This man was Gerald Hamer, a Western Yankee, and leader of the Yukon Trading Company, that the _Norsk_ was taking to Fort St. Michaels. It was he who, leaning over the after-rail of the ship, just as her engines were started, after being stopped for an hour for some slight repairs, heard and answered the despairing call for help, that apparently came from the very waters beneath him. The captain lay ill in his cabin, and the first officer, a thick-headed fellow, who understood English very imperfectly, was in charge of the ship.
When Gerald Hamer ran forward, told him of what he had heard, and begged him, in the name of humanity, to stop his ship and send a boat to the relief of those who were crying for help, the fellow refused to do so.
“Ids some of dem nadives,” he said; “ve cannod vaste dime on dem.”
“Natives nothing! you thundering blockhead!” roared Gerald Hamer. “If they were, you’d stop and see what trouble they were in, or I’d know why. But I tell you they are white men, and Americans. I know the Yankee tongue when I hear it, if you don’t; so stop your ship, and stop her quick, too, or, by Hookey, I and my men will stop her for you!”
Thick-headed as he was, the mate realized in a moment that he could not safely refuse to obey this command, backed as it was by a score of sturdy Americans who, at the sound of their leader’s voice, were gathering about him like a swarm of angry hornets. So he gave the requisite order in a surly tone, and the recently-started engines were again stopped.
“Bud I shall nod risg my mans for dot dirdy nadives,” he said. “If a boad goes, den musd you dake it yourselluf.”
“Take it myself! Certainly I will!” cried Gerald Hamer. “Do you suppose I’d let you or your lubberly crew have the honor of rescuing one of my countrymen? Not much! Here, men, I want half a dozen volunteers for dangerous boat-duty. Now don’t all speak at once.”
But they did, and, as though with the voice of one man, raised a mighty shout of “Aye, aye, sir!”
Their leader smiled as he detailed six men to lower a boat and go with him in it. To the others he said: “You fellows stay here, and see that this ship doesn’t move an inch till I come back. Not an inch, if I’m gone a year. Do you hear?”