A Man to His Mate Read online

  CHAPTER XVII

  MY MATE

  From the day following the arrival and departure of the Japanesegunboat, they attacked the little U-shaped beach that lay between twobuttresses of the volcano and sloped sharply down to the sea. Twenty-onemen, a lad and a woman, they went at the despoiling of it with a sort ofobsession, led, rather than driven, by Lund, who worked among the restof them like a Hercules.

  From the beginning the tongue of shingle promised to be almostincredibly rich. Between these two spurs of mountain the tide had washedand flung the rich, free-flaking gold of a submarine vein, piling it upfor unguessable years. Ebb tides had worked it in among the gravel,floods had beaten it down; the deeper they went to bedrock, the richerthe pan.

  The men's fancy estimate of a million dollars began speedily to seemsmall as the work progressed, systematically stripping the rocky floorof all its shingle, foot by foot, and cubic yard by cubic yard, cradlingit in crude rockers, fluming it, vaporizing the amalgam of gold andmercury, and adding pound after pound of virgin gold to the sacks in theschooner's strong-room.

  They worked at first in alternating shifts of four hours, by day andnight, under the sun, the moon, the stars and the flaming aurora. Thecrust was drilled here and there where it had frozen into conglomerate,and exploded by dynamite, carefully placed so as not to dislodge themasses of ice that overhung the schooner. Fires to thaw out the groundwere unavailable for sheer lack of fuel; there was no driftwood betweenthese forestless shores. What fuel could be spared was conserved for useunder the boilers that melted ice to provide water for the cradles andflumes, and help to cook the meals that Tamada prepared out-of-doors forthe workers.

  Buckets of coffee, stews, and thick soups of peas and lentils, masses ofbeans with plenty of fat pork, these were what they craved after hoursof tremendous endeavor. Despite the cold, they sweated profusely attheir tasks, stripping off over-garments as they picked and shoveled orcrowbarred out the rich gravel.

  Peggy Simms worked with the rest, assisting Tamada, helping to servewith Sandy. Deming, and Beale, the man with the damaged ribs, were givenodd jobs that they could handle: feeding the fires, washing up, orassisting at the little forge where the drills were sharpened.

  Through all of it Lund was supreme as working superintendent. There wasno job that he could not, did not, handle better than any two of them,and, though Rainey could see a shrinkage, or a compression, of his bulkas day by day he called upon it for heroic service, he never seemed totire.

  "Got to keep 'em at it," he would say in the cabin. "No time to lose,an' the odds all against us, in a way. Barring Luck. That's what we gotto count on, but we don't want them thinkin' that. If the weather don'tbreak--an' break jest right--as soon as we've cleaned up, we're stung.Though I'll blast a way out of this shore ice, if it comes to the worst.I saved out some dynamite on purpose."

  "We ought to have brought a steam-shovel along," said Rainey. He washard as iron, but he had served a tough apprenticeship to labor, and hishands and nails, he fancied, would never get into shape again.

  "Now you're talkin'," agreed Lund. "We c'ud have handled it in fineshape an' left the machine behind as junk or a souvenir for our Japfriends. We've got to cut out this four-hour shift. Too much time wastedchangin'. Too many meals. We'll make it one long, steady shift of allhands long as we can stand up to it, an' all git reg'lar sleep. I'mneedin' some myself."

  Rainey knew that neither he nor Hansen got within two-thirds as muchout of their shifts as when Lund was in command, though he had giventhem the pick of the men. It was not that the men malingered, theysimply, neither of them, had the knack of keeping the work going at topspeed and top effectiveness.

  But, with Lund handling all of them as a unit, it was not long beforethe shovels began to scrape on the bare rock that underlay the gravel attide edge, and work swiftly back to the end of the U. The outdoorskitchen had been established on top of the promontory between theschooner and the beach, a primitive arrangement of big pots slung fromtripods over fires kindled on a flat area that was partly sheltered fromthe sea and the prevailing winds by outcrops of weathered lava.

  At dawn the men trooped from the schooner to be fed and warmed, and thenthey flung themselves at their task. The more they got out the morethere was in it for them. But Lund was their overlord, their better, andthey knew it. Only Deming worked with one hand the handle of the forgebellows, or fed the fires, and sneered.

  Lund stood a full head above the tallest of them, which was Rainey, andhe was always in the thick of the work, directing, demanding the utmost,and setting example to back command. His eyes had bothered him, and hehad made a pair of Arctic snow-glasses, mere circles of wood with slitsin them. But under these the sweat gathered, and he discarded them,resorting to the primitive device of smearing soot all about his eyes.This, he said, gave him relief, but it made him a weird sort of Calibanin his labors.

  On the fifteenth day, with the work better than half done, with morethan a ton of actual gold in colors, that ranged from flour dust tonuggets, in the strong-room, the weather began to change. It mistedcontinually, and Lund, rejoicing, prophesied the breaking up of the coldsnap.

  By the eighteenth day a regular Chinook was blowing, melting the sharperoutlines of the icy crags and pinnacles, and providing streams ofmoisture that, in the nights now gradually growing longer, glazed everyyard of rock with peril.

  The men worked in a muck with their rubber sea-boots worn out byconstant chafing, sweaters torn, the blades of their shovels reduced bythe work demanded of them, the drills, shortened by steady sharpening,gone like the spare flesh of the laborers, who, at last, began to showsigns of quicker and quicker exhaustion with occasional mutterings ofdiscontent, while Lund, intent only upon cleaning off the rock as adentist cleans a crumbling tooth, coaxed and cursed, blamed and praisedand bullied, and did the actual work of three of them.

  Dead with fatigue, filled with food, drowsy from the liberal grogallowance at the end of the day, the men slept in a torpor every nightand showed less and less inclination to respond, though the end of theirlabors was almost in sight.

  "What's the use, we got enough," was the comment beginning to be heardmore and more frequently. "Lund, he's got more'n he can spend in alifetime!"

  Rainey could not trace these mutterings to Deming's instigation, but hesuspected the hunter. There was no poker; all hands were too tired forplay.

  The ice in which the schooner was packed began to show signs ofdisintegration. The surface rotted by day and froze again by night andthis destroyed its compactness. If the sun's arc above the horizon hadbeen longer, its rays more vertical, the ice must infallibly have meltedand freed the _Karluk_, for it was salt-water ice, and there were timeswhen the thermometer stayed above its freezing point for two or threehours around noon.

  Lund gave the holding floe scant attention. So long as the presentweather kept up he declared that he could dynamite his way out inside offour hours.

  The effect of all this on Rainey was a bit bewildering. He was judginglife by new standards far apart from his own modes and, though he, too,worked with a will, and rejoiced in the freer effort of his muscles, theresult comparing favorably with the best of the others--save Lund--hecould not assimilate the general conditions.

  They were too purely physical, he told himself; he missed his oldhabits, the reading and discussion of books, new and old, the goodrestaurants of San Francisco, and the chat he had been used to hold overtheir tables, companionable, witty, the exchange and stimulation ofideas.

  He missed the theaters, the concerts, the passing show of well-dressedwomen, a hodge-podge of flesh-pots and mental uplift. He got to dreamingof these things nights.

  Daytimes, he saw plainly that, in this environment at least, Lund wasbig, and the rest of them comparatively small. He believed that Lundcould actually form a little kingdom of his own, as he had suggested,and make a success of it. But it would not be a kingdom that fosteredthe arts. It would cultivate the sciences, or at least encoura
ge themand adopt results as applied to land development, and, if necessary, thedefense of the kingdom.

  Lund would be a figure in war and peace, peace of the practical sort,the kind of peace that went with plenty. He was no dreamer, but autilitarian. Perhaps, after all, the world most needed such men justnow.

  As for Peggy Simms, she did not lose the polish of her culture, she wasalways feminine, even dainty at times, despite her work, that could nothelp but be coarse to a certain extent. She was full of vigor, sheshowed unexpected strength, she was a source of encouragement to the menas she waited on them. And also a source of undisguised admiration, allof which she shed as a duck sheds water. She was filled with aboundinghealth, she moved with a free grace that held the eye and lingered inthe mind. She was eminently a woman, and she also was big.

  Rainey gained an increasing respect in her prowess, and a swiftconversion to the equality of the sexes. There were times when hedoubted his own equality. Had she met him on his own ground, in his ownrealm of what he considered vaguely as culture, he would have known amastery that he now lacked. As it was, she averaged higher, and she hadan attraction of sex that was compelling.

  Here was a girl who would demand certain standards in the man with whomshe would mate, not merely accompany through life. There were times whenRainey felt irresistibly the charm of her as a woman, longed for her inthe powerful sex reactions that inevitably follow hard labor. There weretimes when he felt that she did not consider that he measured up to hergages, and he would strive to change the atmosphere, to dominate thesituation in which Lund was the greater figure of the two men.

  The rivalry that Lund had suggested between them as regards the girl,Rainey felt almost thrust upon him. There were moods which Peggy Simmsturned to him for sharing, but there was scant time in the waking hoursfor love-making, or even its consideration.

  Lund was centered on one achievement, the gold harvest. He ordered thegirl with the rest; there were even times when he reprimanded her, whileRainey burned with the resentment she apparently did not share.

  A little before dawn on the eighteenth day of the work upon the beach,Lund was out upon the floe examining the condition of the ice. He haddeclared that two days more of hard endeavor would complete theirlabors. What dirt remained at the end of that time they would transship.Rainey had joined the girl and Tamada at the cook fires.

  The sky was bright with the aurora borealis that would pale before thesun. The men were not yet out of their bunks. They were bone and muscletired, and Rainey doubted whether Lund, gaunt and lean himself, couldget two days of top work out of them. Near the fires for the cooking,the melting of water and the forge, that were kept glowing all night,the tools were stacked, to help preserve their temper.

  The aurora quivered in varying incandescence as Rainey watched Lundprodding at the floe ice with a steel bar. The girl was busy with thecoffee, and Tamada was compounding two pots of stew and bubbling peaspudding for the breakfast, food for heat and muscle making.

  Sandy appeared on deck and came swiftly over the side of the vessel andup the worn trail to the fires. He showed excitement, Rainey fancied,sure of it as the lad got within speaking distance.

  "Where is Mr. Lund?" he panted.

  Rainey pointed to Lund, now examining a crack that had opened up in thefloe, a possible line of exit for the _Karluk_, later on. The men werebeginning to show on the schooner. They, too, he noted somewhat idly,acted differently this morning. Usually they were sluggish until theyhad eaten, sleepy and indifferent until the coffee stimulated them, andLund took up this stimulus and fanned it to a flame of work. Thismorning they walked differently, abnormally active.

  "They're drunk, an' they're goin' on strike," said Sandy. "You know thebig demijohn in the lazaretto?"

  Rainey nodded. It was a two-handled affair holding five gallons, areserve supply of strong rum from which Lund dispensed the grogallowances and stimulations for extra work toward the end of the shift,the night-caps and occasional rewards.

  "They've swiped it," he said. "Put an empty one from the hold in itsplace. We got plenty without usin' that one for a while, an' I onlyhappened to notice it this morning by chance. They've bin drinkin' allnight, I reckon. They're ugly, Mr. Rainey. It's the crew this time. Theygot the booze. The hunters are sober. Deming ain't in on this. They didit on their own. I don't know how they got it. I didn't get it for 'em,sir. They must have worked plumb through the hold an' got to it thatway."

  "All right, Sandy. Thanks. Mr. Lund can handle them, I guess. He'scoming now."

  The men had got to the ice, hidden from Lund, who was walking to the_Karluk_ on the opposite side of the vessel. The seamen weregesticulating freely; the sound of their voices came up to him where hestood, tinged with a new freedom of speech, rough, confident, menacing.As they climbed the trail their legs betrayed them and confirmed theboy's story. Behind them came the four hunters, with Hansen, walkingapart, watching the sailors with a certain gravity that communicateditself despite the distance.

  Lund showed at the far rail of the schooner with his bar. He glancedtoward the men going to work, went below, and came up with a sweater. Hehad left the bar behind him in the cabin, where it was used for a stovepoker.

  The men filed by Rainey, their faces flushed and their eyes unusuallybright. They seemed to share a prime joke that wanted to bubble up andover, yet held a restraint upon themselves that was eased by digs in oneanother's ribs, in laughs when one stumbled or hiccoughed.

  But Hansen was stolid as ever, and the hunters had evidently not sharedthe stolen liquor. Only Deming's eyes roved over the group of men asthey gathered round for their cups and pannikins of food. He seemed tobe calculating what advantage he could gain out of this unexpectedhappening.

  Peggy Simms, under cover of pouring the coffee, sweetened heavily withcondensed milk, found time to speak to Rainey.

  "They're all drunk," she said.

  "Not all of them. Here comes Lund. He'll handle it."

  Lund seemed still pondering the problem of the floe. At first he did notnotice the condition of the sailors. Then he apparently ignored it. But,after they had eaten, he talked to all the men.

  "Two more days of it, lads, and we're through. The beach is nighcleared. We can git out of the floe to blue water easy enough, an' we'llgit a good start on the patrol-ship. We'll go back with full pockets an'heavy ones. The shares'll be half as large again as we've figgered. Iwouldn't wonder if they averaged sixteen or seventeen thousand dollarsapiece."

  Rainey had picked out a black-bearded Finn as the leader of the sailorsin their debauch. The liquor seemed to have unchained in him a spirit ofrevolt that bordered on insolence. He stood with his bowed legs apart,mittened hands on hips, staring at Lund with a covert grin.

  Next to Lund he was the biggest man aboard. With the rum giving anunusual coordination to his usually sluggish nervous system, he promisedto be a source of trouble.

  Rainey was surprised to see him shrug his shoulders and lead the way tothe beach. Perhaps breakfast had sobered them, though the fumes ofliquor still clung cloudily on the air.

  Lund went down, with Rainey beside him, reporting Sandy.

  "I'll work it out of 'em," said Lund. "That booze'll be an expensiveluxury to 'em, paid for in hard labor."

  They found the men ranged up in three groups. Deming and Beale, againstcustom, had gone down to the beach. They were supposed to help clean thefood utensils, and aid Tamada after a meal, besides replenishing thefires.

  They stood a little away from the hunters and Hansen and the sailors.The Finn, talking to his comrades in a low growl, was with a separategroup.

  There was an air of defiance manifest, a feeling of suspense in the tinyvalley, backed by the frowning cone, ribbed by the two icy promontories.Lund surveyed them sharply.

  "What in hell's the matter with you?" he barked. "Hansen, send up a manfor the drills an' shovels. Yore work's laid out; hop to it!"

  "We ain't goin' to work no more," said the Finn aggressively. "Not
fo'no sich wage like you give."

  "Oh, you ain't, ain't you?" mocked Lund. He was standing with Rainey inthe middle of the space they had cleared of gravel, the seamen lowerdown the beach, nearer the sea, their ranks compacted. "Why, youbooze-bitten, lousy hunky, what in hell do you want? You never sawtwenty dollars in a lump you c'u'd call yore own for more'n ten minnits.You boardin'-house loafer an' the rest of you scum o' the seven seas,git yore shovels an' git to diggin', or I'll put you ashore in SanFrancisco flat broke, an' glad to leave the ship, at that. _Jump!_"

  The Finn snarled, and the rest stood firm. Not one of them knew the realvalue of their promised share. Money represented only counters exchangedfor lodging, food and drink enough to make them sodden before they hadspent even their usual wages. Then they would wake to find the restgone, and throw themselves upon the selfish bounty of a boarding-housekeeper.

  But they had seen the gold, they had handled it, and they were inflamedby a sense of what it ought to do for them. Perhaps half of them couldnot add a simple sum, could not grasp figures beyond a thousand, atmost. And the sight of so much gold had made it, in a manner, cheap. Itwas there, a heap of it, and they wanted more of that shining heap thanhad been promised them.

  "You talk big," said the Finn. "Look my hands." He showed palmscalloused, split, swollen lumps of chilblained flesh worn down andstiffened. "I bin seaman, not goddam navvy."

  Lund turned to the hunters.

  "You in on this?" he asked. Deming and Beale moved off. Two of theothers joined them. "Neutral?" sneered Lund. "I'll remember that."Hansen and the two remaining came over beside Lund and Rainey.

  "Five of us," said Lund. "Five men against twelve fo'c'sle rats. I'llgive you two minnits to start work."

  "You talk big with yore gun in pocket," said the Finn. "Me good man asyou enny day."

  Lund's face turned dark with a burst of rage that exploded in voice andaction.

  "You think I need my gun, do ye, you pack of rats? Then try it onwithout it."

  His hand slid to his holster inside his heavy coat. His arm swung, therewas a streak of gleaming metal in the lifting sun-rays, flying over theheads of the seamen. It plunked in the free water beyond the ice.

  "Come on," roared Lund, "or I'll rush you to the first bath you've hadin five years." The Finn lowered his head, and charged; the restfollowed their leader. The hot food had steadied their motive control toa certain extent, they were firmer on their feet, less vague of eye, butthe crude alcohol still fumed in their brains. Without it they wouldnever have answered the Finn's call to rebellion.

  He had promised, and their drunken minds believed, that refusing in amass to work would automatically halt things until they got their"rights." They had not expected an open fight. The spur of alcohol hadthrust them over the edge, given them a swifter flow of theirimpoverished blood, a temporary confidence in their own prowess, a mockvalor that answered Lund's contemptuous challenge.

  Lund, thought Rainey, had done a foolhardy thing in tossing away hisgun. It was magnificent, but it was not war. Pure bravado! But he hadscant time for thinking. Lund tossed him a scrap of advice. "Keepmovin'! Don't let 'em crowd you!" Then the fight was joined.

  The girl leaned out from the promontory to watch the tourney. Tamada,impassive as ever, tended his fires. Sandy crept down to the beach,drawn despite his will, and shuffled in and out, irresolute, too weak toattempt to mix in, but excited, eager to help. Deming, Beale, and thetwo neutral hunters, stood to one side, waiting, perhaps, to see whichway the fight went, reserves for the apparent victor.

  The Finn, best and biggest of the sailors, rushed for Lund, his littleeyes red with rage, crazy with the desire to make good his boast that hewas as good as Lund. In his barbaric way he was somewhat of a dancer,and his legs were as lissome as his arms. He leaped, striking with fistsand feet.

  Lund met him with a fierce upper-cut, short-traveled, sent from the hip.His enormous hand, bunched to a knuckly lump of stone, knocked the Finnover, lifting him, before he fell with his nose driven in, its boneshattered, his lips broken like overripe fruit, and his discolored teethknocked out.

  He landed on his back, rolling over and over, to lie still, halfstunned, while two more sprang for Lund.

  Lund roared with surprise and pain as one caught his red beard and swungto it, smiting and kicking. He wrapped his left arm about the man,crushing him close up to him, and, as the other came, diving low,butting at his solar plexus, the giant gripped him by the collar, usinghis own impetus, and brought the two skulls together with a thud thatleft them stunned.

  The two dropped from Lund's relaxed arms like sacks, and he stepped overthem, alert, poised on the balls of his feet, letting out a shout oftriumph, while he looked about him for his next adversary.

  The bedrock on which they fought was slippery where ice had formed inthe crevices. Two seamen tackled Hansen. He stopped the curses of onewith a straight punch to his mouth, but the man clung to his arm,bearing it down. Hansen swung at the other, and the blow went over theshoulder as he dodged, but Hansen got him in chancery, and the three,staggering, swearing, sliding, went down at last together, with Hansenunderneath, twisting one's neck to shut off his wind while he warded offthe wild blows of the second. With a wild heave he got on all-fours,and then Lund, roaring like a bull as he came, tore off a seaman andflung him headlong.

  "Pound him, Hansen!" he shouted, his eyes hard with purpose, shininglike ice that reflects the sun, his nostrils wide, glorying in thefight.

  The Finn had got himself together a bit, wiping the gouts of blood fromhis face and spitting out the snags of his broken teeth. He drew a knifefrom inside his shirt, a long, curving blade, and sidled, like a crab,toward Lund, murder in his piggy, bloodshot eyes, waiting for a chanceto slip in and stab Lund in the back, calling to a comrade to help him.

  "Come on," he called, "Olsen, wit' yore knife. Gut the swine!"

  Another blade flashed out, and the pair advanced, crouching, knees andbodies bent. Lund backed warily toward the opposite cliff, looking for aloose rock fragment. He had forbidden knives to the sailors since themutiny, and had forced a delivery, but these two had been hidden. Aknife to the Finn was a natural accessory. Only his drunken frenzy hadmade him try to beat Lund at his own game.

  One of the two hunters, lamed with a kick on the knee, howling with thepain, clinched savagely and bore the seaman down, battering his headagainst a knob of rock. The other friendly hunter had bashed andbuffeted his opponent to submission. But Rainey was in hard case.

  A seaman, half Mexican, flew at him like a wildcat. Rainey struck out,and his fists hit at the top of the breed's head without stopping him.Then he clinched.

  The Mexican was slippery as an eel. He got his arms free, his hands shotup, and his thumbs sought the inner corners of Rainey's eyes. Thesudden, burning anguish was maddening and he drove his clasped fistsupward, wedging away the drilling fingers.

  Two hands clawed at his shoulders from behind. Some one sprang fairly onhis back. A knee thrust against his spine.

  The agony left him helpless, the vertebrae seemed about to crack.Strength and will were shut off, and the world went black. And then oneof the hunters catapulted into the struggle, and the four of them wentdown in a maddened frenzy of blows and stifled shouts.

  The sailors fought like beasts, striving for blows barred by all codesof decency and fair play, intent to maim. Lund had got his shouldersagainst the rocks and stood with open hands, watching the two with theirknives, who crept in, foot by foot, to make a finish.

  Peggy Simms, a strand of her pale yellow hair whipped loose, flung itout of her eyes as she stood on the edge of the cliff, her lips apart,her breasts rising stormily, watching; her features changing with thetide of battle as it surged beneath her, punctuated with muffled shoutsand wind-clipped oaths. She saw Lund at bay, and snatched out herpistol. But the distance was too great. She dared not trust her aim.

  Sandy, dancing in and out, willing but helpless, bound by fear and lackof muscle, saw Demin
g, followed by Beale, stealing up the trail,unnoticed by the girl, who leaned far forward, watching the fight, hereyes on Lund and the two creeping closer with their knives, cautious butdetermined. Tamada stood farther back and could not see them.

  The lad's wits, sharpened by his forecastle experience, surmised whatDeming and Beale were after as they gained the promontory flat and rantoward the fires.

  "Hey!" he shrilled. "Look out; they're after the tools!"

  Deming's hand was stretched toward a shovel, its worn steel scoop sharpas a chisel. Beale was a few feet behind him. They were going to tossthe shovels and drills down to the seamen.

  Tamada turned. His face did not change, but his eyes gleamed as hethrust a dipper in the steaming remnants of the pea-soup and flung thethick blistering mass fair in Deming's face. At the same moment thegirl's pistol cracked with a stab of red flame. Beale dropped, shot inthe neck, close to the collarbone, twisting like a scotched snake,rolling down the trail to the beach again.

  Deming, howling like a scorched devil, clawed with one hand at thesticky mass that masked him as he ran blind, wild with pain. He tripped,clutched, and lost his hold, slid on a plane of icy lava, smooth asglass, struck a buttress that sent him off at a tangent down the face ofthe cliff, bounding from impact with an outthrust elbow of the rock,whirling into space, into the icy turmoil of the waves, flooding intothe inlet.

  Peggy Simms fled down the trail with a steel drill in either hand,straight across the beach toward Lund. The Finn turned on her with asnarl and a side-swipe of his knife, but she leaped aside, dodged theother slow-foot, and thrust a drill at Lund, who grasped it with a cryof exultation, swinging it over his head as if it had been a bamboo.Hansen had shaken off his men, and came leaping in for the second drill.

  The knife fell tinkling on the frozen rock as Lund smashed the wrist ofthe Finn. The girl's gun made the second would-be stabber throw up hishands while Hansen snatched his weapon, flung it over the farther cliff,and knocked the seaman to the ground before he joined Lund, charging therest, who fled before the sight of them and the threat of the bars ofsteel.

  Lund laughed loud, and stopped striking, using the drill as a goad,driving them into a huddled horde, like leaderless sheep, knee-deep,thigh-deep, into the water, where they stopped and begged for mercywhile Hansen turned to put a finish to the separate struggles.

  It ended as swiftly as it had begun. One hunter could barely stand forhis kicked knee, Rainey's back was strained and stiffening, Lund hadlost a handful of his beard, and Hansen's cheek was laid open.

  On the other side the casualties were more severe. Deming was drowned,his body flung up by the tide, rolling in the swash. Beale was coughingblood, though not dangerously wounded. The Finn was crying over hisbroken wrist, all the fight out of him. Ribs were sore where notsplintered from the drills, and the two bumped by Lund sat up withsorely aching heads. The courage inspired by the liquor was all gone;oozed, beaten out of them. They were cowed, demoralized, whipped.

  Lund took swift inventory, lining them up as they came timorously out ofthe water or straggled against the cliff at his order. Tamada had comedown from the fires. Peggy had told of his share, and Sandy's timelyshout. Lund nodded at him in a friendly manner.

  "You're a white man, Tamada," he said. "You, too, Sandy. I'll not forgetit. Rainey, round up these derelicts an' help Tamada fix 'em up. I'llsettle with 'em later. Hansen, put the rest of 'em to work, an' keep 'emto it! Do you hear? They got to do the work of the whole bunch."

  They went willingly enough, limping, nursing their bruises, whileHansen, his stolidity momentarily vanished in the rush of the fight andnot yet regained, exhibited an unusual vocabulary as he bossed them.Lund turned to the two hunters, who had stood apart.

  "Wal, you yellow-bellied neutrals," he said, his voice cold and his eyeshard. "Thought I might lose, and hoped so, didn't you? Pick up thatskunk Beale an' tote him aboard. Then come back an' go to work. You'llgit yore shares, but you'll not git what's comin' to those who stood by.Now git out of my sight. You can bury That when you come back." Henodded at the sodden corpse of Deming, flung up on the grit. "You cantake yore pay as grave-diggers out of what you owe him at poker. Heain't goin' to collect this trip."

  Rainey, lame and sore, helped Tamada patch up the wounded, turning thehunters' quarters into a sick bay, using the table for operation. Bealewas the worst off, but Tamada pronounced him not vitally damaged. Afterhe had finished with them he insisted upon Rainey's lying, face down, onthe table, stripped to the waist, while he rubbed him with oil and thenkneaded him. Once he gave a sudden, twisting wrench, and Rainey saw ablur of stars as something snapped into place with a click.

  "I think you soon all right, now," said Tamada.

  "You and Miss Simms turned the tide," said Rainey. "If they'd got thosetools first they'd have finished us in short order."

  "Fools!" said Tamada. "Suppose they kill Lund, how they get away? No oneto navigate. Presently the gunboat would find them. I think Mr. Lundwill maybe trust me now," he said quietly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Mr. Lund think in the back of his head I arrange for that gunboat tocome. He can not understand how they know the schooner at island. Hethink to come jus' this time too much curious, I think."

  "It was a bit of a coincidence."

  Tamada shrugged his shoulders slightly.

  "I think Japanese government know all that goes on in North Polarregion," he said. "There is wireless station on Wrangell Island. We passby that pretty close."

  Rainey chewed that information as he put on his clothes, wondering ifthey had seen the last of the gunboat. They would have to pass souththrough Bering Strait. It would be easy to overhaul them, halt them,search the schooner, confiscate the gold. They were not out of troubleyet.

  When he went into the cabin to replace his torn coat--he had hardly abutton intact above the waist, from jacket to undershirt--he found thegirl there with Lund. Apparently, they had just come in. Peggy Simms,with face aglow with the excitement that had not subsided, wasproffering Lund her pistol.

  "Keep it," he said. "You may need it. I've got mine."

  "But you threw it into the water. I saw you."

  "No," He laughed. "That wasn't my gun. They thought it was. I wantedto bring the thing to grips. But I wasn't fool enough to chuck away mygun. That was a wrench I was usin' this mornin' to fix the cabinstove--looks jest like an ottermatic. I stuck it in my inside pocket. Iwas ha'f a mind to shoot when they showed their knives, but I didn'twant to use my gun on that mess of hash."

  He stood tall and broad above her, looking down at the face that wasraised to his. Rainey, unnoticed as yet, saw her eyes bright withadmiration.

  "You are a wonderful fighter," she said softly.

  "Wonderful? What about you? A man's woman! You saved the day. Comin' tome with them drills. An' we licked 'em. We. God!"

  He swept her up into his arms, lifting her in his big hands, making nomore of her than if she had been a feather pillow, up till her face wason a level with his, pressing her close, while in swift, indignant rageshe fought back at him, striking futilely while he held her, kissed her,and set her down as Rainey sprang forward.

  Lund seemed utterly unconscious of the girl's revulsion.

  "Comin' to me with the drills!" he said. "We licked 'em. You an' metogether. My woman!"

  Peggy Simms had leaped back, her eyes blazing. Lund came for her, hisface lit with the desire of her, arms outspread, hands open. BeforeRainey could fling himself between them, the girl had snatched thelittle pistol that Lund had set on the table and fired point-blank. Sheseemed to have missed, though Lund halted, his mouth agape, astounded.

  "You big bully!" said Rainey. Now that the time had come he found thathe was not afraid of Lund, of his gun, of his strength. "Play fair, doyou? Then show it! You asked me once why I didn't make love to her. Itold you. But you, you foul-minded bully! All you think of is your bigbody, to take what it wants.

  "Peggy. Will you marry me? I can pr
otect you from this hulking brute. Ifit's to be a show-down between you and me," he flared at Lund, stillgazing as if stupefied, "let it come now. Peggy?"

  The girl, tears on her cheeks that were born from the sobs of anger thathad shaken her, swung on him.

  "You?" she said, and Rainey wilted under the scorn in her voice. "Marryyou?" She began to laugh hysterically, trying to check herself.

  "I didn't mean you enny harm," said Lund slowly, addressing Peggy. "Why,I wouldn't harm you, gal. You're my woman. You come to me. I wasjest--jest sorter swept off my bearin's. Why," he turned to Rainey, hisvoice down-pitching to a growl of angry contempt, "you pen-shovin'whippersnapper, I c'ud break you in ha'f with one hand. You ain't herbreed. But"--his voice changed again--"if it's a show-down, all right.

  "If I was to fight you, over her, I'd kill you. D'ye think I don'trespect a good gal? D'ye think I don't know how to love a gal right?She's _my_ mate. Not yours. But it's up to you, Peggy Simms. I didn'tmean to insult you. An' if you want him--why, it's up to you to choosebetween the two of us."

  She went by Rainey as if he had not existed, straight into Lund's arms,her face radiant, upturned.

  "It's you I love, Jim Lund," she said. "A man. _My_ man."

  As her arms went round his neck she gave a little cry.

  "I wounded you," she said, and the tender concern of her struck Raineyto the quick. "Quick, let me see."

  "Wounded, hell!" laughed Lund. "D'ye think that popgun of yores c'udstop me? The pellet's somewheres in my shoulder. Let it bide. By God,yo're my woman, after all. Lund's Luck!"

  Rainey went up on deck with that ringing in his ears. His humiliationwore off swiftly as he crossed back toward the beach. By the time hecrossed the promontory he even felt relieved at the outcome. He was notin love with her. He had known that when he intervened. He had not eventold her so. His chivalry had spoken--not his heart. And his thoughtsstrayed back to California. The other girl, Diana though she was, wouldnever, in almost one breath, have shot and kissed the man she loved. Alingering vision of Peggy Simms' beauty as she had gone to Lund remainedand faded.

  "Lund's right," he told himself. "She's not of my breed."

  CHAPTER XVIII

  LUND'S LUCK

  Lund glanced at the geyser of spray where the shell from the pursuinggunboat had fallen short, and then at the bank of mist ahead. They werein the narrows of Bering Strait, between the Cape of Charles and PrinceEdward's Point, the gold aboard, a full wind in their sails, makingeleven knots to the gunboat's fifteen.

  It was mid-afternoon, three hours since they had seen smoke to the northand astern of them. Either the patrol had found them gone from theisland, freed by blasting from the floe, and followed on the trail fullspeed, or the wireless from some Japanese station on the Tchukchis coasthad told of their homing flight.

  The great curtain of fog was a mile ahead. The last shell had fallen twohundred yards short. Five minutes more would settle it. Hansen had thewheel. Lund stood by the taffrail, his arm about Peggy Simms. He shook afist at the gunboat, vomiting black smoke from her funnel, foam abouther bows.

  "We'll beat 'em yet," he cried.

  The next shell, with more elevation, whined parallel with them, spedahead, and smashed into the waves.

  "Hold yore course, Hansen! No time to zigzag. Got to chance it. Damn it,they know how to shoot!"

  A missile had gone plump through main and foresails, leaving round holesto mark the score. Another fairly struck the main topmast, and somesplinters came rattling down, while the remnants of the top-sail flappedamid writhing ends of halyard and sheet.

  They entered the beginning of the fog, curling wisps of it reached out,twining over the bowsprint and headsails, enveloping the foremast,swallowing the schooner as a hurtling shell crashed into the stern. Thenext instant the mist had sheltered them. Lund released the girl andjumped to the wheel.

  "Now then," he shouted, "we'll fool 'em!" He gripped the spokes, and themen ran to the sheets at command while the _Karluk_ shot off at rightangles to her previous course, skirting the fog that blanketed the windbut yet allowed sufficient breeze to filter through to give themheadway, gliding like a ghost on the new tack to the east.

  Rainey, tense from the explosion of the shell, jumped below at last andcame back exultant.

  "It was a dud, Lund!" he shouted. "Or else they didn't want to blow usup on account of the gold. But they've wrecked the cabin. The fog'scoming in through the hole they made. Tamada's galley's gone. It's rakedthe schooner!"

  "So long's it's above the water line, to hell with it! We'll make out.Listen to the fools. They've gone in after us, straight on."

  The booming of the gunboat's forward battery sounded aft of them,dulled by the fog--growing fainter.

  "Lund's luck! We've dodged 'em!"

  "They'll be waiting for us at the passes," said Rainey. "They've got thespeed on us."

  "Let 'em wait. To blazes with the Aleutians! Ready again there for atack! Sou'-east now. We'll work through this till we git to the windag'in. It's all blue water to the Seward Peninsula. We're bound forNome."

  "For Nome?" asked Peggy Simms.

  "Nome, Peggy! An American port. The nearest harbor. An' the nearestpreacher!"

  THE END