Seeing that they were not afraid, nor disposed to be driven from their place, the Aleut savage--for such it proved to be--arose, and with what he meant to be a smile stretched out his hand as though in friendship. His gun, a rusty old affair, he left lying on the ground at his side. Rob kicked it away as he approached.
They now saw how the Aleut had reached them. His boat, a long, native bidarka, lay in the creek, up which the native had paddled silently on his own errand of discovery. This boat interested the boys very much. It was nearly twenty feet long and not more than two feet wide, covered entirely with tightly stretched skin. In the deck were two round holes, around each of which there was a mantle, or hood, of oiled hide or membrane, which could be drawn up about the waist of a man sitting in the hatch. On the narrow and sloping deck there was lashed a long spear and an extra paddle. The boys also noticed sticking to the deck a stringy-looking mass of grayish white, which at first they could not identify, though later they found it to be a collection of devil-fish, or octopi, which the native had gathered among the rocks for later use as food. Peering into the hatches they saw a copper kettle partly filled with a whitish-looking meat, which later they found to be whale flesh. There was a ragged blanket of fur thrust under the deck between the hatches.
"He's been cruising along the coast," said Rob; "but this is a two-hatch bidarka, so probably he's got a partner somewhere around."
"Maybe he's up at our house now stealing everything we left there," suggested Jesse.
"Yes, and maybe it's his house that we've moved into," added John.
Rob, the older of the boys, and the one on whose judgment they had come to rely, remained silent a moment.
"Boys," said he, at last, "this fellow looks like mischief to me. We can't let him go away, to come back after awhile and rob us. We can't leave his gun here with him and go on with our work. The only thing we can do is to take him in charge for a while."
"Let me get his gun away from him," began John.
Possibly the Aleut understood some of this, for all at once he made a sudden spring and caught at his gun.
Quick as a flash Rob covered him with his own rifle. "No, you don't," he said; "drop it! That settles it for you!"