"They don't look on us two asmascots," went on Lund. "But to git back to that Jap. Forewarned is forearmed. He ain't over an' above liked, but they've got used to him goin' back an' forth with their grub, an' they sort of despise him for a yellow-skinned coolie.
"Now Tamada ain't no coolie. I know Japs. He's a cut above his job. Cooks well enough for a swell billet ashore if he wanted it. An' there ain't much goin' on that Tamada ain't wise to. See if you can't get next to him. Trubble is he's too damn' neutral. He knows he's safe, becoz he's cook an' a damn' good one. But he's wise to what Carlsen's playin' at.
"Carlsen don't care for man, woman, God, or the devil. Neither do I," he concluded. "An' I've got a card or two up my sleeve. But I'd sure like to git a peep at what the doc's holdin'."
The storm blew out, and there came a spell of pleasant weather, with theKarlukgliding along, logging a fair rate where a less well-designed vessel would barely have found steerage way, riding on an almost even keel. Simms was still confined to his cabin, though now his daughter took him in an occasional tray.
Except for observations and the details of navigation, Carlsen left the schooner to Rainey. They were well off the coast, out ofthe fogs, apparently alone upon the lonely ocean that ran sparkling to the far horizon. It was warm, there was little to do, the sailors, as well as the hunters, spent most of their time lounging on the deck.
Save at meal-times, Carlsen, for one who had announced himself as an accepted lover, neglected the girl, who had devoted herself to her father. Yet she seldom went into her cabin, never remained there long, and time must have hung heavily on her hands. A girl of her spirit must have resented such treatment, Rainey imagined, but reminded himself it was none of his business.
Lund hung over the rail, smoking, or paced the deck, always close to Rainey. The manner in which he went about the ship was almost uncanny. Except that his arms were generally ahead of him when he moved, his hands, with their woolly covering of red hair, lightly touching boom or rope or rail, he showed no hesitation, made no mistakes.
He no longer shuffled, as he had on shore,but moved with a pantherlike dexterity, here and there at will. When the breeze was steady he would even take the wheel and steer perfectly by the "feel of the wind" on his cheek, the slap of it in the canvas, or the creak of the rigging to tell him if he was holding to the course. And he took an almost childish delight in proclaiming his prowess as helmsman.
The booms were stayed out against swinging in flaws and the roll of the sea, and Lund strode back and forth behind Rainey, who had the wheel. The hunters were grouped about Carlsen, who, seated on the skylight, was telling them something at which they guffawed at frequent intervals.
"Spinnin' them some of his smutty yarns," growled Lund, halting in his promenade. "Bad for discipline, an' bad for us. He's the sort of fine-feathered bird that wouldn't give those chaps a first look ashore. Gittin' in solid with 'em that way is a bad steer. You can't handle a man you make a pal of, w'en he ain't yore rank."
"Carlsen's slack, but he's a good sailorman," said Rainey casually.
"Damn' sight better sailorman than he is doctor," retorted Lund. "Hear him the other mornin' w'en I asked him if he c'ud give me somethin' to help my eyes hurtin'? 'I'm no eye specialist,' sez he. 'Try some boracic acid, my man.' I wouldn't put ennything in my eyeshe'dgive me, you can lay to that. He'd give me vitriol, if he thought I'd use it. I wouldn't let him treat a sick cat o' mine. He's the kind o' doctor that uses his title to give him privileges with the wimmin. I know his sort."
Rainey wondered why Lund had asked Carlsen for a lotion if he did not mean to use it, but he did not provoke further argument. Lund was going on.
"He don't do the skipper enny good, thet's certain."
"Captain Simms seems to believe in him," answered Rainey. He wondered how much of Carlsen's increasing dominance over the skipper Lund had noticed.
"Simms is Carlsen's dog!" exploded Lund. "The doc's got somethin' on him, mark me. Carlsen's a bad egg an', w'en he hatches, you'll see a buzzard. An' you wait till he's needed as a doctor on somethin' that takes more'n a few kind words or a lick out a bottle."
There was a stir among the hunters. Lund turned his spectacled eyes in their direction.
"What are they up to now?" he queried. "Goin' to play poker? Wish I had my eyes. I'd show 'em how to read the pips."
Hansen came aft, offering to take the wheel.
"They bane goin' to shute at targets," he said. "Meester Carlsen he put up prizes. For rifle an' shotgun. Thought you might like to watch it, sir."
Rainey gave over the spokes and went to the starboard rail with Lund, watching the preparations between fore and main masts for the competition, and telling Lund what was happening. Carlsen gave out some shotgun cartridges from cardboard boxes, twelve to each of the six hunters.
"Hunters pay for their own shells," said Lund. "But they buy 'em from the ship. Mate's perkisite. They usually have some shells on hand for the rifles, but the paper cases o' the shotgun cartridges suck up the damp an' they keep better in the magazine in the cabin. What they shootin' at? Bottles?"
Sandy, the roustabout, had been requisitioned to toss up empty bottles, and those who failed cursed him for a poor thrower. A hunter named Deming made no misses, and secured first prize of ten dollars in gold, with a man named Beale scoring two behind him, and getting half that amount from Carlsen.
Then came the test with the rifles. The weapons were all of the same caliber, well oiled, and in perfect condition. As Lund had said, each of the hunters had a few shells in his possession, but they lacked the total of six dozen by a considerable margin.
Carlsen went below for the necessary ammunition while the target was completed and set in place. A keg had been rigged with aweight underslung to keep it upright, and a tin can, painted white, set on a short spar in one end of the keg. A light line was attached to a bridle, and the mark lowered over the stern, where it rode, bobbing in the tail of the schooner's wake, thirty fathoms from the taffrail where the crowd gathered.
Carlsen, returning, ordered Hansen to steer fine. He gave each competitor a limit of ten seconds for his aim, contributing an element of chance that made the contest a sporting one. Without the counting, each would have deliberately waited for the most favorable moment when the schooner hung in the trough and the white can was backed by green water. As it was, it made a far-from-easy mark, slithering, lurching, dipping as theKarlukslid down a wave or met a fresh one, the can often blurred against the blobs of foam.
More bullets hit the keg than the can, and Carlsen was often called upon as umpire. But the tin gradually became ragged and blotched where the steel-jacketed missiles tore through.Beale and Deming both had five clean, undisputed hits, tying for first prize. Beale offered to shoot it off with six more shells apiece, and Deming consented.
"Can't be done," declared Carlsen. "Not right now, anyway. I gave out the last shell there was in the magazine. If there are any more the skipper's got them stowed away, and I can't disturb him."
"Derned funny," said Deming, "a sealer shy on cartridges! Lucky we ain't worryin' about thet sort of a cargo."
"Probably plenty aboard somewhere," said Carlsen, "but I don't know where they are. Sorry to break up the shooting. You boys have got me beaten on rifles and shotguns," he went on, producing from his hip pocket a flat, effective-looking automatic pistol of heavy caliber. "How are you on small arms?"
The hunters shook their heads dubiously.
"Never use 'em," said Deming. "Never could do much with that kind, ennyhow. Give me a revolver, an' I might make out to hit awhale, if he was close enough, but not with one o' them."
"Not much difference," said, Carlsen. "Any of you got revolvers?"
No one spoke. It was against the unwritten laws of a vessel for pistols to be owned forward of the main cabin. Beale finally answered for the rest.
"Nary a pistol, sir."
"Then," said Carlsen, "I'll give you an exhibition myself. Any bottles left? Beale, will you toss them for me?"
There were eight shots in the automatic, and Carlsen smashed seven bottles in mid-air. He missed the last, but retrieved himself by breaking it as it dipped in the wake. The hunters shouted their appreciation.
"Break all of 'em?" Lund asked Rainey. "Enny bottles left at all?"
He walked toward the taffrail, addressing Carlsen.
"Kin you shoot bysoundas well as by sight, Doc?" he challenged.
"I fancy not," said Carlsen.
"If I had my eyes I'd snapshoot ye for a hundred bucks," said Lund. "As it is, I might target one or two. Rainey, have some one run a line, head-high, an' fix a bottle on it, will ye? I ain't got a gun o' my own, Doc," he continued, "will you lend me yours?" Carlsen filled his clip and Lund turned toward Rainey, who was rigging the target.
"I'll want you to tap it with a stick," he said. "Signal-flag staff'll do fine."
Rainey got the slender bamboo and stood by. Lund felt for the cord, passed his fingers over the suspended bottle and stepped off five paces, hefting the automatic to judge its balance.
"Ruther have my own gun," he muttered. "All right, tetch her up, Rainey."
Rainey tapped the bottle on the neck and it gave out a little tinkle, lost immediately in the crash of splintering glass as the bottle, hit fairly in the torn label, broke in half.
"How much left?" asked Lund. "Half? Tetch it up."
Again he fired and again the bullet found the mark, leaving only the neck of the bottle still hanging. Lund grinned.
"Thet's all," he said. "Jest wanted to show ye what a blind man can do, if he's put to it."
There was little applause. Carlsen took his gun in silence and moved forward with the hunters and the onlookers, disappearing below. Rainey took the wheel over from Hansen and ordered him forward again.
"Given 'em something to talk about," chuckled Lund. "Carlsen wanted to show off his fancy shootin'. Wal, I've shown 'em I ain't entirely wrecked if I ain't carryin' lights. An' I slipped more'n one over on Carlsen at that."
Rainey did not catch his entire meaning and said nothing.
"Did you get wise to the play about the shells?" asked Lund. "A smart trick, though Deming almost tumbled. Carlsen got those dumb fools of hunters to fire away every shell they happened to have for'ard. If the magazine'sempty, I'll bet Carlsen knows where they's plenty more shells, if we ever needed 'em bad. But now those rifles an' shotguns ain't no more use than so many clubs—not to the hunters. An' he's found out they ain't got enny pistols.He'sgot one, an' shows 'em how straight he shoots, jest in case there should be enny trubble between 'em. Plays both ends to the middle, does Carlsen. Slick! But he ain't won the pot. They's a joker in this game. Mebbe he holds it, mebbe not."
He nodded mysteriously, well pleased with himself.
"Don't supposeyoubrought a gun along with ye?" he asked Rainey. "Might come in handy."
"I wasn't expecting to stay," Rainey replied dryly, "or I might have."
Lund laughed heartily, slapping his leg.
"That's a good un," he declared. "It would have bin a good idea, though. It sure pays to go heeled when you travel with strangers."
Captain Simms appeared again in the cabin and on deck, but he was not the same man. His illness seemed to have robbed him permanently of what was left him of the spring of manhood. It was as if his juices had been sucked from his veins and arteries and tissues, leaving him flabby, irresolute, compared to his former self. Even as Lund shadowed Rainey, so Simms shadowed Carlsen.
The fine weather vanished, snuffed out in an hour and, day after day, theKarlukflung herself at mocking seas that pounded her bows with blows that sounded like the noise of a giant's drum. The sun was never seen. Through daylight hours the schooner wrestled with the elements in a ghastly, purplish twilight, lifting under double reefs over greatwaves that raised spuming crests to overwhelm her, and were ridden down, hissing and roaring, burying one rail and covering the deck to the hatches with yeasty turmoil.
TheKarlukcharged the stubborn fury of the gale, rolling from side to side, lancing the seas, gaining a little headway, losing leeway, fighting, fighting, while every foot of timber, every fathom of rope, groaned and creaked perpetually, but endured.
To Rainey, this persistent struggle—as he himself controlled the schooner, legs far astride, his oilskins dripping, his feet awash to the ankles, spume drenching and whipping him, the wind a lash—brought exultation and a sense of mastery and confidence such as he had never before held suggestion of. To guide the ship, constantly to baffle the sea and wind, the turbulence, buffeting bows and run and counter, smashing at the rudder, leaping always like a pack of yapping hounds—this was a thing that left the days of his water-front detail far behind.
And then he had thought himself in the whirl of things! Even as Simms seemed to be declining, so Rainey felt that he was coming into the fulness of strength and health.
Lund was ever with him. Sometimes the girl would come up on deck in her own waterproofs and stand against the rail to watch the storm, silent as far as the pair were concerned. And presently Carlsen would come from below or forward and stand to talk with her until she was tired of the deck.
They did not seem much like lovers, Rainey fancied. They lacked the little intimacies that he, though he made himself somewhat of an automaton at the wheel, could not have failed to see. If the girl slipped, Carlsen's hand would catch and steady her by the arm; never go about her waist. And there was no especial look of welcome in her face when the doctor came to her.
Carlsen seldom took over the wheel. Rainey did more than his share from sheer love of feeling the control. But one day, at a wordfrom the girl, Carlsen and she came up to Rainey as he handled the spokes.
"I'll take the wheel a while, Rainey," said the doctor.
Rainey gave it up and went amidships. Out of the tail of his eye he could see that the girl was pleading to handle the ship, and that Carlsen was going to let her do so.
Rainey shrugged his shoulders. It was Carlsen's risk. It was no child's play in that weather to steer properly. TheKarluk, with her narrow beam, was lithe and active as a great cat in those waves. It took not only strength, but watchfulness and experience to hold the course in the welter of cross-seas.
Lund, whose recognition of voices was perfect, moved amidships as soon as Carlsen and Peggy Simms came aft. There was no attempt at disguising the fact that the schooner's afterward was a divided company and, save for the fact of his blindness tempering the action, the manner of Lund's showing themhis back and deliberately walking off would have been a deliberate insult.
Not to the girl, Rainey thought. At first he had considered Lund's character as comparatively simple—and brutal—but he had qualified this, without seeming consciousness, and he felt that Lund would never deliberately insult a woman—any sort of woman. He was beginning to feel something more than an admiration for Lund's strength; a liking for the man himself had, almost against his will, begun to assert itself.
They stood together by the weather-rail. It was still Rainey's deck-watch, and at any moment Carlsen might relinquish the wheel back to him as soon as the girl got tired. Suddenly shouts sounded from forward, a medley of them, indistinct against the quartering wind. Sandy, the roustabout, came dashing aft along the sloping deck, catching clumsily at rail and rope to steady himself, flushed with excitement, almost hysterical with his news.
"A bowhead, sir!" he cried when he saw Rainey. "And killers after him! Blowin' dead ahead!"
Beyond the bows Rainey could see nothing of the whale, that must have sounded in fear of the killers, but he saw half a dozen scythe-like, black fins cutting the water in streaks of foam, all abreast, their high dorsals waving, wolves of the sea, hunting for the gray bowhead whale, to force its mouth open and feast on the delicacy of its living tongue. So Lund told him in swift sentences while they waited for the whale to broach.
"Ha'f the time the bowheads won't even try an' git away," said Lund. "Lie atop, belly up, plain jellied with fear while the killers help 'emselves. Ha'f the bowheads you git have got chunks bitten out of their tongues. If they're nigh shore when the killers show up the whales'll slide way out over the rocks an' strand 'emselves."
Rainey glanced aft. Sandy had carried his warning to Carlsen and the girl, and now wascraning over the lee rail, knee-deep in the wash, trying to see something of the combat. Peggy Simms' lithe figure was leaning to one side as she, too, gazed ahead, though she still paid attention to her steering and held the schooner well up, her face bright with excitement, wet with flying brine, wisps of yellow hair streaming free in the wind from beneath the close grip of her woolen tam-o'-shanter bonnet of scarlet. Carlsen was pointing out the racing fins of the killers.
"Bl-o-ows!" started the deep voice of a lookout, from where sailors and hunters had grouped in the bows to witness this gladiatorial combat between sea monsters, staged fittingly in a sea that was running wild. Rainey strained his gaze to catch the steamy spiracle and the outthrust of the great head.
"Bl-o-ows!" The deep voice almost leaped an octave in a sudden shrill of apprehension. Other voices mingled with his in a clamor of dismay.
"Look out! Oh, look out! Dead ahead!"
The enormous bulk of the whale had appeared, not to spout, but to lie belly up, rocking on the surface with fins outspread, paralyzed with terror, directly in the course of theKarluk, while toward it, intent only on their blood lust, leaped the killers, thrusting at its head as the schooner surged down. In that tremendous sea the impact would be certain to mean the staving in of something forward, perhaps the springing of a butt.
"Hard a lee!" yelled Rainey. "Up with her! Up!"
It was desire to vent his own feelings, rather than necessity for the command, that made Rainey yell the order, for he could see the girl striving with the spokes, Carlsen lending his strength to hers. The sheets were well flattened, the wind almost abeam, and there was no need to change the set of fore and main.
Forward, the men jumped to handle the headsails. TheKarlukstarted to spin about on its keel, instinct to the changing plane of the rudder. But the waves were running tremendouslyhigh, and the wind blowing with great force, the water rolling in great mountains of sickly greenish gray, topped with foam that blew in a level scud.
As the schooner hung in a deep trough, the wind struck at her, bows on. With the gale suddenly spilled out of them, the topsails lashed and shivered, and the fore broke loose with the sharp report of a gunshot and disappeared aft in the smother.
Rainey saw one huge billow rising, curving, high as the gaff of the main, it seemed to him, as he grasped at the coil of the main halyards. Down came the tons of water, booming on the deck that bent under the blow, spilling in a great cataract that swashed across the deck.
His feet were swept from under him, for a moment he seemed to swing horizontal in the stream, clutching at the halyards. The sea struck the opposite rail with a roar that threatened to tear it away, piling up and then seething overboard.
With it went a figure. Rainey caught sight of a ghastly face, a mouth that shouted vainly for help in the pandemonium, and was instantly stoppered with strangling brine, pop-eyes appealing in awful fright as Sandy was washed away in the cascade. The halyards were held on the pin with a turn and twist that Rainey swiftly loosened, lifting the coil free, making a fast loop, and thrusting head and arms through it as he flung himself after the roustabout.
Even as he dived he heard the bellow of Lund, knowing instinctively the peril of the schooner by its actions, though ignorant of the accident.
"Back that jib! Back it, blast yore eyes! Ba-ck—"
Then Rainey was clubbing his way throughthe race of water to where he glimpsed an upflung arm. Sandy was in oilskins and sea-boots, he had hardly a chance to save himself, however expert. And it flashed over Rainey's mind that, like many sailors, the lad had boasted that he could not swim. His boots would pull him under as soon as the force of the waves, that were tossing him from crest to crest, should be suspended. Rainey himself was borne on their thrust, clogged by his own equipment, linked to life only by the halyard coil.
A great bulk wallowed just before him, the helpless body of the bowhead whale, the killers darting in a mad mêlée for its head. Then a figure was literally hurled upon the slippery mass of the mammal, its gray belly plain in the welter, a living raft against which the waves broke and tossed their spray.
Clawing frantically, Sandy clutched at the base of the enormous pectoral fin, clinging with maniacal strength, mad with fear. Striking out to little purpose, save to help buoy himself,blinded by the flying scud and broken crests, Rainey felt himself upreared, swept impotently on and slammed against the slimy hulk, just close enough to Sandy to grasp him by the collar, as the whale, stung by a killer's tearing at its oily tongue, flailed with its fin and the two of them slid down its body, deep under water.
Rainey fought against the suffocation and the fierce desire to gasp and relieve his tortured lungs. The lad's weight seemed to be carrying him down as if he was a thing of lead, but Rainey would not relax his grip. He could not. He had centered all his energy upon the desire to save Sandy, and his nerve centers were still tense to that last conscious demand.
There came a swift, painful constriction of his chest that his failing senses interpreted only as the end of things. Then his head came out into the blessed air and he gulped what he could, though half of it was water.
TheKarlukwas into the wind and they were in what little lee there was, dragging aft at theend of the halyards, being fetched in toward the rail by the mighty tugs of Lund, a weird sight to Rainey's smarting eyes as he caught sight of the giant, with red hair uncovered, his beard whipping in the wind, his black glasses still in place, making some sort of a blessed monster out of him.
Rainey had his left fist welded to the line, his right was set in Sandy's collar, and Sandy's death clutch had twined itself into Rainey's oilskins, though the lad was limp, and his face, seen through the watery film that streamed over it, set and white.
A dozen arms shot down to grasp him. He felt the iron grip of Lund upon his left forearm, almost wrenching his arm from its socket as he was inhauled, caught at by body and legs and deposited on the deck of the schooner, that almost instantly commenced to go about upon its former course. Again he heard the bellow of the blind giant, as if it had been a continuation of the order shouted as he had gone overboard.
"Ba-ack that jib to win'ard! Ba-ck it, you swabs!"
TheKarlukcame about more smartly this time, swinging on the upheaval of a wave and rushing off with ever-increasing speed. Lund bent over him, asking him with a note that Rainey, for all his exhaustion, interpreted as one of real anxiety:
"How is it with you, matey? Did ye git lunged up?"
Rainey managed to shake his head and, with Lund's boughlike arm for support, got to his feet, winded, shaken, aching from his pounding and the crash against the whale.
"Good man!" cried Lund, thwacking him on the shoulder and holding him up as Rainey nearly collapsed under the friendly accolade.
Sandy was lying face down, one hunter kneeling across him, kneading his ribs to bellows action, lifting his upper body in time to the pressure, while another worked his slack arms up and down.
"I tank he's gone," said Hansen. "Swallowed a tubful."
"That was splendid, Mr. Rainey! Wonderful! It was brave of you!"
Peggy Simms stood before Rainey, clinging to the mainstays, a different girl to the one that he had known. Her red lips were apart, showing the clean shine of her teeth, above her glowing cheeks her gray eyes sparkled with friendly admiration, one slender wet hand was held out eagerly toward him.
"Why," said Rainey, in that embarrassment that comes when one knows he has done well, yet instinctively seeks to disclaim honors, "any one would have done that. I happened to be the only one to see it."
"I'm not so sure of that," replied the girl, and Rainey thought her lip curled contemptuously as she glanced toward Carlsen at the wheel. Yet Carlsen, he fancied, had full excuse for not having made the attempt, busied as he had been adding needed strength to the wheel.
"Oh, it was not what he did, or failed to do," said the girl, and this time there was no mistaking the fact that she emphasized her voicewith contempt and made sure that it would carry to Carlsen. "He said it wasn't worth while."
Her eyes flashed and then she made a visible effort to control herself. "But it was very brave of you, and I want to ask your pardon," she concluded, with the crimson of her cheeks flooding all her face before she turned away, and made abruptly for the companion.
A little bewildered, the touch of her slim but strong fingers still sensible to his own, Rainey went to the wheel.
"Shall I take it over, Mr. Carlsen?" he asked. "It's my watch."
Carlsen surveyed him coolly. Either he pretended not to have heard the girl's innuendo or it failed to get under his skin.
"You'd better get into some dry togs, Rainey," he said. "And I'll prescribe a stiff jorum of grog-hot. Take your time about it." Rainey, conscious of a wrenched feeling in his side, a growing nausea and weakness, thanked him and took the advice. Half an hour later,save for a general soreness, he felt too vigorous to stay below, and went on deck again. Sandy had been taken forward. He encountered the hunter, Deming, and asked after the roustabout.
"Born to be hanged," answered the hunter with more friendliness than he had ever exhibited. "They pumped it out of him, and got his own pump to workin'. He'll be as fit as a fiddle presently. Asking for you."
"I'll see him soon," said Rainey, and again offered relief to Carlsen, which the doctor this time accepted.
"Miss Simms misunderstood me, Rainey," he said easily. "My intent was, that Sandy could never stay on top in those seas, and that it was idle to send a valuable man after a lout who was as good as dead. If it hadn't been for the whale you'd never have landed him. And the killers got the whale," he added, with his cynical grin.
So he had overheard. Rainey wondered whether the girl would accept the amendedstatement if it was offered. At its best interpretation it was callous.
When Hansen took over the watch Rainey went below to Sandy. Lund had disappeared, but he found the giant in the triangular forecastle by Sandy's bunk.
"That you, Rainey?" Lund asked as he heard the other's tread. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper:
"The lad's grateful. Make the most of it. If he wants to spill ennything, git all of it."
But Sandy seemed able to do nothing but grin sheepishly. He was half drunk with the steaming potion that had been forced down him.
"I'll see you later, Mister Rainey," he finally stammered out. "See you later, sir. You—I—"
Lund suddenly nudged Rainey in the ribs.
"Never mind now," he whispered.
A sailor had come into the forecastle with an extra blanket for Sandy, contributed from the hunters' mess.
"That's all right, Sandy," said Rainey. "Better try to get some sleep."
The roustabout had already dropped off. The seaman touched his temple in an old-fashioned salute.
"That was a smart job you did, sir," he said to Rainey.
The latter went aft with Lund through the hunters' quarters. They were seated under the swinging lamp which had been lit in the gloom of the gale, playing poker, as usual. But all laid down their cards as Rainey appeared.
"Good work, sir!" said one of them, and the rest chimed in with expressions that warmed Rainey's heart. He felt that he had won his way into their good-will. They were human, after all, he thought.
"Glad to have you drop in an' gam a bit with us, or take a hand in a game, sir," added Deming.
Rainey escaped, a trifle embarrassed, and passed through the alley that went by the cook'sdomain into the main cabin. Tamada was at work, but turned a gleam of slanting eyes toward Rainey as they passed the open door. The main cabin was empty.
"Come into my room," suggested Lund. "I want to talk with you."
He stuffed his pipe and proffered a drink before he spoke.
"Best day's work you've done in a long while, matey," he said quietly. "Take Deming's offer up, an' mix in with them hunters. An' pump thet kid, Sandy. Pump him dry. He'll know almost as much as Tamada, an' he'll come through with it easier."
"Just what are you afraid of?" asked Rainey.
"Son," said Lund simply, "I'm afraid of nothing. But they're primed for somethin', under Carlsen. We'll be makin' Unalaska ter-morrer or the next day. Here's hopin' it's the next. An' we've got to know what to expect. Did you know that the skipper has had another bad spell?"
"No. When?"
"Jest a few minnits ago. Cryin' for Carlsen like a kid for its nurse an' bottle. The doc's with him now. An' I'm beginnin' to have a hunch what's wrong with him. Here's somethin' for you to chew on: Inside of forty-eight hours there's goin' to be an upset aboard this hooker an' it's up to me an' you to see we come out on top. If not—"
He spread out his arms with the great, gorilla-like hands at the end of them, in a gesture that supplanted words. Beyond any doubt Lund expected trouble. And Rainey, for the first time, began to sense it as something approaching, sinister, almost tangible.
"You drop in on the hunters an' have a little game of poker ter-night," said Lund emphatically.
"I haven't got much money with me," said Rainey.
"Money, hell!" mocked Lund. "They don't play for money. They play for shares in the gold. They've got the big amount fixed at amillion, each share worth ten thousand. 'Cordin' to the way things stand at present, you've got forty thousand dollars' worth in chips to gamble with. Put it up to 'em that way. I figger they'll accept it. If they don't, wal, we've learned something. An' don't forget to git next to Sandy."
A good deal of this was enigmatical to Rainey, but there was no mistaking Lund's tremendous seriousness and, duly impressed, Rainey promised to carry out his suggestions.
As he crossed the main cabin to go to his own room, Carlsen came out of the skipper's. He did not see Rainey at first and was humming a little air under his breath as he slipped a small article into his pocket. His face held a sneer. Then he saw Rainey, and it changed to a mask that revealed nothing. His tune stopped.
"I hear the captain's sick again," said Rainey. "Not serious, I hope."
Carlsen stood there gazing at him with hislook of a sphinx, his eyes half-closed, the scoffing light showing faintly.
"Serious? I'm afraid it is serious this time, Rainey. Yes," he ended slowly. "I am inclined to think it is really serious." He turned away and rapped at the door of the girl's stateroom. In answer to a low reply he turned the handle and went in, leaving Rainey alone.
The next morning Rainey, going on deck to relieve Hansen at eight bells, in the commencement of the forenoon watch, found Lund in the bows as he walked forward, waiting for the bell to be struck. The giant leaned by the bowsprit, his spectacled eyes seeming to gaze ahead into the gray of the northern sky, and it seemed to Rainey as if he were smelling the wind. The sun shone brightly enough, but it lacked heat-power, and the sea had gone down, though it still ran high in great billows of dull green. There was a bite to the air, and Rainey, fresh from the warm cabin, wished he had brought up his sweater.
Lightly as he trod, the giant heard him and instantly recognized him.
"How'd ye make out with the hunters last night?" he queried. "I turned in early."
"We had quite a session," said Rainey. "They got me in the game, all right."
"Enny objections 'bout yore stakin' yore share in the gold?"
"Not a bit. I fancy they thought it a bit of a joke. More of one after we'd finished the game. I lost two thousand seven hundred dollars," he added with a laugh. "No chips under a dollar. Sky limit. And Deming had all the luck, and a majority of the skill, I fancy."
"Don't seem to worry you none."
"Well, it was sort of ghost money," laughed Rainey.
"You've seen the color of it," retorted Lund. "Hear ennything special?"
"No." Rainey spoke thoughtfully. "I had a notion I was being treated as an outsider, though they were friendly enough. But, somehow I fancy they reserved their usual line of talk."
"Shouldn't wonder," grunted Lund. "Seen Sandy yet?"
"I haven't had a chance. I imagined it would be best not to be seen talking to him."
"Right. Matey, things are comin' to a head. There's ice in the air. I can smell it. Feel the difference in temperature? Ice, all right. An' that means two things. We're nigh one of the Aleutians, an' Bering Strait is full of ice. Early, a bit, but there's nothin' reg'lar 'bout the way ice forms. I've got a strong hunch something'll break before we make the Strait.
"There's one thing in our favor. Yore savin' Sandy has set you solid with the hunters. They won't be so keen to maroon you. An' they'll think twice about puttin' me ashore blind. I used to git along fine with the hunters. All said an' done, they're men at bottom. Got their hearts gold-plated right now. But—"
He seemed obsessed with the idea that the crew, with Carlsen as prime instigator, had determined to leave them stranded on some volcanic, lonely barren islet. Rainey wondered what actual foundations he had for that theory.
"The sailors—" he started.
"Don't amount to a bunch of dried herrin'. A pore lot. Swing either way, like a patent gate. I ain't worryin' about them. I'm goin' to git my coffee. I was up afore dawn, tryin' to figger things out. You git to Sandy soon's you can, matey." And Lund went below.
Rainey saw nothing more of him until noon, at the midday meal. And he found no chance to talk with Sandy. He noticed the boy looking at him once or twice, wistfully, he thought, and yet furtively. A thickening atmosphere of something unusual afoot seemed present. And the actual weather grew distinctly colder. He had got his sweater, and he needed it. The sailors had put on their thickest clothes. Carlsen did not appear during the morning, neither did the hunters. Nor the girl.
At noon Carlsen came up to take his observation. He said nothing to Rainey, but the latter noticed the doctor's face seemed more sardonic than usual as he tucked his sextant under his arm.
With Hansen on deck they all assembled at the table with the exception of the captain. Tamada served perfectly and silently. The doctor conversed with the girl in a low voice. Once or twice she smiled across the table at Rainey in friendly fashion.
"Skipper enny better?" asked Lund, at the end of the meal.
Carlsen ignored him, but the girl answered:
"I am afraid not." It was not often she spoke to Lund at all, and Rainey wondered if she had experienced any change of feeling toward the giant as well as himself.
Carlsen got up, announcing his intention of going forward. Lund nodded significantly at Rainey as if to suggest that the doctor was going to foregather with the hunters, and that this might be an opportunity to talk with Sandy.
"Goin' to turn in," he said. "Eyes hurt me. It's the ice in the wind."
"Is there ice?" Peggy Simms asked Rainey as Lund disappeared. Carlsen had already vanished.
"None in sight," he answered. "But Lund says he can smell it, and I think I know what he means. It's cold on deck."
The girl went to the door of her own room and then hesitated and came back to the table where Rainey still sat. He had four hours off, and he meant to make an opportunity of talking to the roustabout.
"Mr. Carlsen told me he expects to sight land by to-morrow morning," she said. "Unalaska or Unimak, most likely. How is the boy you saved?"
She seemed so inclined to friendliness, her eyes were so frank, that Rainey resolved to talk to her. He held a notion that she was lonely, and worried about her father. There were pale blue shadows under her eyes, and he fancied her face looked drawn.
"May I ask you a question?" he asked.
"Surely."
"Just why did you beg my pardon? And, I may be wrong, but you seemed to make a point of doing so rather publicly."
She flushed slowly, but did not avoid his gaze, coming over to the table and standing across from him, her fingers resting lightly on the polished wood.
"It was because I thought I had misunderstood you," she said. "And I have thought it over since. I do not think that any man who would risk his life to save that lad could have joined the ship with such motives as you did. I—I hope I am not mistaken."
Rainey stared at her in astonishment.
"What motives?" he asked. "Surely you know I did not intend to go on this voyage of my own free will?"
The changing light in her eyes reminded Rainey of the look of her father's when he was at his best in some time of stress for the schooner. They were steady, and the pupils had dilated while the irises held the color of steel. There was something more than ordinary feminine softness to her, he decided. She sat down, challenging his gaze.
"Do you mean to tell me," she asked, "thatyou did not use your knowledge of this treasure to gain a share in it, under a covert threat of disclosing it to the newspaper you worked for?"
It was Rainey's turn to flush. His indignation flooded his eyes, and the girl's faltered a little. His wrath mastered his judgment. He did not intend to spare her feelings. What did she mean by such a charge? She must have known about the drugging. If not—she soon would.
"Your fiancé, Mr. Carlsen, told you that, I fancy," he said, "if you did not evolve it from your own imagination." Now her face fairly flamed.
"My fiancé?" she gasped. "Who told you that?"
"The gentleman himself," answered Rainey.
"Oh!" she cried, closing her eyes, her face paling.
"The same gentleman," went on Rainey vindictively, "who put chloral in my drink and deliberately shanghaied me aboard theKarluk,so that I only came to at sea, with no chance of return. He, too, was afraid I might give the snap away to my paper, though I would have given him my word not to. He told me it was a matter of business, that he had kidnapped me for my own good," he went on bitterly, recalling the talk with Carlsen when he had come out of the influence of the drug. "You don't have to believe me, of course," he broke off.
"I don't think you are quite fair, Mr. Rainey," the girl answered. "To me, I mean. I will give youmyword that I knew nothing of this. I—" She suddenly widened her eyes and stared at him. "Then—my father—he?"
Rainey felt a twinge of compassion.
"He was there when it happened," he said. "But I don't know that he had anything to do with it. Mr. Carlsen may have convinced him it was the only thing to do. He seems to have considerable influence with your father."