in a protected arm.
He switched his controls over again and crawled on at half speed. Weaving in and out they came to the far end of the arm. At the very tip of it, a hundred yards distant, a gleaming light from a shanty window gave evidence of the trap keepers. Hard by the boat, to port, loomed the piling of a driven trap.
Karel drifted the boat alongside. A hand on the foredeck threw out a line and made it fast. Karel stepped out of the pilot house and went aft. The crew, seven of them, were clustered around a skeleton-shaped rigging with long arms that swung out over the side of the boat, with a chute that led into the hatch. A dory had just been lowered over the side and two men stood by it.
"All right," said Karel in a subdued roar. They dropped into it and pulled away toward the house. Here in the cove the wind came around the protecting points with a small show of force, rolling the quieter water into waves that broke on the beach with a flat smash.
Two men swarmed up the ladder of the piling and loosened the lines holding the net in the heart of the trap, casting them down to the boat deck. Another hand made them fast to the winch. Still another figure went from place to place, high up on the scaffolding of the trap, slashing here and there with a knife, in ruthless fashion. This finished they stood in readiness, watching the man at the winch. He looked at Karel, and Karel peered toward the shanty.
The sound of oars came to them and Karel retired to the pilot house. Through many years he had remained a figure of mystery on this coast. No man had ever seen his face while lifting a trap. Once, long ago, a trap keeper had accidentally stumbled into the pilot house when brought aboard, and had come, face to face, with the Russian. That man had not lived to tend other traps. His partner, tied to a dolphin, was rescued to tell the story.
The dory scraped alongside. The crew on deck reached over and hauled up two bound figures. They were taken forward and lashed to the rigging.
"All right," came the booming command of Karel, from the pilot house. The man at the winch turned the lever. The heart of the trap rose up, tipping the boat by its weight. It swung clear of the water, and the beating of a thousand fish or more rose over the sound of wind and water. The winch stopped. The crew pulled the boom over and the net dipped towards the chute leading into the open hatch.
The fish went sliding in with a great rush, and the boat righted itself with a jerk. In a stroke the lines of the net were cleared and it fell over the side. The hatch coverings were slid back.
The trap was lifted.
But the haul was disappointing. Where they had expected five or ten thousand fish there were only a thousand.
One of the crew let out a shout of triumph. Instantly Karel was out of the pilot house and at the side of the man. He gripped the other's arm with his hand. The man cried out in pain.
"Shut your mouth!" growled Karel in suppressed fury. "Do ye want the world to tag you by that voice? That's the second time ye've did that."
The man suppressed a groan. Karel turned to the crew. "Get the men back to their shack." A raw irritation edged his words. It was given to him to make his lawless cruise but once in a while during fishing season. And this cruise had been a failure. The steps of the approaching prisoners warned him. Instead of retreating to the pilot house he pulled his sou'wester down over his face and walked close to them.
"You swine!" he said, the irritation mounting higher, almost to a shout.
One of the men fell back. But the other, braver than his companion, stood up to the Russian.
"Swine yourself," said he. "I take that from no man when my hands are free." In the dark he appeared to be a red-faced Irishman.
"Hah!" It was an enraged shout. Karel's arm punched forward. The Irishman's head snapped back with an audible crack. He crumpled and sagged, while the blood came welling from his mouth. One of the crew caught him.
"Get them back!" shouted Karel again.
The man hoisted the prisoners over the side and pushed off into the darkness. Shortly the dory was back, was hoisted aboard, and Karel swung the Raider down the channel.
The boat went by the protecting point and was again caught up in the storm. They passed through the roaring breakers, but Karel steered the boat up the channel, shouting, as he did so, for one of the crew. In response a man came through the trapdoor.
"Get back to the aft deck and watch for the sub chaser," Karel roared at him.
The wind behind them increased its force. They went rearing up, they came smashing down. And always they went swiftly on. Karel broke into a strange and weird song in a barbaric tongue. The echo of it filled the pilot house and blended with the fury of the elements.
As he towered over the wheel chanting wildly, he seemed to be one of the long dead, far remote Russian vikings once more sailing the north Pacific in quest of stray galleons and seeking strange lands on the American coast.
The lookout came crawling back. "The chaser!" he cried. "I saw her searchlight behind us." Fear swayed his voice.
Karel answered with a roar. "The lieutenant puppy! Will he never learn?" He nursed the wheel over a bit and swung toward the coast. Throwing open a side window he looked out and back. A searchlight swept the waters behind him very dimly. It was not strong enough to penetrate the gloom and search out the pirate boat.
For an hour the boat plunged ahead. Karel, now working with a kind of careful, nursing energy, directed the craft into each rolling stringer of water that would boost It along. His very energy appeared to push the craft through the water.
At last he throttled down and turned in again, going through the same roaring surf, passing into a protected, parallel channel, and coasting rapidly along it. A series of complicated maneuvers followed, passing from one inlet to another, circling one dark island to come by its successor. Now the wind assaulted them; again it was calm. Now they struggled through some narrow pass through which the water hissed. And at last Karel throttled down once more, and roared for the crew to stand by.
They clustered along the railing. The land closed in to right and left, and the branches of cottonwood trees fairly hung over their sides. Karel drifted the boat cautiously into a small cup-like cove, and the anchor went plunking over. They were secured in a dark bowl, with no visible outlet.
Karel came out of the pilot house and surveyed the spot for a moment before turning to his crew. "Get below," he shouted.
They went down, much like tired and stricken sheep.
The news came speeding into Ketchikan with the first company boat. "Trap cut and raided. One man three quarters dead from a fist blow of that barbarian."
They brought the stricken trap keeper in town later in the day and took him to the hospital. He died that evening, just about the time Lieutenant Pack shoved the nose of his boat into the city float, dog-tired and blear-eyed from a night and a day of searching.
They brought word of the affair to Pack just as he was ready to climb into his bunk.
"Damn that man!" he exclaimed. "I wish I had a half a chance at him. Just an even break."
"Didn't you run into him? Weren't you near Ratz Harbor?"
"Man! I spent half the night within a hundred feet of the mouth. It was storming like the devil and I took the wheel myself to keep off the rocks. See! I saw nothing but a lot of water. He's as slippery as an eel. He knows every creek, every inlet, every tiderip in Alaska."
"He killed the poor trap keeper."
Pack groaned. Turning over he switched off the light in the man's face. "Sorry; I'm dog-tired. But if I never do another thing in the world I'm going to get that man. My brain's as good as his." And he fell asleep.
That was the beginning of a campaign on Lieutenant Pack's part. For, three weeks he pored over the maps of southeastern Alaska. His boat was on the go continually, exploring one arm after the other. He kept, in the pilot house, a large chart of the entire section, dotted with red and white pins. From time to time as he came back from his voyages he went to the map, inspected it grimly for a moment, or so, and added another pin.
News of his mysterious cruising got about town. Men said he was trying to find the secret harbor of Karel. And more or less they began to laugh at him. Their respect for naval officers, never at the highest point, slumped the more. Pack felt it, yet said nothing. He merely clamped his sizable jaw a little more firmly down and went about his solitary cruising.
One day he got a letter, addressed in a huge sprawling hand. The contents were brief and sarcastic, and well nigh illegible:
My lieutenant puppy.
You won't ever get me. Dumb head, go away and play with your little tub of a boat. I heard you were looking for me. Well, look. Next storm I'll be in Behm Canal.
Michael Karel.
Whereupon the lieutenant sat down and did a difficult bit of dead reckoning in psychology. Immediately thereafter he called a meeting of prominent cannery owners.
"This," said he, "is to make an arrangement with you people when the next storm comes up. I've never been able to get Karel because he's had the whole coast to dodge me. He knows every bit of water and every trick in side-stepping on the coast. When I go out to meet him I'm handicapped. Now what I want to do is to block that side-stepping. Here's the idea. Next storm he'll raid a Behm Canal trap. I have that fairly well figured out. The fish are running strong there; he's been the other way last time; and, being cocksure, he wrote me a little defy saying that I might meet him in Behm Canal in the next storm. All right. Now when that next storm comes I want a half dozen cannery tenders to block the five or six inlets leading off from the canal. I want a straightaway with no possible side exits. That's to give me assurance that he's not side-stepped up one of the arms. It'll be an out-and-out race between us—a jockeying match if you like. Understand?"
They discussed the idea at some length. Pack managed to arrange the boats to his order.
"Now remember, whenever you see a storm brewing, don't wait for anything. Send out your tenders to the particular spot we've agreed on for each of you. God knows what traps he'll raid. But at least he'll have no pockets to slip into. And there'll be merry hell to pay when I get behind him. I've chased him quite long enough to learn some of his own pet tricks in sliding through the water."
Thus did Pack lay the machinery of a stormy night's duel of desperate seamanship.
That duel came three weeks later when a raw cold wind drove the boats to harbor and dark fell over a high-running sea that swept up the long arms and channels and smashed against the protruding fingers of rock lining the passageways, while above the storm could be heard the beat and surge of the waters as they boiled and eddied beneath the driving fury of the rushing winds.
Pack swung out into the channel at the first hint of night. On both sides of the channel tugs passed him, bound for shelter. And as he turned the nose of the sub chaser up and into the southern end of the Behm Canal night fell tight about them.
An immense roller threw them high on its crest, poising them there for a brief instant, as if displaying the boat to the gods of the elements as it entered the arena of battle. Pack had taken the wheel himself. His solitary cruising about the hidden waters of the coast had been for that single purpose; he had sought out and marked the backsets of current, the eddies, and the tiderips. He had determined to make this a personal battle. All he asked was a straightaway. He wanted a fair fight with this wild Russian.
The storm pushed him along. He eased his wheel with a kind of delicate, intimate touch, now watching his compass, now peering out through the fogged pane. He did not dare to switch on his searchlight and seek his way with it. The danger was that the Russian might pick it up. So he trusted to luck and his own seamanship. Something of the pirate's own ruthless disregard for safety possessed him.
Five miles up the canal he swung in toward the first trap and turned on the searchlight for a brief instant. The light revealed nothing but a great mass of water driving high against the pilings. He snapped the light off and went on.
The next four hours passed in the same manner. They visited trap after trap, slowly cruising toward the northern end of the canal where it again opened to the straits. At each trap they gave a quick, stabbing inspection with the light, then moved on, and loud above all pounded the angry roar of a wild and raging sea, sweeping along through the gap.
A call from the lookout brought Pack's ear to the speaking tube. "Ahead, sir," came the voice. "I saw a searchlight snap on and off about five hundred yards ahead—a couple points off the starboard. I think they're trying to locate the Henry trap."
Pack switched on his searchlight. It cut through the storm-filled night, fading into blackness at the far end of its focus. But it lit things up sufficiently to reveal, vaguely, about five hundred yards away, as the lookout had said, a boat, tossing high in the water, A wave threw it over for a moment and Pack saw the sharp lines of the craft, and the curious arrangement of the mast. "There she is!" he said, speaking into the tube. A huge grin lit up his face for the moment. "I'll beat him at his own game."
The Raider saw the sub chaser's searchlight. She had been moving toward the trap on the right side of the canal, some five hundred yards to the starboard. But now she sheered off, and went to port. Pack saw, with a great glee, that in the sudden turn the Russian had allowed himself to be caught on the very edge of the tiderip. It whirled the nose of his craft halfway around before she answered the wheel and straightened out.
The Raider led away, fairly outlined by the searchlight of the sub chaser. The beams of light revealed strange views of valleys and dizzy cliffs of water, with the jagged peaks whipped off by the wind; the boat struggling through this, plunging, rolling, with always the water pouring in great sheets from its scuppers. Once it went far over and half its bottom glistened in the light.
The cox'n crawled into the pilot house and stood by Pack. "Will we open the guns on him, lieutenant?" he asked.
Pack shook his head. "Not yet. I'm going to head him off, make him turn around, break his damned Russian pride."
"Then will we use the guns?"
"I don't know. I don't think we can get them into operation. It's too rough to stay on deck."
"I could make a dash for the three-incher and lash myself to it, sir. Like to try it."
"We'll see."
He moved the wheel over. Ahead, the Russian veered sharply to port and the pirate craft's weather side came full into the wind. She went far over, recovered, and tacked to port still more.
Pack grinned. "See her go!" he cried to the cox'n. "Here's where the fuzzy barbarian thinks I'll go back a mile. There's a tiderip in front; he's going to skirt the far shore and slide by it. Thinks I'll ram right into it and get swamped. Now watch, cox'n!"
He swung to starboard. The wind caught the boat and flung it sidelong against a retreating roller, and the crash brought her up with a huge jar. Pack eased the wheel away and they plowed ahead once more, sidling always to starboard. The rocky coast advanced on them rapidly. The light, shifting here and there under the coxswain's guidance, played across the mouth of a river a hundred yards away, setting strong into the channel. The rollers, coming up the channel hurled themselves into the oncoming current of the river, and the result was a great scarred battlefield of water, with the tide swirling madly in a thousand different directions, eddies and boils one within another. Where the rollers met the river they sprang high into the air and the wind, whipping the tops away, drove them through the night in a kind of sea rain.
Pack skirted this area, coming up to the land as close as he dared. Right by the mouth of the river he swung the head of the sub chaser around and plunged straight into the churning battlefield, driving across. On the other side of the channel the pirate boat skirted the short, creeping by the edge of the rips heading north for the inlet of the canal.
The current picked the sub chaser up bodily. Pack cried out: "Hang on! And trust to luck!"
They went whirling around. In one brief instant they had changed their course to due south, and on the next moment were half around again. They rocked as a crazy house might rock in a cyclone. The terrifying suck and slap of the whirlpools and mountains of water roared into the pilot house.
"It's a chance!" yelled Pack, clinging to the wheel. "I shoved her as near the head of the rip as I could. If we manage to hit the current setting out northward we'll be blown out on that side instead of skating back!"
The coxswain clung to the handrail. An immense wall of water charged out of the night, swept over the deck, smashed against the pilot house and continued on. A window shattered and the water poured in. They struggled ahead in a crazy, weaving way.
"I believe we're making it!" Pack yelled. At the same moment the boat was catapulted out of the maelstrom, sidewise. Pack struggled with his wheel. They were through the rips, on the north side, being driven rapidly toward the other side of the channel, toward the pirate boat.
"Turn on the light!" cried Pack. The coxswain had switched it off. He turned it on again and worked the lever, sweeping the water.
"There!" he howled. The searchlight found the Raider. She was hugging the shore of the canal, coming on slowly. By the reckless, desperate maneuver he had made, Pack had his boat spewed out directly in front of the Raider. The Russian's path was blocked!
The Star's searchlight played full and strong on the advancing boat. Pack saw the huge form of Karel lean out of the window, staring at him. The Russian raised and shook his fist savagely. But he came straight on, as if to ram the sub chaser.
"He won't be checked, will he?" yelled Pack. "Well, I'll give him a belly full of sense. Coxswain get the boatswain to bring up three or four three-inch shells. Then you make a dash for the gun. Fire over his pilot house the first time."
The coxswain disappeared through the rear door. Shortly after the lieutenant saw him dash forward, throw himself flat upon the deck, and make the loose end of the rope around him fast to the gun supports. A moment later the deck was swept under water. The coxswain came clear, ripped the covering off the gun and signaled back. The boatswain rushed forward with a shell, and scurried back to shelter.
The coxswain jammed the breech-block forward, trained the gun, and fired. The report of the gun sounded above the storm. The Russian shrank back for a moment as the shot went over his pilot house. Then he leaned forward and shook his fist again. Next, Pack saw the bow of the other come swinging directly around on him.
The boatswain rushed forward again with a shell, then back. The coxswain loaded, aimed, and fired. The next instant a hole appeared in the pirate's pilot house, slightly to one side of the wheel. The boatswain ran forward with the third shell. The coxswain loaded but held his fire for a moment. Michael Karel, filling the whole front of the pilothouse window, clung to the wheel, heading straight for the chaser. They were not now fifty yards apart. In one short instant they would crash. In the glare of the light the Russian looked terrifying. His hair streamed about his face, plastered down by the pelting rain, and his features, now visible, were lit in a kind of uncontrollable, berserk rage.
A boat's length separated them. The coxswain crouched down, aimed and fired. At the same instant Pack swung his wheel hard a-port and sheered off as the other boat plunged wildly on. The shot carried away half the Russian's wheel. The pirate leader stood immobile for a moment, glaring at the chaser, trying by his will, it seemed, to force a collision. Then he slipped down out of sight.
They went by at arm's length. Pack saw, as they came abreast, one of the crew leap forward and seize the few remaining spokes of the wheel, attempting to hold the boat into the weather. Another of the crew opened the door of the pilot house and waved a hand in defeat.
Pack turned about and followed after, closing in on the Raider. Coming abreast once more he signaled for them to follow behind. In that fashion he led them to the shelter of an arm a half mile farther on. There both boats rode out the blow. Pack bound up the wound of the Russian who, even though he had been to the very rim of death, thrashed violently in his captor's arms and swore barbaric oaths of revenge. But the man had the constitution of an ox. He had lost an immeasurable amount of blood and still lived.
Late in the afternoon of the following day the sub chaser came cruising slowly into the Ketchikan harbor, with the Storm Raider limping along behind. As he jerked his controls over to neutral and heard the lines go hurtling out the dock. Pack turned around and looked at his pin-decorated map of southeastern Alaska. Taking a blue-headed pin he moved it to the spot where he had checked and caught the Raider.
That completed the map. He sighed gratefully and lit a pipe. Chuckling just a bit he made for the deck, to hand over to the marshal of the town and posse the broken figure of the one-time terror of the coast.
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