inside pocket of his feather jacket, and swung Jesse's rifle under
his arm, not neglecting the ammunition. He had eaten heavily of whale
meat and seemed to be pretty well beyond emotion of any sort. Certainly
he turned and did not even say good-bye to his son as he swung into the
front hatch of his bidarka, followed by another paddler, and headed
toward the mouth of the bay, almost the last of the little craft to
leave the coast.

The boys stood looking after him carefully. The presence of these
natives had, it is true, offered a certain danger, or at least a certain
problem, but now that they were gone the place seemed strangely
lonesome, after all. Rob heard a little sound and turned.

Jesse was not exactly crying, but was struggling with himself.

"Well," he admitted, "I don't care! I _do_ want to go home!"

XX

THE SILVER-GRAY FOX

After the natives had departed, the young castaways, quite alone on
their wild island, felt more lonesome and more uneasy than they had been
before. The wilderness seemed to close in about them. None of them had
any definite hope or plan for an early rescue or departure from the
island, so for some two or three weeks they passed the time in a
restless and discontented way, doing little to rival the exciting events
which had taken place during the visit of the natives. It was now
approaching the end of spring, and Rob, more thoughtful perhaps than any
of the others, could not conceal from himself the anxiety which began to
settle upon him.

In these circumstances Rob and his friends found the young Aleut, with
his cheerful and care-free disposition and his apparent unconcern about
the future, of much comfort as well as of great assistance in a
practical way. They nicknamed the Aleut boy Skookie--a shortening of
the Chinook word _skookum_, which means _strong_, or _good_, or _all
right_. Their young companion, used as he was to life in the open,
solved simply and easily all their little problems of camp-keeping.
Under his guidance, they finished the work on the bear-skins, scraping
them and rubbing them day after day, until at last they turned them into
valuable rugs.

It was Skookie, also, who showed them where to get their salmon and
codfish most easily. In short, he naturally dropped into the place of
local guide. The native is from his youth trained to observation of
natural objects, because his life depends upon such things. With the
white man or white boy this is no