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Show 20 He paused for emphasis. "And it ain't rain!" Captain Hillis looked shocked. He moved toward the door, nodding and smiling, waving the men out ahead of him. As the men moved back from the door, he quickly slammed it shut and locked it. "Go tell the horses," he yelled through a window. I laughed on the foredeck until my sides hurt. I could laugh, of course, because my cabin was in the stern. It was too bad about the scenery. Two thousand miles of the most beautiful coastline in the world: lush evergreen forests, deep blue fjords, snow-capped mountains, lacy waterfalls, and silver glaciers drifting silently out to sea. It hardly got noticed at all, except for a few icebergs that nearly hit us off Prince Rupert and the totem poles near Ketchikan that almost scared the wits out of us. No one would admit it, of course, but when those tall painted faces with beaks and wings loomed through the fog, I saw the men shudder with fright. But all that scenery might just as veil have been painted on a picture postcard for all our ship of stampeders cared. The men complained when the ship made coal stops, saying the captain was purposely trying to delay them. That's how bad they had the gold fever. Except for the iceberg and totem pole scares and the horses' |