Out across the lonesome waste they journeyed, steadily creeping farther from the village, which of a sudden seemed a very safe and desirable place, with its snug store, its blazing fires, and its warm beds. The sea tossed them like a cork, coating their paddles and the decks of the canoe with ice, which they were at great pains to break off. It wet them in spite of their precautions, and its salt breath searched out their marrow, regardless of their unceasing labors; and these labors were in truth unceasing, for fifty miles of open water lay before them; fifty miles, which meant twelve hours of steady paddling. Gradually, imperceptibly, the mountain shores behind them shrank down upon the gray horizon. It seemed that for once the weather was going to be kind to them, and their spirits rose in consequence. They ate frequently, food being the great fuel of the North, and midday found them well out upon the heaving bosom of the Straits with the Kodiak shores plainly visible. Then, as if tired of toying with them, the wind rose. It did not blow up a gale--merely a frigid breath that cut them like steel and halted their progress. Had it sprung from the north it would have wafted them on their way, but it drew in from the Pacific, straight into their teeth, forcing them to redouble their exertions. It was not of sufficient violence to overcome their efforts, but it held them back and stirred up a nasty cross sea into which the canoe plunged and wallowed. In the hope that it would die down with the darkness, the boatmen held on their course, and night closed over them still paddling silently. It was nearly noon on the following day when the watchman at the Uyak cannery beheld a native canoe creeping slowly up the bay, and was astonished to find it manned by three white men in the last stages of exhaustion--so stiff and cramped and numb that he was forced to help them from their places when at last they effected a landing. One of them, in fact, was unconscious and had to be carried to the house, which did not surprise the watchman when he learned whence they had come. He did marvel, however, that another of the travellers should begin to cry weakly when told that the mail boat had sailed for Kodiak the previous evening. He gave them stimulants, then prepared hot food for them, for both Balt and Emerson were like sleep-walkers; and Fraser, when he was restored to consciousness, was too weak to stand. "Too bad you didn't get in last night," said the care-taker, sympathetically. "She won't be back now for a month or more." "How long will she lie in Kodiak?" Big George asked. "The captain told me he was going to spend Christmas there. Lefs see--to-day is the 22nd--she'll pull out for Juneau on the morning of the 26th; that's three days." "We must catch her," cried Emerson, quickly. "If you'll land us in Kodiak on time I'll pay you anything you ask."