HIDDEN COUNTRY

by Henry Oyen

Author of “The Snow Burner,” “The Man Trail,” “Gaston Olaf,” etc.

I

George Chanler’s offer of a position as literary secretary of his Arctic expedition came to me one fine May morning when I was sitting at my desk, glooming from an eighteenth-story height down upon the East River, and dreading to begin the day’s work.

I had sat so for many mornings past. I was not happy; I was a failure. I was thirty years old, had a college education; my health was splendid and I was intelligent and ambitious. And I was precariously occupying a position as country correspondent in Hurst’s Mail Order Emporium, salary $25 a week, with every reason to believe that I had achieved the limits of such success as my capabilities entitled me to.

“You ain’t got no punch, Mr. Pitt; that’s the matter vit’ you,” was my employer’s verdict. “You’re a fine feller, but—oof! How you haf got into the rut!”

I had. I was in so deeply that I had lost confidence and was losing hope. That was why I, Gardner Pitt, bookman by instinct and office-cog by vocation, was ripe for Chanler’s sensational offer.

My friendship with Chanler, which had been a close one at school where I had done half his work for him, had of a necessity languished during the last few years. There is not much room for friendship between a poorly paid office man and an idle young millionaire. Yet it was apparent that George had not forgotten, for now he turned to me when he wanted some one to accompany him and write the history of his Arctic achievements.

His offer came in the form of a long telegram from Seattle where he was outfitting his new yacht, Wanderer. Being what he was George gave me absolutely no useful information concerning the nature of his expedition. In what most concerned me, however, his message was sufficient: a light task, a Summer vacation, and at generous terms.

I looked out of the window at the wearying roofs of the city, and the yellow paper crumpled in my fingers as I clenched my fist. There was none of the adventurer in me. I was not in the optimistic frame of mind necessary to an explorer. But Chanler’s offer was, at least, a chance to escape from New York. I bade Mr. Hurst good-by, and went out and sent a wire of acceptance.

Eight days later, shortly before noon, I stood on the curb outside the station in Seattle bargaining with a cabman to drive me to the dock where I had been directed to find a launch from the Wanderer awaiting me that morning. The particular cabman that I happened to hit upon was an honest man. He cheerfully admitted that he did not know the exact location of the dock mentioned in my directions, but he assured me that he knew in a general way in which section of the water-front it must be.

“And when we get down there I’ll step in and ask at Billy Taylor’s,” he said, as if that settled the matter. “Billy’ll know; he knows everything that’s going along the water-front.”

Billy Taylor’s proved to be a tiny waterfront saloon which my man entered with an alacrity that testified to a desire for something more than information concerning my dock. I waited in patience for many minutes with no sign of his return. I waited many more minutes in impatience with a like result.

In my broken-spirited condition I was not fit or inclined to reprimand a drinking cabman, but neither was I minded to sit idle while my man filled himself up. I stepped out of the cab and thrust open the swinging doors of the saloon.

I did not enter. My cabman was in the act of coming out, standing with one hand absently thrust out toward the doors, his attention arrested and held by something that was taking place in a small room at the rear of the saloon. The door of this room was half open. I saw a small, wiry man in seaman’s clothes leaning over a round table, shaking his fist at a large man with light cropped hair who sat opposite him. A bottle of beer, knocked over, was gurgling out its contents on the floor. The large man was sitting up very stiff and straight, but smiling easily at the other’s fury.

“No, you don’t, Foxy; no you don’t! You can’t come any of your ‘Captain’ business on me, you Laughing Devil,” screamed the little man. “Ah, ha! That stung, eh? Didn’t think I knew what the Aleuts called you, eh, Foxy? ‘Laughing Devil.’ An’ you talk like a captain to me, and ask me to go North with you! Here: what became of Slade and Harris, that let you into partnership with ’em after you’d lost your sealer in Omkutsk Strait? And what became of the gold strike they’d made? Eh? And you talk to me about a rich gold find you’ve got, and want me to help you take a rich sucker up North——”

“Still,” said the big man suddenly. “Still, Madigan.”

He had been smiling up till then, his huge, red face lighted up like a wrinkled red sun, but suddenly the light seemed to go out. The fat of his face seemed to become like cast bronze, with two pin-points of fire gleaming, balefully from under down-drawn lids. Several heavy lines which had been hidden in genial wrinkles now were apparent, and, though only the flat profile was visible to me, I saw, or rather I felt, that the man’s face for the while was terrible.

To my amazement the infuriated sea-man’s abuse ceased as abruptly as if the power of speech had been taken from him. He remained in his threatening attitude, leaning across the table, his clenched fist thrust forward, his mouth open; but his eyes were held by the crop-haired man’s and not a sound came from his lips.

“Down, Madigan,” continued the big man. “It is my wish that you sit down.”

A snarl came from the small man’s lips. He seemed about to break out again, but suddenly he subsided and sat down. The big man nodded stiffly, as one might at child who has obeyed an unpleasant command, and the smaller man humbly closed the door.

My cabman came hurtling out through the swinging doors, nearly running me down in his hurry.

“Hullo!” he cried. “Did you see that, too? Whee-yew! That was a funny thing. That little fellow’s Tad Madigan, a mate that’s lost his papers, and the toughest man along the water-front; and he—he shut up like a schoolboy, didn’t he?”

Saloon brawls, even when displaying amazing characters, do not interest me.

I reminded him that he had gone in to inquire about the location of my dock.

“Oh, that’s a good joke on me,” he laughed. “Your dock’s right next door here, and you can see the Wanderer from Billy’s back room.”

A few minutes later I was standing in the midst of my baggage on this dock, looking out across the water to where lay anchored the white, clean-lined yacht, Wanderer.

It was a morning in early June, a day alive with bright, warm sun. A slight breeze with a mingling of sea, and pine, and the subtle scents of Spring in it, was coming up the Sound, and beneath its breath the water was rippling into wavelets, each with a touch of sun on its tiny crest.

An outdoor man might have thrilled with the scene, the sun, the fresh Spring-scent and all. But I was fresh from the asphalt and stone walls of New York, and I was broken-spirited, resigned to anything, elated over nothing, that fate might allot me. I merely looked over the water to the Wanderer to see if the promised launch was on its way.

“Sure enough, Mister, there comes a little gas-boat for you now,” exclaimed my cabman, pointing with his whip to a small launch that was coming away from the yacht’s stern. “You’ll be all right; your friends have seen you. Well, good luck to you, friend, and lots of it.”

“Thank you,” I said, “and the same to you.”

But I felt bitterly that there was little hope that his cheery wish would be realized for me.

As the launch drew nearer the dock I saw that a bareheaded and red-haired young man was in charge, and as it came quite near I saw that the young man’s mouth was opening and closing prodigiously, and from snatches of sound that drifted toward me above the noise of the engine, I heard that he was singing joyously at the top of a strained and thoroughly unmusical voice.

He drove the launch straight at the dock in a fashion that seemed to threaten inevitable collision, but at the crucial moment the engine suddenly was reversed, the rudder swung around, and the little craft came sidling alongside against the timber on which I was standing; the young man tossed a rope around a pile, and with a sudden spring he was on the dock beside me.

“You’re Mr. Gardner Pitt, if your baggage is marked right,” he said, though I had not seen the swift glance he had shot at the initials on my bags.

He stood on his tip-toes, blinking in the sun, and filled his lungs with a great draft of air.

“Gee! It’s some morning, ain’t it, Mr. Pitt? A-a-ah-ah!” he continued with ineffable satisfaction. “It certainly is one grand thing to be alive.”

I could not wholly subscribe to his sentiment at that time, but there was such an aura of wholesome good humor about the young man that I warmed toward him at once. He was probably twenty-three years old, short and boyish of build: his face was a mass of freckles; his eyes were very blue and merry; his nose very snubbed, his mouth large. He wore one of the most awful red ties that ever tortured the eyes of humanity, and the crime was aggravated by a pin containing a large yellow stone; but when he grinned it was apparent that he was one of those whom much is to be forgiven.

“I’m Freddy Pierce,” he said. “Wireless operator and odd-job-man on the Wanderer. Say, Mr. Pitt, will you do me a favor?”

He looked at me with an expression of indescribable comicality on his sun-wrinkled face, and, willy-nilly, I found myself smiling.

“Thank you for them kind words,” he laughed before I had opened my mouth. “Knew you’d do it; knew I had you sized up right. Let me roll a pill before we start back? Thanks.”

With amazing swiftness he had produced tobacco and paper, rolled a cigaret, and sent a ring of smoke rolling upward through the clear air.

“Mr. Pitt,” he said suddenly in a new tone, “do you know Captain Brack?”

“No,” I said. “Who is Captain Brack?”

“Captain of the Wanderer,” was the reply.

“I don’t know him.”

He threw away his cigaret and began easing my baggage down into the launch. He was serious for the moment.

“And—and say, Mr. Pitt, do you know a Jane—I mean, a lady named Miss Baldwin?”

I did not.

“Who is Miss Baldwin?”

Pierce suddenly snapped his teeth together, and the look that came upon his freckled countenance puzzled me for days to come.

“God knows—and the boss,” he said enigmatically. “She—she’s——”

He shook his head vigorously, then sprang into the launch. His serious moment had gone.

“Now get in while I’m holding ’er steady, Mr. Pitt. That’s right.” And now, putt-putt said the engine, and bearing its precious freight the launch sped across the blue water to the noble yacht. “Ah, ha! And there’s old ‘Frozen Face,’ the Boss’s valet, waiting to welcome you on board.”

II

I followed the direction of Pierce’s outstretched arm and on the deck of the Wanderer made out the stiff, precise figure of Chanler’s man, Simmons, waiting in exactly the same pose with which he admitted one to his master’s bachelor apartments in Central Park West. It was Simmons who welcomed me on board, and he did it ill, for it irked his serving-man’s soul to countenance his master’s friendship with persons of no wealth.

“Mr. Chanler is in his room, sir. You are to come there at once. This way, if you please, sir.”

He led the way in his stiffest manner to a stateroom in the forward part of the yacht and knocked diffidently on the door.

“Go away! Please go away!” came the petulant response.

“Mr. Pitt, sir,” said Simmons.

“Oh!” There was the sound of a desk being closed. “Show him in. Hello, Gardy! Glad to see you! I’m fairly dying for somebody to talk to!”

Chanler was sprawled gracefully over a chair before a writing-desk built into the forward wall of the stateroom. He was wearing a mauve dressing-gown of padded silk and smoking one of his phenomenally long cigarets in a phenomenally long amber holder. It had been long since I had seen him and he had changed deplorably; but so rapid and eager was his greeting that I had no time to note just where the change had come.

“You’re a good fellow to come, Gardy,” said he with a genuine note of gratitude in his tones. “I knew you’d help me, though. Simmons—bring a couple of green ones, please.”

“Not for me,” I hastened to interpose. “You know I never touch anything before dinner.”

“That’s so; I forgot. You’ve got yourself disciplined. Well, bring one green one, Simmons. I don’t usually do this sort of thing so early, either,” he continued as Simmons vanished, “but I sat up late with Captain Brack last night, and I’m a little off. Wonderful chap, the captain; head on him like a piece of steel. Well, Gardy, what do you think of the trip?”

“When you have told me something about it I may have an opinion,” I replied. “You know all the knowledge of it that I have was what came in your message.”

“That’s so. Well, what did you think when you got the wire? You must have thought something; you think about everything. What did you think when you heard that I was planning a stunt like this—something useful, you know? Eh?”

“Well, it was something of a shock,” I admitted.

Chanler smiled. But it was not the likable, indolent, boyish smile of old which admitted:

“Quite so. Came as a shock to hear that I was planning to be something besides a loafer spending the money my governor made. I knew it would. You never expected anything like this of me, Gardy?”

“No, I can’t say that I did.”

“Neither did I. Never dreamed of it until three months ago, and then—then I discovered that I had to do—come in, Simmons,” he interrupted himself as the valet knocked.

While he was swallowing his little drink of absinth I studied him more closely.

There had always been something of the young Greek god about George Chanler, an indolent, likable, self-satisfied young god with a long, elegant body and a small curl-wrapped head. Now I saw how he had changed. The fine body and head had grown flabby from too much self-indulgence and too little use. There was a new look about the lazy eyes which hinted at a worry, the sort of worry which troubles a man awake or sleeping. Something had happened to George Chanler, something that had shaken him out of the armor of indolent self-sufficiency which Chanler money had grown around him. The boyish lines about his mouth were gone. It was not a likable face now; it was cynical, almost brutal.

“That’s all, Simmons,” he said, allowing Simmons to take the empty glass from his hand. “What was I saying, Gardy, when I stopped?”

“That you discovered that you had to do——”

“Oh, yes.” He paused a while. “Didn’t you wonder why I was doing this sort of thing when you got my wire, Gardy?”

“Naturally, I did.”

“And you haven’t got any idea, or that sort of thing, about why I’m doing it?”

“You say that your purpose is to explore——”

“I mean, what started me on the trip?”

I shook my head.

“Haven’t you even got a good guess?”

“Well, it might be a bet, doctor’s orders, or just an ordinary whim.”

He shook his head, looking pensively out of the window, or at least, as near pensively as he could.

“No,” he said. “Nothing so easy as that. I’m doing it because of a——”

He caught himself sharply and looked at me.

“What did you think I was going to finish with, Gardy?”

“I had three guesses,” I replied. “I wouldn’t guess again.”

“I’m doing it,” he resumed slowly, “I’m doing it because—I had to do something useful, and this is the sort of thing I like to do.”

I smiled a little.

“What’s that for, Gardy?” he asked.

“I didn’t know you ever recognized the words ‘had to’ as applicable to yourself.”

“By jove! And I didn’t, Gardy; I never did in the world—until three months ago. But then something happened.”

He looked out of the window for a long time.

“No, I’m not going to tell you, Gardy. It’s none of your business. No offense, you know.”

“Of course not. I didn’t ask.”

“You’ll know without asking, in time. Well, I’ve told you I found I had to do something—something useful. That was quite a jolt, you know. Never fancied I’d ever have to do anything, and as for doing anything useful—rot, my boy, for me, you know. But I found I had to, and so when I met Brack—By the way, Brack’s the chap who’s responsible for my ‘doing something’ in this way. Wonderful fellow. Met him in San Francisco. Don’t mind admitting to you, old man, that I was traveling pretty fast.

“Went to San Francisco with an idea of going to China, or around the world, or something like that, to forget. Met him in the Palace barroom. Saved me. He’d just come back from the North, where he’d lost his sealing vessel. He said: ‘Why don’t you buy the Wanderer and do some exploring?’ ‘What’s the Wanderer,’ says I. ‘Strongest gasoline yacht in the world,’ he says. I began to pick up; life held interest, you know. Went to see the Wanderer. Belonged to old Harrison, the steel man, who’d done a world tour in her and wanted to sell. ‘Where’s a good place to explore if I do buy her?’ says I, and Brack told me about Petroff Sound. Ever hear of it before this, Gardy?”

“I’ve seen the name some place, nothing more.”

“I wired old Doc Harper about it after Brack had talked to me about the place. Asked if it would be a good stunt to go up there; credit to the old school to have a ‘grad’ get the bones, you know.”

“Bones?” I exclaimed.

“Bones,” said Chanler. “Read that,” and he handed me a long letter signed by the venerable president of our school.

The Petroff Sound territory unquestionably is a district which science demands be explored. Mikal Petroff, the Russian who in 1889 brought out the tibea of a mammoth, (elephas primigenius) and several bone fragments which certainly had belonged to an animal of characteristics similar to the extinct elephant species, was an illiterate fur-trader and therefore his report of a field of similar bones frozen in the never-thawing ice of the Sound must not be accepted as positive information.

In 1892, however, Sturlasson, the Norwegian captain, who reached the Sound after the wreck of his sealing vessel, made entries in his diary before dying which substantiate Petroff’s story. As the location of the Sound, as recorded by Sturlasson, is three minutes west of the location as given by your informant, it is certain that the latter knows of Petroff Sound. No nobler use could be found for your activity and wealth than the expedition you are considering. Before expressing myself further, I will give such data as is obtainable from sources at my command.

Dr. Harper’s data on Petroff Sound was deadly dry scientific matter which explained that while the possible discovery of frozen mammoth bones would be of great interest to the scientific world, the study of the terrain and of conditions surrounding these bones would be of infinitely greater value.

“Then it’s purely a scientific affair,” I said. “To be of any value it must be scientific.”

“Positively, dear boy, positively. I’ll give you a lot of stuff to read up on after luncheon. Old Harper took trouble to wire me to be sure to have an authentic, coherent report made of the expedition’s findings. Well, that’s where you came in. I haven’t got brains, but you have, Gardy, and you’re going to help me out. We sail tonight, by the way, and we won’t be back until cold weather, so ye who have tears prepare to shed them between now and midnight.”

“But who is the scientist of the expedition?”

“Brack. He’s a geologist, mineralogist, oceanographer, and general shark on all that sort of stuff. Expert explorer. Quit exploring and went sealing. Lost his schooner, and had come down and was living at the Palace, waiting for capital to start again. Wonderful mind. He’s ashore at present framing up a little sport to help us pass the afternoon. We’ll get ready for luncheon now, Gardy. He’ll be here then and you’ll meet him. Sure you won’t have a tot of grog before eating, Gardy?”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, I will, just a little. Simmons will show you to your stateroom. Hope you’re witty and full of scandal, Gardy, ’cause I’m awf’ly, awf’ly bored these days and I’ve got to be amused.”

Simmons, summoned by the bell, ushered me into the stateroom next to Chanler’s. The two rooms were nearly identical in size and furnishings, and I wondered idly why Chanler, as owner, did not occupy the owner’s suite forward. Later I had a glimpse into the owner’s suite through a half-open door, and was more puzzled: the suite was obviously furnished for feminine occupation.

Captain Brack had not arrived when we entered the dining-saloon of the Wanderer for luncheon. There were present Mr. Riordan, Chief Engineer, Dr. Olson, physician to the expedition, and the second officer, Mr. Wilson. Riordan was a pale, sour-looking Irishman, tall, loosely built, heavy-jawed, and with a bitter down-curve to the corners of his large, loose mouth. Once I saw him shoot a sly glance at George Chanler’s long, thin hands, and the look was not what a dutiful employee should have bestowed upon so generous an employer.

Opposite Riordan, and beside me, sat Mr. Wilson, second in command, who had come with the Wanderer from her former owner. He was a strongly built, silent, brown-faced man, of about thirty-five who always appeared as if he had just been shaven, as if his clothes had just been brushed, and whose shoes always seemed to be polished to the same degree. His face was square and lean, and against the weather-beaten neck his immaculate collar gleamed with startling whiteness. He spoke seldom except when spoken to and then modestly and to the point. “Yes sir” and, “No sir,” were the words most frequently on his lips.

Dr. Olson was a small, unobtrusive man with a light Vandyke beard, to whom no one paid any attention and who spoke even less than Mr. Wilson.

The introductions were barely over when a quick light step fell on the deck outside and Chanler, languidly waving his hand at the door behind me, said—

“Mr. Pitt, meet Captain Brack.”

I rose and turned with interest. My interest suddenly gave way to consternation. A chill went flashing along my spine. I stood like a dumb man. Captain Brack was the large man whom I had heard called “Laughing Devil” in Billy Taylor’s saloon a short time before.

III

The Captain was bowing to me with the easy impressiveness of the man to whom ceremonial is no novelty. He was smiling. There was in his smile the good humor of an adult toward a half-grown child. He stood up very straight and precise, his shoulders at exact right angles to his thick neck, his out-thrust chest almost pompous in its roundness.

He was, I judged, exactly my own height, which was five feet nine, but so thick was he in every portion of his anatomy that the physical impression which he made was overpowering. His head and face were large and, thanks to a closely cropped pompadour, gave, in spite of considerable fat, the impression of being square. The eyes were out of place in his head. Hidden under half-closed, fat lids they were mere specks in size, yet when I had once looked into them I stared in fascination.

The head, and the fat, square face with its brutalized lines were frankly, flauntingly animal. The eyes betrayed a great mind. In that gross, brutal countenance the gleam of such an intellect seemed a shocking accident, one of those perversions of Nature’s plans which result in the production of abnormalities. What was this man? Was he the common creature of his thick jowls? or was he the developed man to whom belonged those eyes? Was that animal countenance but a mask? Or did the low instincts, which its lines betrayed, dominate, while the mind struggled in vain beneath such a handicap?

Those tiny eyes held mine and studied me cruelly. Before them I felt stripped to the marrow of my soul. My dreams, my weaknesses, my failures seemed to stand out like print for Brack to read. His superior smile indicated that he had read, that he had appraised me for a weakling; and for the life of me I could not control the resentment that leaped within me.

I looked him as steadily in the eyes as I could. He saw the resentment that lay there; for an instant there flickered a new look in his eyes; then they were bland and smiling again. But that instant was enough for each of us to know that one could never be aught but the other’s enemy.

“I am glad to see you on board, Mr. Pitt, as they say in the navy,” said Captain Brack with deepest courtesy.

“I am glad to be on board, Captain Brack,” I replied steadfastly.

“It is a pleasure to have for shipmate a literary man like Mr. Pitt.”

“It is a pleasure to contemplate a voyage in such company as Captain Brack’s.”

“We shall strive to make the voyage as interesting as possible, for you, Mr. Pitt,” said he.

“I am sure of that,” said I, “and I will do my poor best to reciprocate.”

“In a rough seaman’s way I have studied a little—enough to be interested in books. So we have, in a way, a bond of interest to begin with.”

“Mr. Chanler has told me something of your achievements, Captain Brack; I am sure you belittle them.”

It was very ridiculous. Brack had put me on my mettle; so there we stood and slavered each other with fine speeches, each knowing well that the other meant not a word of the esteem that he uttered. Yet as the luncheon progressed I was inclined to agree with George: Brack was a wonderful chap. The man’s mind seemed to be a great, well-ordered storehouse of facts and impressions which he had collected in his travels. Sitting back in his chair he dominated the company, led the talk whither he willed, and having said his say, beamed contentedly. And before the meal was over I had a distinct impression that Brack not Chanler, was master on the yacht.

Chanler, Brack, Riordan and Dr. Olson drank steadily throughout the luncheon. Mr. Wilson and myself drank not at all. As the luncheon neared its end, Chanler, his eyes steady but his under lip hanging drunkenly, broke out:

“Well, how about it, cappy? Did you land your two bad men?”

“Yes,” said Brack. “After luncheon I can promise you a little sport.”

Chanler laughed a dreary, half-drunken laugh.

“Gardy, we’ve fixed up a little sport. Awf’lly dull lying here. Have to pass the time some way.”

“If I may make the suggestion,” said Brack courteously, “perhaps Mr. Pitt has duties or wishes which will prevent him from viewing our little sport.”

“Not ’tall, not ’tall,” said Chanler.

“Perhaps it would be well for Mr. Pitt to wait a few days until—shall we say until he has become more accustomed to our ways—before treating himself to a sight of our little amusements?”

“Why so?” I demanded.

“Oh, it is merely a suggestion. Our sport is rather primitive—the bare, crawling stuff of life without the perfumery, wrappings, or other fanciful hypocrisies of civilization. Mr. Pitt does not look like a man who would admit that life so exists, and therefore must refuse to behold it.”

Chanler turned from Brack to me, his teeth showing in a pleased smile.

“Ha! Hot shot for you, that, Gardy. What say, old peg; where’s your comeback—repartee, and all that?”

As I hesitated for a reply, he tapped the table impatiently.

“Come, come, Gardy! A little brilliance, please. We don’t let him touch us and get away without a counter, do we? Ha! At ’im, boy; at ’im!”

“As Mr. Brack——”

“Ha! Mister Brack! Well, struck, Gardy; go on.”

“As Captain Brack has failed to inform me what it is we are about to see I, of course, can not be expected to express any opinion on it,” I said. “But as concerns ‘the bare, crawling stuff of life,’ I will reply that Life no longer crawls, nor is it bare.”

Chanler turned his eyes upon Brack.

“Your shot, cappy. What say to that?”

Brack bowed.

“I will reply by asking Mr. Pitt why he thinks life no longer is bare and crawling?”

“Because,” said I, “the mind of man has decreed that it should not be so. Because mas has erected a civilization in order to insure that life shall not be bare and crawling.”

“Civilization is not the point,” said Brack. “We spoke of Life. We, as we stand here, clothed, barbered, wearing the products of machinery to hide our bodies, we are Civilization. We, as we enter the bathtub in the morning, are Life—forked radishes.” He rolled his great head far back and looked down his thick cheeks at me appraisingly. “Some are small radishes; others are large.”

“Ha! Rather raw on you with that last one, Gardy. Small and large ones. You are small, you know, Gardy, compared to me or the captain.”

“Size can scarcely matter to radishes,” I said.

“Cappy, cappy! He scored on you there. What say to that?”

“I will say—” began Captain Brack, but Chanler had tired of his sport as suddenly as he had become interested.

“Rot, rot!” he said, tapping on the table. “You were going to amuse us with your new finds. Let’s have it.”

“Very well,” said the captain, arising. “It will be ready in fifteen minutes.”

I was glad of that respite of fifteen minutes. It gave me an opportunity to slip into my stateroom and pull myself together. Brack had shaken and stirred me as I had not thought possible. His terrific personality had exerted upon me the effects of a powerful stimulant. Once or twice in my life I had taken whisky in sufficient quantity to cause me to experience thoughts, emotions, elations which did not properly belong in the normal, self-controlled Me. Now I experienced something of the same sensation. My mind was buzzing with a hundred swift impressions and conjectures upon Brack.

The picture I had beheld and the words I had heard through the swinging doors of Billy Taylor’s repeated themselves to me, and I felt the same sensation of a chill that I had felt upon recognizing in Brack the big man from the saloon. The words which the small man had uttered were fraught with sinister suggestion. From them it was apparent that he recognized in the captain a man who was known as “Laughing Devil,” whose reputation, if the seaman’s words might be taken for truth, was not of the sort that one would care to have in the captain of the yacht on which one was sailing into far seas. Also it was apparent from the man’s words that Brack had made some sort of proposition: “a rich sucker,” had been mentioned.

My course was plain before me: to go to Chanler’s state-room, tell him what I had seen and heard, and demand that he investigate Brack’s actions or permit me to resign my position. I had no definite idea of what the words between Brack and Madigan might portend, but there was no doubt that they established faithfully the captain’s character. In my depressed condition I shuddered at the idea of putting to sea with such a man.

But—Captain Brack had smiled. That smile stopped me. The appalling brutality of the captain’s mental processes had started within me a slow, steady flame. It was ghastly; the man’s expression had shown that he considered me a thing to play with! The brute had looked in my eyes, had stripped me to the marrow, read me for a weakling, and smiled, so that I might know that he had seen all! And the worst of it was that he was doing it with a mind which weighed me calmly, without prejudice, with scientific calmness.

It was not fair, it was not human. The man should at least have refrained from forcing me to see how weak he considered me. And was I so weak? Was I the worm he thought me to be?

“No!” I cried aloud; and I was pacing the floor when Simmons knocked on my door.

IV

Up on the roomy bridge of the yacht I found Chanler and Brack seated on deck stools drawn close to the rail, looking down upon the immaculate fore-deck. As I followed their example I saw near the port side two seamen holding a squat, heavy negro by a rope passed under his arms. The man was trembling and moaning.

“He’s a bad man and near the snakes from gin,” laughed Chanler. “Over there’s Garvin, who fought Sharkey a couple of times.”

The pugilist, a large, young man, flashily dressed, though miserably bedraggled, was leaning against the starboard rail, scowling darkly at the negro.

“Give you gin?” he was saying to the negro. “Give you gin? What yah talkin’ about, Smoke? Give you gin? Nix. I’m the guy who gets the gin. I’m Bill Garvin. That’s why I get the gin and you get hell.”

As the negro broke out into his terrible moaning, the pugilist’s debauched nerves seemed to snap.

“Stop him! —— you! You lousy ——! Stop him! If you don’t I’ll kick his head off—I’ll kick your black head off, Smoke; I’ll kick your head off.”

His mad wandering eyes caught sight of Brack on the bridge.

“How ’bout that, pal? Won’t I kick his —— black head off. I’m Bill Garvin.”

He took a step forward and stood staring at Brack. “Say, you’re the guy who was going to gimme booze, ain’t you? Billy wouldn’t let me run my face any more; you said, ‘Come on, I’ll take you where there’s lots of it.’ Well, how ’bout it, there? Hah! How ’bout it?”

Brack smiled down upon him. And his smile was the same as he had bestowed upon me; Garvin, too, was a thing to play with.

“Well, I don’t know, Garvin,” he replied. “I promised Black Sam the same thing. I think I shall give him drink before you. He said he’d kill you if you got a drink before him.”

The pugilist stared stupidly while the significance of these words seeped into his sodden brain. A weird smile distorted one side of his face.

“He—” pointing to the negro—“said he’d do that to me?” Thumping his chest he roared: “Kill me! Bill Garvin? Sa-a-ay!”

He lurched over to where the negro stood. At first he seemed undecided what to do. Then he suddenly reached forward and caught the black’s head in chancery, and bent furiously over it. There came a horrible growl from Garvin’s throat, a piercing scream from the negro. Garvin had bitten deeply into the black’s ear.

I started back from the rail, every sense revolting, and found Brack studying me, the smile with which he favored me fixed on his lips.

“So? The stomach is not strong enough, Mr. Pitt? You feel a faintness. Yes; I have even seen delicate ladies lose consciousness under similar circumstances.”

“I do not lose consciousness,”’ I replied, drawing a chair up to the railing and seating myself, “but at the same time I fail to see what amusement a civilized man can find in this spectacle.”

“So? You can not see that, Mr. Pitt? If it would not be rude I would say that it is the truly civilized man, so highly civilized that he is not troubled by sentimentality or humanitarian motives, who can appreciate spectacles of this nature. The scientific type of mind is the ultimate product of civilization, is it not, Mr. Pitt? Well, it is only the scientist who can view properly the bare, crawling thing called Life.”

“Rot, rot, rot!” interrupted Chanler, each word punctuated with a rap of his cane on the deck. “Put on your show, Brack. Hope that wasn’t all you dragged me out here for?”

“That was entirely impromptu. I had no idea Mr. Garvin was so versatile. The show follows. Dr. Olson.”

The little doctor appeared on the deck bearing a large bottle of whisky and a tumbler. First he filled the glass full and poured it down the negro’s gaping mouth, then served Garvin in the same way. The negro grew calmer as the stimulant took hold. He examined the rope with which he was imprisoned and seemed to realize his situation.

“Say, boss, ah ain’t done nuffin. What yah got me in heah foh?” he said in a rational tone of voice. “Lemme out, kain’t yah? Ah’m awri’.”

“Let him go,” said Brack.

The two seamen let go the rope and the black fell forward. Garvin waved his hands at the sea.

“That’s where you’ll go, Smoke—overboard in pieces.”

The negro was crouched against the wheel-house, rubbing his hands on his thighs, his small red eyes feasting on the pugilist, a stream of profanity flowing in low tones from his lips.

“Dah he be, Sam, dah he be,” he whispered. “Dah deh white —— what bit you eah. Got you eah, got you eah! What yah goin’ do ’bout it, what yah goin’ do, what you goin’ do?” His words came swifter and swifter; he crouched lower, his hands moved more rapidly. “Goin’ kill ’im, goin’ kill ’im, kill ’im—kill ’im. Ow!”

With such a howl as belonged in no human throat, he launched himself, a ball of black bounding across the deck, straight at Garvin. He came head down, like a bull charging, and, Garvin side-stepping, he plunged head and shoulders between two rods of the port railing, where he stuck.

Chanler laughed drily.

“Not so bad, cappy,” he drawled. “It promises to be amusing, really.”

Garvin fell upon the negro before the latter had freed himself. He caught one of the black’s hands, drew it upward, and bent the arm over the rail till it threatened to snap or tear out the muscles at the shoulders.

“No,” said Brack in the same tone he had used on Madigan in Taylor’s saloon. “No more of that, Garvin.”

The pugilist, his brutality warming with the work in hand, looked up, a leer of contempt on his face.

“You will let go of his arm, Garvin,” said Brack.

The fighter obeyed, releasing his hold reluctantly, but he obeyed nevertheless. The black thrust himself free of the rail and faced his tormentor.

“Get hold ob ’im, Sammy; get hold ob ’im!” he whispered loudly, and moved toward Garvin with slow shuffling steps.

Garvin waited until the instant when the negro had planned the final spring, then his fist flashed up from below his knees and the black fell like a thrown sack of grain against the wheel-house.

“By Jove!” said Chanler. “Your man Garvin is really promising, Brack. Ha! The nigger’s no cripple, either.”

Black Sam had come to his feet with a spring. Again began his slow, determined advance upon Garvin, again Garvin’s fist flew out and the negro dropped with a thud.

This happened four times, and the negro was red from the neck up. The fifth time his small round head dropped suddenly as Garvin launched another terrific blow. The fist and black poll met with a sharp crack. The negro was flung back on his haunches, but Garvin grasped his right hand and swore futilely. Garvin looked up at the bridge, holding forth his hand.

“Hey! Call ’im off; take a look at me meathook!” he shouted.

“You still have your feet,” said Brack.

The fight raged again. Garvin was on his back now, kicking furiously. At last a kick favored him; he knocked the negro down. But this was his undoing, for Black Sam in falling landed full length upon Garvin, and in an instant his short, thick fingers had closed upon the white man’s throat.

After awhile Brack gave a signal to Mr. Riordan, the chief engineer, who was standing below. Without any hurry or excitement, Riordan walked over and kicked the negro in the temple. The stunned black released his hold. With another kick Riordan lifted him clear off Garvin.

Brack turned toward Chanler.

“Well, are they worth keeping?”

“Oh, I s’pose so,” said Chanler, yawning as he rose. “Rather amusing. Suit yourself, cappy.”

“Come ’long, Gardy,” said Chanler, leading the way off the bridge. He chuckled a little pointing back toward the combatants. “Conceited scum, those. Fighting men. Bad men. Be interesting to see Brack make ’em behave.”

“Chanler,” I said, “do you mean to tell me that you found any pleasure watching that bestial fight?”

“Pleasure? Pleasure, Gardy? Ha! It’s a long time since I’ve met the lady, m’boy. But a chap’s got to do what he can to keep from being bored. They did it—a little. I’m bored now. Do something, Gardy, say something. Hang it, man; can’t you do as much for me as those two brutes? Simmons! Some other togs, please. These I’ve got on make me dopy.”

He strode down into the cabin, forgetting me absolutely in this new evanescent whim.

V

I stepped to the port rail and bared my head to the young Spring breeze. I was disgusted. The sense of something uncleanly seemed to cling to me from the spectacle on the fore-deck and I was grateful for the antiseptic feel of the wind with its pure odors.

“Pretty raw, wasn’t it, Mr. Pitt?”

I looked up and saw Pierce, the young wireless operator, standing beside me.

“Yep. I feel that way about it, too,” he went on. “Not that I’ve got anything against seeing a good battle any time, ’cause I was raised back o’ the Yards in Chicago, and no more need be said. But that—that go forward, that was too raw. Garvin, he’s a sure ’nough pug—he stayed ten rounds with Sharkey once when Tom was starting, but the poor stew was about ready to have the ‘willies’; and the poor dinge was seeing snakes. Naw, it was too raw. Ear-eating and that kind of stuff. They hadn’t ought to have matched ’em. They couldn’t put up half a battle, the shape they was.”

“I didn’t object to it on those grounds,” I said, and as I looked at his merry, freckled face I was forced to smile. “Though I can appreciate your artistic disapproval. It disgusted me because it was so useless and brutal.”

“That’s what I said,” he responded promptly. “It was useless, because it wasn’t half a go, and brutal because they wasn’t in shape to stand the punishment.”

“We are slightly apart in our view-points, I am afraid, Mr. Pierce.”

“But you’re with me that it was bum match-making?”

I nodded.

“And that a right guy—you know what I mean: a guy who was right all the way through—couldn’t get any fun out of watching it?”

I nodded again. Pierce placed both hands on the railing, running his fingers up and down as if on a keyboard, whistling softly through his teeth.

“Did you notice how the boss ate it up?” he said abruptly.

“Mr. Chanler?”

“Yep. He eyed it like—like it was a pretty little thing to him.”

I said nothing. Pierce resumed his whistling and finger-practise on the rail. Suddenly he turned and faced me squarely, his countenance uncomfortably serious, as it had been on the dock that morning.

“I suppose you’re thinking what an awful dub I am to be making a crack about the boss to one of his friends, ain’t you, Mr. Pitt?”

“Well, to be frank,” I replied, “I have been wondering at your doing so. How do you know that I won’t go straight to Mr. Chanler with your words? I won’t do it, of course, but I would prefer that you do not discuss Mr. Chanler with me. One doesn’t do such things, you know.”

“No,” he said, “I didn’t know; I was raised back o’ the Yards. But if you say, ‘nix on it,’ nix it is. What—what do you think of the boat, Mr. Pitt? We can discuss that, can’t we?”

“Freely,” I laughed. “From what I’ve seen the Wanderer is a remarkable yacht.”

“And you haven’t seen anything but the gingerbread work. I’m off watch. Come on; let’s walk around and pipe her off. It’ll take the taste of that bum battle out of your mouth.”

I accepted willingly, and for an hour Pierce piloted me about the yacht.

The Wanderer is a craft of wonders. I have Pierce’s word that the yacht is 152 feet long on the water line with her present load, and that the load is the maximum which we could carry with safety. Her size below the cabin deck is amazing. In her engine room are some of the largest gasoline engines ever placed in a yacht, if Pierce’s information is correct. There are two great gleaming batteries of them, each battery capable of driving us at a speed of ten knots an hour, the two combined able to hurry us along at fourteen knots, if necessary. Besides this we have a small auxiliary engine and propeller, a novelty installed by the former owner, Harrison. We could smash both of our major engines and the auxiliary still would move us.

Built into the bows are the reserve gasoline tanks. There is enough fuel in them, says Pierce, to drive the Wanderer twice around the world. Aft of these vast tanks are the storerooms. They are locked. Captain Brack has the key, but Freddy assures me that enough provisions have been loaded into them to keep our company of fifteen men well fed for two years.

“Which certainly is playing safe, seeing as we’re not supposed to get frozen in,” said he, as we completed our tour below decks. “Now, come on and I’ll show you my private office.”

He led the way up a ladder to the little wireless house on the aft of the main cabin. This was Pierce’s room. His bunk was beside the table on which were his instruments, and he had covered the walls—“decorated,” he called it—with newspaper cuts of celebrated baseball players, pugilists, motor-racers, and women of the musical comedy stage. Lajoie’s picture was next to Terry McGovern’s, and Chevrolet’s beside Miss Anna Held’s. I smiled as I seated myself.

“Something of a connoisseur, I see, Pierce.”

“Whatever that means,” he responded. He had become serious again. He took a cigaret paper from his pocket, absently tore it to pieces and sat glancing out over the waters of the Sound.

“So you don’t know a Jane—a girl named Miss Beatrice Baldwin, Mr. Pitt?” he said, as if he had been thinking of saying it for a long time.

“You asked me that this morning,” said I. “Why do you think I might know her?”

“You’n’ the Boss is close friends, ain’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘close friends’.”

“I know. But you know him back East, and train with him, and know the bunch he trains with back there, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, to a certain extent.”

“That’s why I thought you might have heard of this Jane—Miss Baldwin, I mean.”

“I assure you, Pierce,” I said, smiling, “that one would have to possess a much larger circle of acquaintances than I have to know all the young ladies of Mr. Chanler’s acquaintance.”

He looked up.

“Is he that kind of a guy?” he asked.

“What kind do you mean?”

“A charmer, a Jane-chaser, lady-killer?”

The perfect naiveté with which he uttered this outrageous slang brought me to hearty laughter, the first of long time.

“Mr. Chanler,” I said, suppressing my amusement, “is a much sought after man.”

“Sure; he’s got the dough. But does he chase ’em back? Eh? Is he—Here, I’ll put it up to you straight: would you let your own sister go walking with him alone in the park after dark?”

I rose. But for the life of me I could not hold offense in the face of his honest, worried expression.

“Pierce,” I said, “that is another thing one does not do—ask such questions. And I have told you that you are not to discuss Mr. Chanler with me.”

“Aw, the devil!” he blurted. “Why can’t you be human? You’re a reg’lar fellow; I can see it in the back of your eyes. I’m a reg’lar fellow. Why can’t we get together?”

“Not on a discussion of Mr. Chanler behind his back,” I chuckled. “It isn’t done.”

Pierce doubled himself up on the stool which he was sitting on and grasped his thin ankles in his hands.

“All right, then,” he said moodily. “But I want to tell you I’ve been handling messages between the boss and a Miss Beatrice Baldwin; and he sent her one this morning and got a reply; and—I wished I’d never learned wireless, that’s all.”

“Mr. Chanler is a gentleman,” I said severely.

“A gentleman?” said Pierce gloomily. “I suppose that makes it all right, then, eh? But nevertheless and notwithstanding, I wish I hadn’t learned wireless, just the same. And you don’t even ask me what the message was about,” he continued as I remained silent. “That’s the difference: I’d have asked first crack; you’re a gent. You don’t ask at all.”

“Naturally not,” I replied. “That’s another thing one doesn’t do. I won’t even permit you to tell me what it was.”

“You won’t?”

“Decidedly not.”

“Not even if I tell you——”

“No.”

“All right then,” he said with a comical air of resignation and relief. “I’ve done me jooty. It’s something out of my class; I wanted to pass it up to somebody with a better nut than I’ve got; but if I can’t—all right. I suppose after you ’n’ me ’ve known each other five or six years we’ll be well enough acquainted to talk together like a couple o’ human beings, eh? I know I hadn’t ought to be talking to you like this, Mr. Pitt; you’re a New York highbrow and I’m from back o’ the Yards; but I’ll make you a nice little bet right now, that before this trip is over—if you’re the guy I think you are, Brains—you ’n’ me’ll tear off more’n one little confab behind the boss’s back, and you’ll be darn glad to do it.”

I rose to go.

“I can imagine no reason why we should,” I said. “This is a scientific expedition; you are the wireless operator, and I am Mr. Chanler’s literary secretary. Under the circumstances, why should you be willing to bet?”

“Under those circumstances, I wouldn’t be willing to bet,” he retorted. “But—scientific expedition!” he exploded in disgust. “Scientific ——!”

VI

I retired precipitately to my stateroom, not wishing to hear more. By this time I had seen enough to realize that the hard-drinking George Chanler of the present was not the same man whom I had been friendly with back East. That Chanler never would have endured the brutal sport with Garvin and the negro. He would not have fallen under the spell of a man like Brack; he would not have sent wireless messages to a girl which would make an honest operator like Pierce wish he had never learned his trade. I remembered the owner’s suite, unoccupied and furnished for a woman’s comfort.

“Scientific ——!” Pierce had said.

But it was too late for me to consider quitting now. Captain Brack and his taunting smile had attended to that. If I left now the contempt in his eyes would be justified: I would be the weakling which his look announced me to be. He would smile that smile as I went over the side; would continue to smile it whenever my name was mentioned.

I was disgusted with Chanler. But in my heart I was afraid of Brack, and, paradoxically, for this reason I was afraid to quit.

“Scientific ——!” What did Pierce mean? Whatever it was I judged it to concern only Chanler, therefore it did not greatly concern me. But Brack—so greatly did his smile distress me that I actually looked forward to meeting him again with something akin to relish.

That evening, near the end of the dinner, Dr. Olson happened to speak of the totem gods of the Northern Pacific tribes.

“Yes,” said Brack, “they whittle their gods out of wood with knives; white men use their minds to whittle theirs. Men are greater than gods. What would gods amount to if they didn’t have men to worship them? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Can you imagine anything more impotent than an unworshiped god? Man creates gods; not gods man. Men are absolutely indispensable to gods; but men can do very well without gods if it pleases them to do so.”

“Has it pleased you to do so, Captain Brack?” I asked.

“Decidedly so. I sail light. Men make a slavery of this job of existence because they encumber themselves with laws, gods, and so on. I decided long ago not to be a slave to gods or anything.” He turned upon me with his devilish smile. “Now, Mr. Pitt, it is easy to see, is a slave to his gods.”

“Which gods, for instance.”

He burst into ready laughter, as if I had fallen into a trap he had laid for me.

“The petty, insignificant gods of civilized conduct!”

“Hear, hear!” interjected Chanler, lazily blowing away the smoke. “What you two doing: making religious speeches? ‘God,’ you said. Stow that. There’s no room for gods of any kind on board this boat.”

“Except the gods of science,” laughed Brack.

“Ha! Science! That’s good, awf’ly good, cappy. You don’t know how good that is. I’ll stand for science, cappy, but not religion. Religion sort of suggests conscience, and conscience—m’boy, I cut the chap dead days ago and refuse to be re-introduced. One bottle to science, men, and then it’ll be time to kiss our native land good-by. Pitt, if you’ve a tender woman’s heart pining for you some place, better go send her your farewell message, ’cause cappy and I are going to make a wet evening of it until we sail in the interests of science! Glor-ee-ous, glorious science! Hah!”

I accepted his suggestion eagerly as a means to escape from the cabin. There was no woman pining for me; there was no woman in my life. I had no farewell message to send to any one. While Chanler, Brack and the doctor made merry over their bottle I sought the solitude of the upper deck.

It was a dark night, and a rising wind was blowing in from the sea. Along the water-front lights twinkled and gleamed, mere red-hot dots in the all-encompassing darkness.

At a dock near by the outline of a long steamer showed beneath the flare of a myriad gasoline torches, and across the water there came from her decks the clang of hammers and the hollow rumble of trucks pouring freight into her hold.

“The City of Nome, sir,” said a voice behind me, and turning I beheld the sturdy figure of Mr. Wilson, the second officer. “They’re rushing the job of preparing her for her first trip of the season. She follows the Wanderer up. She’ll be about forty-eight hours behind us.”

“Will she overtake us?”

“Hardly, sir. We’re as fast as she is, if not faster. No, we’ll show her the way into Bering Sea if nothing happens to check our speed.”

A sudden gust of wind shook us and a splattering of great rain-drops struck the deck. The mate turned toward the sea and sniffed the air.

“Hello!” he exclaimed, as if the wind had told him something. “I hope you’re a good sailor, Mr. Pitt; it may be a little rough outside tomorrow and for a couple of days to come.”

VII

I was awakened next morning by a sensation as of mighty blows being struck against the yacht’s hull, shaking it from stem to stem. My nostrils caught the tang of cold sea air, while gusts of fog-laden wind swept whistling past the open port-hole.

I dressed, went on deck, and swiftly retreated to shelter. The Wanderer was out at sea and boring her twelve-knot way through the smoke and welter of a raw Spring gale from the north.

The entire aspect of the yacht, of its personnel, and of the expedition seemed to have changed overnight. Captain Brack was upon the bridge. His neat, gold-braided uniform had vanished and he wore a rough sheepskin jacket and oilskin trousers. A shaggy cap was pulled down to his eyes and he chewed and spat tobacco.

In the gray light of a raw day, shuddering and washed by spray, the Wanderer had become a grim, serviceable sea-conqueror rather than the magnificent pleasure-boat she had seemed yesterday, and two seamen, roughly clad and dripping, were putting extra lashings on a life-boat forward.

I went down to breakfast with new impressions of the grim potentialities of this expedition.

I had breakfast alone. Chanler was still in his stateroom and the officers all had breakfasted long before. While I was eating, Freddy Pierce popped his head in.

“Oh, hello; it’s you, is it,” he greeted. “I was looking for the boss; another message.”

“Mr. Chanler is in his stateroom,” I said.

“He sent another message to this Jane—to Miss Baldwin, last night,” said Pierce.

I continued to eat.

“This is a reply to it that I’ve got here.”

“Pierce,” said I, looking up, “you will find Mr. Chanler in his stateroom.”

“Right!” said he. Saying which the messenger boy turned and ran. “Oh, Simmons! Come here. Message for the boss.”

Simmons, who was passing, paused and bestowed on Freddy his most freezing look of disapproval.

“Mr. Chanler is not to be disturbed,” said he, and made to pass on.

“Not so, old Frozen Face,” said Freddy, catching him by the arm. “You don’t pass me by with a haughty look this time. This is the reply to the message the boss sent last night. He wants it while it’s hot off the griddle. Get busy.”

Simmons seemed about to choke.

“Mr. Chanler is not to be disturbed,” he repeated with emphasis.

Freddy turned toward Chanler’s door.

“Will you take it in—or shall I?” he asked.

“But you can’t—it is forbidden!” cried Simmons.

Freddy knocked loudly on the owner’s door.

“The reply to your message from last night, Mr. Chanler,” he called. “It just came.”

An instant later he opened the door, to Simmons’s horror, and entered. When he came out he bore another message and went straight up to the wireless house to send it.

Soon after this Captain Brack came to Chanler’s stateroom, knocked and entered. He remained within for some time. When he emerged his look was dark and scowling, and he hurried straight to the bridge. A moment later the Wanderer’s twelve-knot rush began to diminish, and presently we were moving along at a speed that seemed barely sufficient to keep our headway against the sea.

Not long after this came the clash between Brack and Garvin.

I was starting on my morning constitutional when I came upon the pair facing one another on the fore-deck. Chanler was looking on from the bridge. Garvin was an unpleasant-looking brute to behold. His face was swollen and he had evidently slept in his clothes. He was standing lowering ferociously at Brack, who stood leaning against the chart-house, his arms folded.

“Sa-a-ay, sa-a-ay guy; what kind uv a game d’yah think yah’re running? Eh?” the fighter was snarling. “What d’yah think yah’re putting over on me? Hah? D’yah know who yah got hold of? I’m Bill Garvin.”

“That is how I have put you down—as one of the crew,” said Brack. He placed himself more firmly against the wall of the wheel-house.

“Put—put me down?” cried Garvin incredulously. “Me—one of your crew? Guess again, bo, guess again.”

“I never guess,” retorted Brack and there was just a warning hint of coldness in his tones.

“Wa-ll, git next tuh yerself den, bo, an’ quit dat crew talk wid me. When do we git back tuh Seattle?”

“Perhaps never—for you—unless you soon say ‘sir’ when you speak to me.”

“Hah?”

“‘Sir!’” bellowed Brack, and even the sodden plug-ugly blinked in alarm at the menace in his tones. But only for a moment. He was a true fighting brute, Garvin; his courage only swelled at a challenge.

“Step out here an’ put up yer mitts, Bo,” he snapped. “I’m Bill Garvin; who the —— are you?”

From the bridge came Chanler’s cynical cackle.

“He wants an introduction, cappy,” he chuckled. “Come, come; let’s have your come-back.”

Brack smiled in his old suave manner as he looked up at Chanler, but as he turned away the smile changed to a black scowl. He looked steadily at Garvin for several seconds, and it grew very quiet.

Garvin started a little in surprise and fright, as if suddenly he had seen something in Brack’s face which he had not expected to find there. He was a stubborn fighting brute, however, and instinct told him to charge when in fear. He leaped at Brack, his fists held taut; and an instant later he was on his back on the deck, screaming in agony, his hands covering his scalded face.

Then for the first time I saw the hose-nozzle that the captain had concealed beneath his folded arms. He had been standing so that his broad back entirely concealed the hose, running from a fire-plug in the wall. So the fighter had rushed, open-eyed, open-mouthed, against a two-inch stream of hot water which swept him off his feet and left him groveling and screaming on the deck.

“Ha!” said George Chanler. “Sharp repartee that, cappy—though a bit rough.”

Brack found Garvin’s hands, neck, head with the water, and suddenly turned it off.

“Don’t!” cried Garvin. “For Gawd’s sake, don’t.”

“Sir,” said Brack.

“You go to ——!”

The water found him again.

“Sir.”

“Sir,” whimpered Garvin. “Oh, Gawd! You’ve killed me!”

“Sir.”

“Sir.”

Brack tossed the hose aside and wiped his hands.

“Take him below,” he directed a couple of seamen. “Tell Dr. Olson to care for him. I have too much need for Garvin to have him lose his sight.”

He turned abruptly toward Chanler on the bridge.

“The wind is rising, sir,” he said. “At five knots we will barely crawl.”

“Yes?” said Chanler, yawning. “Well, crawling is exactly my mood today.”

“We’ll lose precious days up north if we continue at this speed.”

Chanler smiled the shrewd smile of a man who has a joke all to himself.

“No, cappy; that’s once you’re wrong. It’s just the other way round: I’d lose precious days if we didn’t continue at this speed, as you’ll see when the time comes.”

The captain glared after him as Chanler leisurely went aft to his stateroom. The glare turned for an instant to a smile, of a sort that Chanler would have been troubled to understand had it been seen. Then Brack stamped forward and stood with folded arms, looking ahead over the gray, tossing sea, his face raging with impatience over the slowness of the yacht’s progress.

VIII

I climbed to the wireless house and found Freddy Pierce eagerly looking for my appearance.

“Did you see it?” he demanded. “Did you see it?”

“Brack and Garvin? Yes, I saw it. It was horrible. Is that the way Brack handles the men of the crew?”

“Na-ah! I should say not. That isn’t his regular system. He don’t need to touch ’em; he laughs at ’em and scares ’em stiff. He’s got a fighting grouch on this morning, and Garvin was just something to take it out on. Poor Garvin! He had to come staggering up and make his play just after the captain come out of the boss’s cabin boiling mad. Any other time the cap’ would ’a’ laughed at him so he’d snuck back to his bunk like a bad little boy.”

“Then what was wrong with the captain this morning?”

Freddy shrugged his shoulders.

“You notice we cut our speed down to a crawl, didn’t you? Well, it must have been that that gave Brack his grouch. I haven’t quite got it doped out yet. All I know is, I grab a bunch of words off the air for the boss, I take him the message, he reads it, smiles, slips me a double saw-buck for good luck and says: ‘Kindly tell Captain Brack to step down here at once.’ I do. Captain Brack goes in smiling and comes out with his eyes showing he’d been made to do something he didn’t want to do. Bing! He gets Riordan on the engine-room phone. Zowie! He shouts an order. And then the screw begins easing off little by little, and pretty soon we’ve stopped running and are walking the way we are now. Dope: the boss made cappy cut her down, and it made cappy so sore he burnt Garvin’s face half off to blow off his grouch.”

“But why in the world should Captain Brack grow so angry over that!” I exclaimed. “Chanler is owner. Certainly it is to be expected that he can sail where, when and how he pleases.”

“Sure. It got cap’s goat, though.”

“By Captain Brack’s own statement we may have to wait for the Spring drift-ice to clear when we get up north. Surely there can be no sensible objection to slow running under the circumstances, especially as that is the owner’s wish.”

Pierce doubled up, grasping his thin ankles and staring at the floor, as was his custom when thinking seriously.

“Brack has been hurrying ever since we lay in ’Frisco. Hurried about the crew; took Wilson because he couldn’t find another officer in a hurry; and, we ran at maximum all last night after we cleared the Sound.”

“What of that?”

“That would take us to Petroff Sound just a week before we scheduled.”

“Well?”

“On our schedule time we’d probably have to lay offshore a week before the ice breaks up so we could go in. Then what would be the sense of getting there a week ahead of schedule? I saw the log this morning, too, just after Brack’d written it. He had the night’s run down at nine knots an hour; we were going better’n twelve. Put your noodle to working, Mr. Brains. What’s the answer?”

“Apparently Captain Brack wishes to reach Petroff Sound ahead of our schedule.”

“Without letting the boss know we were going to do it. Yep. Go on.”

“It is impossible for me to guess at what his object may be.”

“Same here, Brains. Brack isn’t doing it just for the fast ride though, that’s a cinch. Go on.”

“Chanler’s orders to slow down may be ascribed to one of his whims——”

“Huh!” interrupted Freddy. “I wish you were right there.”

“Why?”

“The boss didn’t play up a whim when he cut down our speed. He’d done some close figuring before he did that.”

“How do you know?”

“I ought to know. I’m operator, ain’t I? I handle his messages, don’t I? Well, that’s how I know.”

“Then the order to slow down was not due to a whim, but to a message?”

“To the one he got this morning in reply to the one he sent last night. Yep.”

“There seems, then,” said I, “to be a conflict of interests on board; Captain Brack wishes to go fast and Mr. Chanler wishes to go slow.”

“Yes,” said Freddy Pierce, scratching his red head, “and if the captain’s reasons are anything like the boss’s I’ve got a feeling that you’ll have some —— funny things to write about before we get back home. What’s more, if one of ’em’s got to have his way about the speed you can put your money on the captain and cash.”

“Nonsense! Mr. Chanler is the owner.”

“Yes, and Captain Brack is—Brack.”

I recalled what I had heard Brack called back in Billy Taylor’s in Seattle.

“Pierce,” I said, “how much do you know about Brack?”

He cast a look of disapproval at me.

“You don’t need to ask me that, Brains,” he said. “I got eyes—I can see you got him sized up, too.”

“You joined the Wanderer in San Francisco two weeks before I did,” I reminded him. “Surely you know more about the man than I do.”

“Well,” he said, “I know that he’s a devil with men.”

“A masterful personality,” I agreed. “Any one can see that.”

“Yep. But that ain’t what’s worrying me.”

“Worrying? Are you worrying about Brack?”

“Oh, sort of.”

“Why?”

“Why,” he said, as his instrument began to crackle. He turned to take a message. “Brack’s a devil toward men, but that ain’t a marker to what he is with women.”

IX

While I stood watching Pierce busied at his instruments Simmons came climbing up with word that Mr. Chanler wished me to come to his stateroom. The sky had begun to clear to the eastward by now; a rift of clean blue Spring heaven was showing through the great pall of Winter-like gray clouds; and as I entered Chanler’s stateroom the sun broke through and relieved the ugly monotony of the raw day.

Chanler was trailing his mandarin-like dressing-gown behind him as he paced the room, and his face was not the face of a man at ease.

“Gardy,” he said, “I want to talk with you. Got to talk with you. Brack’s all right to drink with; Doc Olson doesn’t talk at all; you’re the only one fit to talk to on board. ’Member I started to tell you yesterday how I discovered I had to do something useful, and then I changed my mind and didn’t tell you after all? Well, I’m going to tell you the whole story now. Gardy, how much do you know about women—girls?”

By this time I was prepared for any turn of thought on Chanler’s part and replied—“Not as much as you do, that’s sure.”

The careless reply seemed exactly what he wished to hear. He nodded gravely.

“That’s right. You don’t know how right that is. You may know a lot about ’em, Gardy, but I know more. I’ve learned a lot about ’em lately, a whole lot. You think that Brack, and those Petroff Sound mammoths, and old Doc Harper are responsible for this little trip we’re on. Well, they’re not.”

He paused, then concluded slowly—

“Gardy, it’s a girl.”

I recalled Chanler’s bachelor fear that some day a shrewd mama would snare him for her young daughter, and the determination with which he had fled whenever he found himself growing interested in a girl in a way that threatened his bachelor’s liberty.

“Arctic Alaska is a long way to run away,” I laughed.

“Hang it, Gardy!” he snapped. “Don’t talk that way. I’m not running away.”

“No?”

“No. I—I’m doing this because I want to—want to—I know it will shock you—but, hang it, Gardy! I want to marry her.”

I had an uncomfortable series of visions: Chanler entangled by some woman, a light actress, probably; family objections, and George being sent away to the Arctic Circle while the family money convinced the woman that she had made a mistake.

“You mean that you’re being sent up here?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, his chin sunk on his chest. “Yes, that’s it; I’m being sent up here.”

“By——”

“By—her.” He looked straight out of the window, gnawing his underlip nervously. “By a little girl, almost a kid, by Jove!”

He paused again, then went on didactically:

“The trouble with girls, Gardy—young girls; pretty, clever, charming girls, you know—the trouble is they’re too popular. Too many pursuers. Men are too eager to marry ’em. Fact. Girls have too many chances. Get an exaggerated idea of their own importance, and pick and pick before they decide on a chap, and then they demand that the one they’ve picked is—is a little, white god. Fact. Even the common ones. Ordinary man try to marry one—hah! Got to show ’em. Money? Oh, yes; big percentage, show ’em money and they don’t ask anything else. Limousine and poodle-dog type.

“But, hang it, Gardy, there’s a new kind of girl growing up in this country at present, and she’s the one who makes a man trouble. New American breed. She doesn’t look back over her shoulder to make you follow her. Hang it, no! She stands right up to you and looks you square in both eyes. She won’t notice when you show her money; what she’s looking at is you. Fact. Not what you got; but what you are. New type.

“Rotten world for men it’s getting to be. Our own fault, though. We chase ’em; make ’em think themselves worth too much. Men ought to quit—lose interest. That’d bring ’em to their senses, and they wouldn’t ask a man uncomfy questions. But hang it, it’d be too late now to do me any good,” he concluded gloomily. “I’m shot.”

I said nothing, and he soon went on.

“Shot, by Jove! Shot by a little girl. Just like a kid fresh from school. Hit so hard I’ve got to have her, and, hang it! She’s one of that—that new kind.”

Still I remained silent, and for many seconds Chanler struggled with his next words.

“Gardy!” he broke out in mingled anger and awe. “She wouldn’t have me!”

Once more we sat in silence, an uncomfortable silence for me. I had no desire to discuss affairs of the heart with any one. Up to that time I had never felt the need of any woman in my life.

Presently Chanler opened his writing-desk and drew out a small photograph which he passed to me.

“There she is, there’s the cause of this expedition, Gardy.”

I looked with interest at the picture in my hand.

It was as poor a specimen of the outdoor picture as any amateur ever made on a sunny Sunday. It represented a bareheaded girl in tennis costume, her hair considerably tousled as if she had just finished a set; but as the picture had been taken against the sun the face was so dark as to be scarcely discernible. Just an ordinary outdoor girl, apparently, as ordinary as the photograph.

“That’s the reason for this trip,” said George, carefully returning the picture to its place. “She isn’t anybody you know or have heard of. She’s nobody. She’s just a common doctor’s daughter from a little town in the Middle West, and I want to marry her, Gardy, and by Jove—she wouldn’t have me!”

He was started now, and there was no opportunity to stop him had I so wished. I listened in humble resignation. I was Chanler’s hired man. I was engaged as his literary secretary, but probably he counted me paid for listening to him while he poured out his amazement and despair at having been refused.

“She wouldn’t have me, Gardy,” he repeated over and over again; and, considering how many girls had fished for Chanler’s name and money, I wondered what sort of a girl this could be.

“I met her down at Aiken last Winter. She was visiting some folks—but that didn’t count. I met her at the tennis court. By Jove!” A new light came into his cynical eyes, a clean light, and for the time being his face was almost fine. “Can’t stand athletic girls as a usual thing, you know that, Gardy; but she—she was different.”

They had danced together that night at the club ball. If she had been stunning on the courts, she was overwhelming in evening dress. He scarcely had dared to touch her.

They had spent a great part of the next day rolling slowly about country roads in one of his roadsters. Sometimes they had stopped at convenient points along the road and had sat silent and looked at each other. Again they had halted and picked flowers along the roadside. And between times they had rolled along at six miles an hour and—talked.

“Oh, hang it, Gardy. For the first time in my life I wished I was clever like you and had done something. It ain’t fair. Nobody ever made me do a thing; what chance have I had to amount to anything? And then a fellow meets a girl like this, who likes you from the start and when she asks you what you’re doing, or have done, or are going to do, and you say nothin’, she looks at you in a certain way as if to say: ‘Why, what excuse do you make to yourself for cumbering the earth?’ No, by George, it ain’t fair; is it, Gardy?

“I told her I had money, and she laughed and said she didn’t understand how a man could be satisfied to have money and nothing else, and money that his father had earned at that. Then I asked her to marry me, so I would have something besides money. Hang it, old man, she cried. Yes, she did, just for a little while. Then she looked up and laughed at me, and said: ‘George, I’ve known you less than two days, and I’ve learned to like you so much that I wish I dared like you more. But if I liked you any more,’ she says, ‘I’m afraid I’d want to marry you, and have to depend upon you for my future happiness, and to be the father of my children,’ and says she, ‘you haven’t the right to ask that, George, so long as you play around like a thoughtless boy, and do nothing that a man should do.’

“Jove! That was enough to make a fellow pull up and think, wasn’t it? I said to myself right there: ‘I’m going to do something.’ And I am. I ain’t clever like you, Gardy, and I haven’t got business experience like some fellows, but—” he smiled with self-satisfaction—“I have got money.”

It all ended there. He had money; he need have nothing else. The new look vanished from his eyes and they became cynical and supercilious again. His underlip protruded cunningly.

“Science is a great help if you know how to use it, Gardy,” he chuckled. “What’s your opinion of our little expedition now?”

“I don’t see any reason why what you have told me should alter my opinion of the expedition.”

“Ha! I thought maybe that old conscientious streak in you would get troublesome. You don’t quibble about motives then, Gardy?”

“Why should I? I am your hired writing man——”

“Oh, hang it, Gardy! Don’t put it that way. Don’t be so precise. As one chap to another, you know—what do you think?”

“I see nothing wrong with your motive, Chanler. In fact, I think it rather fine. As I understand it you are undertaking this expedition because you wish to prove to this girl that you can and will do something useful.”

“Right-o. That’s why I undertook it—in the first place.”

“That surely established an excellent motive, for a man in your sentimental frame of mind, at least.”

“Yes,” he said with a hollow laugh, “there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“And if the expedition is successful the results will be a credit to you—a genuine success—irrespective of what your motives might be.”

“Now you’re shouting, Gardy!” he cried vehemently, striking the desk. “The results, that’s what counts. Not the motive or the means. Who asks a winner why or how? Win out! Get what you want! That’s the idea. And, by Jove! What I want I get; and I want Betty Baldwin to be my wife!”

X

The Wanderer wallowed her faltering way northward, a new atmosphere of sinister suggestion about her spray-damped decks. Yet even now, with Chanler’s sudden confession ringing in my ears, I thought, not of him and his plans, not of the owner’s empty stateroom furnished for a woman, not of the Miss Baldwin mentioned, but of Brack. Brack was the great force on board. Chanler might plan well or evil; but it would be Brack’s will that would determine the fate of these plans, and of any one who came aboard. And I had not gaged Brack. Though by this time I was ready to credit him with Machiavellian cunning and power, my estimate of the man failed to do him full justice.

It was on the fourth day out that this conclusion was forced upon me. As Wilson had predicted, the weather remained rough and raw, and the Wanderer lifted and rolled leisurely through a smother of fog and spray from the long, slow North Pacific rollers.

In the middle of the afternoon the sun broke through for a period, the fog disappeared, and I climbed to the wireless deck to enjoy the cheeriness of unwonted sunshine and Pierce’s company combined. I found Pierce squatted on the starboard edge of the cabin roof, absorbed in watching the deck below. At the sound of my footsteps he looked up, grinned and crooked his finger for me to come to his side.

“Garvin’s out again,” he whispered. “He’s just come up from the aft on the starboard side. Brack’s forward just now, but he’s been hiking the starboard promenade for the last five minutes. He’s in a sweat again about our running half speed, and if Garvin doesn’t see him and duck they’re going to meet.”

I looked aft and saw Garvin, the pugilist, standing bareheaded in the sunlight, steadying himself easily to the pitch and rise of the Wanderer’s deck.

Surprise and relief came to me as I saw him look around, blinking against the sun. I had feared to hear that he had been blinded, or that he had been scalded so fearfully that he might succumb, or lie helpless for weeks. Yet here he was, save for the bandages that covered most of his face, apparently in better physical condition than when he had come aboard. In reality this was true. Two days of medical treatment and rest had given his splendid vitality that opportunity to throw off the load of alcoholic poison with which it had been surcharged. His bony face, hardened by training and blows, had withstood without serious damage the stream of boiling water that would have blinded, probably killed, a normal man.

As he moved slowly forward along the port rail in the bright sunlight there was none of the weakened, defeated look of a badly injured man about him. With his head and shoulders thrust forward, the short neck completely hidden, the long arms hanging easily, and moving with the sure step of the man whose muscular feet grip the ground, he was formidable to look at, a fighting animal, unafraid and undefeated.

“One bad, tough guy!” whispered Pierce in admiration. “Say, Brains, even money that he takes a swing at Brack before the cruise is over.”

Brack had made a swift, impatient turn near the bow and was coming aft along the starboard rail. He was wearing his rough sea-clothes and he walked with his eyes on the deck, chewing tobacco viciously.

From the aft Garvin advanced slowly, and from the bow came Brack. And as I looked from one to the other now I was shocked with the impression that they were much alike. The same thickness about the neck and shoulders, the same sense of force about them both. But in Garvin it was a blind force, stupid and unenlightened as the force of a thick-necked bull, while in Brack the force was directed by one of the most efficient minds it had been my fortune to come in contact with.

“Pipe ’em off, pipe ’em off!” whispered Pierce excitedly. “They’re going to meet face to face in the companionway. Brains, a dollar says there’ll be something doing when Garvin looks up and sees himself alone with the guy who cooked him.”

“Hush!” I warned.

A sudden stillness and tension seemed to have settled down on the yacht. Above a hatchway aft I saw the heads of a pair of the crew eagerly watching Garvin as his steps carried him toward Brack. In the bow the cook and Simmons followed the captain with their eyes; and from the bridge, Wilson, the mate, erect and stanch, looked down with his calm, serious expression unchanged.

And then they met. It was almost directly beneath where Pierce and I sat. They stopped and looked at one another. I had the sensation of a calm before a storm. And then——

“Hello, cap,” said Garvin in a low voice, and I could see in spite of his bandages that he winked. “How’s tricks?”

Brack smiled.

“All right, Garvin. How are you coming on?”

“Oh, I’m all right.” Garvin stepped to one side. “Little thing like that don’t bother me.”

“Good!” Brack actually patted him on the shoulder. “You’re the kind of man I want. I suppose you’ve taken worse beatings than that when it’s paid you to throw a fight?”

“——! That wasn’t even a knock-out. Just a little hot water. I’d take more’n that to be let in on a job like this.”

“That’s the way to talk,” said the captain heartily. “And this will bring you more than any fight you ever won or lost.”

That was all. They passed on, Brack toward the aft, Garvin toward the bow.

I looked at Pierce. He shivered slightly.

“I feel cold,” he whispered.

I looked up at Wilson. His eyes had widened a little. He swung around and began to pace the bridge. He knew what his duty was; he would do it no matter what went on between captain and crew.

“It’s getting chilly,” said Pierce.

We retired to the wireless house. Pierce shut the door and stared at me.

“Now what—now what do you make of that, Brains?”

I shook my head. I, too, felt inclined to shiver.

“Something’s wrong, Brains, something’s wronger than a fixed fight. The captain’s framing something. He’s let Garvin in on it. What is it—what is it? Can you dope it out?”

“No. Perhaps you’re mistaken.”

“Don’t talk that way; you know better’n that. Come to bat. Didn’t you hear him say this’d get him more’n he ever got in a fight? Garvin’s got thousands. The cap’s framed something, and he’s taken Garvin in. Now, what is it? I’ve had a hunch something was going on. I’m all ice below the ankles. What d’you s’pose they’re going to do? By God! I wouldn’t put it past ’em to steal the yacht!”

“Easy, Pierce,” I laughed. “People don’t do such things nowadays.”

“‘People don’t’? D’you call Brack and Garvin ‘people’? Garvin’s a gorilla and the captain’s—Brack. Come on. Brains, can’t you dope out what they’re framing?”

“Roll yourself a cigaret,” I advised laughingly. “If you’re so eager to find out what Brack is planning, suppose we ask him?”

“Don’t,” he sputtered, horrified. “Don’t do anything like that.”

“Why not?”

“‘Why not?’” he repeated, growing calm. “Oh, just because I kind o’ like your company and I don’t want you to go overboard into the briny.”

I laughed. Pierce, I felt, was given to extravagant expressions.

At dinner that evening I sat down resolved to lead the conversation around to Garvin’s new-born docility, but, face to face with Brack, I admit that I feared to attempt it. I was no match for him. His terrible eyes, I felt, would have read the thoughts in my mind try as I might to hide them, and I smiled and replied as best I could to his sallies, and wondered in vain over what was going on behind that gross, smiling mask.

The weather grew suddenly rougher toward the end of the meal.

“That’s the tail of it,” said Wilson in reply to my question. “Now we’re getting the blow that has been chasing the rough weather down from the north, where it’s been a lot worse than we’ve been having. It’ll kick up hard for a few hours. Ought to die down and clear off by tomorrow morning.”

The smashing storm drove Brack and Wilson to their duties on deck. Riordan went, too, presently, and while Chanler and Dr. Olson, agreeing that the dining salon was the best place on a night like this, ordered another bottle, I found an oilskin and sou’wester and followed.

As I stepped out on deck I wished for a moment to be back in the warm, lighted cabin. The wind had increased to what seemed to me a tornado, and the night was so dark that only in the beam of the Wanderer’s search-light could one see the tossing water.

The sea had changed with the rising of the wind, and in place of the long, slow rollers, sharp, spiteful waves shot their crests high over the yacht’s bridge, and with the driving rain which was falling made the decks uncomfortable, even dangerous. I recoiled from the dark, the wind and the rain.

A gust of wind and a slanting deck swept me off my feet and sent me slithering on my knees, gasping for breath, into the scuppers. I grew angry. My anger was with myself. I was timid, and I was weak; and, so, moved probably by some inherited streak of stubbornness, I forced myself to my feet, forced my face to meet the wind and rain without flinching, and so forced myself, much against a portion of my will, to remain outside, with the warmth and comfort of the cabin only a step away.

The storm grew worse. A life-boat on the port side was torn loose from a davit and swung noisily along the side. Through the brawl of the storm Wilson’s voice rang out sternly, there was a rush of feet on the deck and suddenly men were swinging the boat back to its place, making it fast, while the wind and waves snatched at them hungrily. Then the decks were empty again.

The wind strove to force me back to the cabin, and with a new stubbornness I refused to go. It was boyish, it was silly, but the harder the wind blew, the more the spray drenched me, the more determined I was to remain. I began to glow with the struggle.

New and strange sensations came and went. I felt an inexplicable desire to shout back at the storm. For the first time in years I was thrilled by the impulse of a physical contest, and I fought my way to the bow and stood spread-legged, leaning forward against the wave-crests which drenched me. Then I went leisurely aft, hanging onto the rail, denying the wind the right to hurry me. And in the noise and darkness I all but walked squarely into Captain Brack and Riordan.

They were standing in the lee of the engineer’s cabin. I did not see them, for I was moving by hand-holds along the cabin wall when, in a lull of the storm, I heard their voices and stopped.

“You got a bad one, sir, when you picked Larson,” Riordan was saying.

“Larson?” repeated Brack, as if trying to place the name. “Oh, the young hand from the Sound boat? What’s wrong with him?”

“He knows Madigan.”

“——!” said Brack. “Is he the only one?”

“Yes. I’ve sounded the others a second time to make sure. But Larson knew Madigan in some little town up the Sound. What’s more he’s no good to us. He’s ambitious and he’s working for a mate’s certificate, got a good family, and he won’t keep his mouth shut. I know he won’t.”

Brack made a sound in his throat like a bear growling.

“Oh, yes he will,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with him. He’ll keep his mouth shut when he understands there’s something in it for him. He’s one of the lookouts tonight, isn’t he? All right. Tell Garvin I want to see him in your cabin in half an hour.”

“Yes sir.”

A door slid open and shut as Riordan slipped back into his cabin, and I heard Brack’s heavy breathing as he came around the corner toward where I was hiding.

I retreated, swiftly and noiselessly, and slipped back into my stateroom. All hope that Pierce’s interpretation of Brack’s conversation with Garvin was wrong now had vanished. Brack was plotting something, and Riordan was partner to it, whatever it was. I did not sleep much that night.

In the morning I went in to breakfast early and found Wilson sitting staring at a cup of black coffee which he had ordered. One glance at the gravity of his lean, brown face and I knew that something was wrong.

“What has happened, Mr. Wilson?” I asked nervously.

Without lifting his eyes he said—

“Lookout Larson was swept overboard and lost from his watch last night.”

XI

I sat staring across the table at Wilson for many minutes before my wits returned to me. The mate’s words seemed too awful to be true; they seemed words heard in a hideous nightmare. Throughout the night I had fought and denied the still whisperings of potential horrors aboard which had striven for room in my thoughts; and here the blackest depths of these horrors were realized by Wilson’s simple words. For in my mind’s eye I did not see the picture that his words should have conjured up: of a seaman swept from his post, falling into the sea by mischance, drowning in the dark, without a chance to be saved—I saw Brack talking to young Larson, I saw the brutal gleam of Garvin’s bandaged eyes, I saw—Good God! I was afraid to admit to myself what I did see.

“Lost?” I repeated stupidly. “You mean drowned?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good God!” I chattered. “How can you sit there and talk about it so calmly.”

“I have followed the sea since I was fourteen, Mr. Pitt,” he replied respectfully. “I have seen many men lost, good men, better men than myself. The sea is hard.”

“But how—how could it happen?”

“I don’t know, sir; it wasn’t in my watch.”

As he rose to go he added, with a puzzled shake of his head—

“He was a good seaman, too, Larson was, and a clean, sober young fellow.”

I was still too much of the coward, still too much the indoor man, to face brutal facts honestly.

“But it must have been an accident!” I said. “An accident might overtake even a good and sober seaman.”

“Yes sir,” said Wilson.

“You don’t think it was anything but an accident, do you?”

He thought for a while before replying.

“Well, sir, Larson and the rest of the crew didn’t get on together. He was from the Sound, you see, sir, and the rest of the hands, except Garvin and the negro, were shipped at ’Frisco. Larson was different from them, sir; he was young, and sober, and ambitious. He came from a good family in Portland, and he had his whole life in front of him, and he was living it so he was bound to rise, sir. He was a credit to the Wanderer, Larson was, sir.”

“Then you mean that the rest of the crew is not?”

“I didn’t say that, sir.”

“It was what you meant, though.”

“I don’t say so. I said that Larson and the rest of the crew didn’t get on together. He kept himself apart, and they saw he was too good for them, and they had trouble.”

“What do you mean by trouble?”

“Well, for one thing he wouldn’t join their crap-game, and they had words and Larson smashed a couple of their faces.”

“Good Heavens, Wilson! You don’t mean to say that you think the crew was responsible——”

“No, sir. I don’t say anything of the sort.”

He opened the door to step out.

“Wilson!” I said. “Do you think everything is right on board?”

“I don’t, sir,” he said promptly. “I would be blind if I did. But I know that I am right, sir, and I know my duty to my ship.”

Chanler came in for breakfast at that moment. He was apparently pleased at something, but at the sight of our faces his expression changed. He stood for a few seconds, looking first at Wilson, then at myself, greatly displeased.

“You’re a fine looking pair of grouches for a man to look at first thing he gets up,” he said irritably. “Hang it! Here I’ve had my first decent night’s sleep in months: get up feeling like a boy, by Jove! And here you chaps greet me with faces that look like before the morning drink. I won’t have it, you hear! You’re too sober both of you, anyhow. Hang you water-wagon riders! Smile—you! Can’t you look cheerful when you see I want it?”

A slight flush showed beneath Wilson’s tan.

“Not this morning, sir,” he said.

“Hah?” Chanler looked at him, looked at me, with alarm in his eyes. “What’s the matter? Eh? Whatd’ you know—what’re you so serious about? Out with it, Wilson? What is it?”

“Lookout Larson was swept overboard and lost in the dog-watch last night, sir.”

Chanler sank into his chair, actually relieved.

“Hang it! Is that all——”

“Good God, Chanler!” I cried springing up. “‘Is that all?’ Isn’t that enough?”

He looked at me, surprised and a little amused.

“Hello! Getting excited, Gardy? I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I didn’t think you had this in you, Chanler!” I retorted indignantly. “Didn’t you hear Wilson say that one of the men—Larson, a fine young man—was drowned last night, while we slept?”

He looked at me steadily.

“Yes, I heard,” he said carelessly.

“And you said, ‘is that all?’ And it was a relief to you. Did you expect to hear something worse than that—that one of your seamen had lost his life?”

“Gardy,” he said softly, “who do you think you are talking to?

“I don’t know,” I said hotly. “I thought I knew you, Chanler. I find I am mistaken.”

“By Jove, Gardy!” he repeated. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Oh, drop that! That’s a pose, Chanler, and this is no time for posing. A man has lost his life from your yacht, and you are relieved because that is all. What sort of a condition of affairs is this?”

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Gardy,” he repeated. “No, I didn’t think you’d dare to talk to me this way face to face.”

“Dare!” I cried, and he sat up and looked at me strangely.

“By Jove! Gardy, you’re growing. The sea air is doing wonders for you. As for this chap—this hand—what’s his name, Wilson——”

“Larson, sir.”

“Larson. He was paid and paid well, and came on board of his own free will.”

“And your feeling of responsibility ends there?” I asked.

“Feeling of responsibility? My dear, excited Gardy! What are we going to have—a lecture on the responsibility of employer to employed, and that sort of rot?”

“No,” I said, “it would be wasted here.”

“Sensible man. Wilson, you may tell Captain Brack to step in, please.”

Brack came promptly, bustling in with a smile on his face.

“H’llo, cappy,” said Chanler indolently. “I hear we had an accident last night.”

“Yes sir.”

“Well—” Chanler’s face was working angrily—“Well, after this if anything unpleasant happens you give orders to keep it from me until after breakfast, d’you hear? I don’t like to hear of unpleasant things; I don’t like it. This—thing has spoiled my appetite for the whole morning!”

“Why not,” I said, staring hard at Brack, “why not ask Captain Brack to prevent such accidents from happening?”

“Hah?” Chanler started at the sound of my voice; I was startled at it myself. Even Brack’s smile vanished. “What’s this, Gardy—some more of your unpleasant rot? I won’t have it: I——”

“For I am sure if Captain Brack utilized his great ability in an effort to prevent accidents such as happened to young Larson, they would not occur.”

Not a shade did Brack’s florid face lose in color, not a flicker of change showed in his eyes. But he drew himself up a little, and in that moment I knew that my worst fears concerning the loss of Larson were true.

“Mr. Pitt flatters me, I fear,” said Brack, smiling again. “I——”

“You ‘fear’?” I said. “What do you fear? Have you any reason for using the phrase, ‘I fear,’ Captain Brack? It sounds so strange on your lips.”

He looked at Chanler and back at me.

“Mr. Pitt flatters me, I think,” he said, his old smile back in place. “Does that sound better?”

Guilty! As guilty as the devil, he was, and I knew it; yet he stood and smiled as if nothing was wrong in the world; not a thing troubling his conscience.

“Gardy, you’re—unpleasant company this morning, I must say that,” interrupted Chanler. “Why, hang it! Captain, what d’you suppose he’s been putting up to me? That I ought to feel responsible about this hand, Carson, Larson, whatever his name was. Now he’s jumping on you. You ought to be responsible too, I suppose. Gardy, you’re impossible.”

The captain smiled upon me tolerantly. Chanler’s explanation of my words and wafted away the whispers of suspicion.

“Mr. Pitt, having an exaggerated idea of the value of a human life, is greatly upset by our accident. I appreciate his condition. If his philosophy were less tainted with sentimentality——”

“I might smile over the loss of a young, hopeful life? Thank you, that is a mental level which I hardly hope to achieve.”

I went out on deck and climbed up to the wireless house. Pierce greeted me with a sorry shake of the head.

“Gee! That was a dirty shame about poor Larson. He was the only white man in the crew. If anything had to happen why couldn’t it happen to one of the bums?”

I saw that Pierce knew nothing that might make him suspect that Larson’s disappearance was not accidental and I told him hurriedly of the conversation between Riordan and Brack which I had overheard last night.

“Oh, my God!” he groaned. “The dirty dogs! Young Larson, as nice a lad as you ever talked with, against Brack, and that gorilla, Garvin! Oh, they’re a fine bunch of crooks, the bunch in this crew. As fine a bunch o’ crooks as ever went to sea to duck the police. Brack and Riordan picked ’em, you know, in San Fran’. Wilson’s all right, and besides him I think they made just one mistake in their picking.”

“How so?”

“The nigger they got at Seattle. He’s a crook, too, but he certainly has got it in for Garvin.”

The rest of that day was a trying one to me. Save for Pierce, Wilson and myself, not a soul on board seemed to have a single serious thought about Larson’s disappearance. The weather had cleared; the wind had shifted to the south and was only a gentle breeze; the sun was shining; and to the rest of the company life aboard the Wanderer seemed like a holiday.

Chanler seemed both elated and impatient. At times he lolled in a deck-chair and chaffed me good humoredly, and the next moment he would be up, pacing the promenade nervously.

“Gad! Time goes slow, doesn’t it, Gardy?” he exclaimed half a dozen times during the day. “Well, we’ll have a little something to break the monotony soon. The City of Nome will overtake us about nine tomorrow morning.”

And Captain Brack, as he heard, smiled secretively; and I wondered what joke he might be keeping to himself.

Next morning at dawn a rush of feet outside my stateroom put an end to my efforts to sleep. I dressed and went on deck. A seaman came hurrying past, running toward an excited group gathered on the after-deck. I shouted to ask the cause of the excitement.

“We’ve run a man down in an open boat at sea,” he called back, “and he’s lousy with gold!”

XII

I followed the man, caught by the electricity of excitement which seemed to dominate all on deck.

On the after-deck of the Wanderer, near the rail, was a long settee, and about this eight or nine men were grouped closely. In the half light of dawn their figures loomed bulkily and strangely alike. As I drew near I made out Captain Brack, Riordan and Garvin. Pierce was there, too, I saw on closer scrutiny, in the center of the throng, apparently as excited as any of them.

A black figure, dripping wet, was lying on one end of the settee. I saw that it was a man, and that Dr. Olson was bending over him, a bottle of brandy in his right hand.

“He’s coming to again,” said the doctor. “He’ll be all right.”

No one paid any attention; not a man turned to look. They were bending over something that lay on the other end of the settee, and so eager were their attitudes that I, too, paid no attention to Dr. Olson, or the man he was nursing, but crowded in among the close-pressed shoulders for a sight of what the magnet might be.

“Go-o-old!” the pugilist, Garvin, was repeating in awe-stricken whispers.

“Go-o-old! My Gawd! Look at it. And he said there was barrels of it—barrels—where that comes from!”

A water-soaked canvas bag, roughly slit open, was spread out on the settee. What appeared to be a score or so of small pebbles was lying on the canvas, beside what seemed to me to be a handful of sand; but at that moment the first rays of the sun reached the Wanderer’s decks, the pebbles and sand began to gleam dully, and I saw that I was looking at a pile of gold nuggets and gold dust.

“Two men to carry him below, cap’n,” came Dr. Olson’s voice from the other end of the settee. “He’s all right; in surprisingly good condition; but we’ve got to strip him and get dry clothes on him.”

Not one of us turned our heads. The others were fascinated by the gold, and I was fascinated by the expression on their faces. Each face bore the same expression; to a man they had dropped such masks of civilization as they possessed, and greed, pure, primitive greed, shone frankly from their strangely lighted eyes.

Life—raw and crawling! Brack’s words flashed through my mind. He was right, then. Raw and crawling! It was the first time I had viewed the souls of men, naked and unashamed of their nudity, and the vision was appalling.

“Schwartz—Dillon,” Captain Brack spoke over his shoulder. “To the doctor. Jump!”

The two men named withdrew reluctantly. I heard them marching behind, bearing the dripping man below, but I did not turn to look. My eyes were on Garvin. He was standing so that I had a fair view of his eyes and his unbandaged mouth, and I stared in fascination, as one is fascinated by something grewsome, which one has not believed possible.

I became conscious that somebody was watching me. It was Brack. He was smiling.

“Raw and crawling, Mr. Pitt,” he said, reading my thoughts like print. “You wouldn’t believe it when I told you; but there it is, all over Garvin’s face. Now what do you say?”

Garvin swung his head around viciously.

“What’s the matter with my face?” he snarled.

“It is the face of a frankly carnivorous animal with a bone in sight,” laughed Brack, “and it does not please our friend, Mr. Pitt.”

“Oh, him!” said Garvin, turning back. “To —— with him.”

“To —— with everybody!” growled another man. “Look at it—gold! And he said he just scraped that up with his bare hands.”

“And it’s only a few hundred miles away—the place he got it.”

“And we’re going up north hunting bones, for thirty a month! ——!”

“Enough!” With a swoop of his hands Brack gathered the gold into the bag and stuffed it into his pocket. “Get out! Get below!”

He swept them out of sight with a commanding gesture. They went, but they looked back with threats in their excited faces.

“You have seen it now, Mr. Pitt,” Brack said, turning to me. “What do you say now—is not life raw and crawling?”

“As an exhibition of the primal instinct of greed the spectacle was quite worth seeing,” I replied. “Now tell me what it was all about?”

“This!” said he, striking the bag of gold in his pocket. “All about this. For this the man whom we picked up in an open boat a short time ago risked and all but lost his life. For this the men of the crew are ready to cut the throats of any one who opposes them. And why? Because it is gold. Because it is power; because it means the gratification of all that is encompassed in—life.

“So you see what is behind life, with all its veneer and politeness, Mr. Pitt. The primal instincts, as you expressed it—raw and crawling. You must excuse me now; I must go down and see the man we picked up. If he should happen to die it would not be right to let the secret of the source of this gold die with him. Besides, I want Olson to save him. He can take Larson’s place in the crew.”

I walked to the bow of the Wanderer and back. A new atmosphere seemed to have descended upon the yacht. The movements of the men of the watch, the sullen, slovenly manner in which they attended to their duties, reeked with menace. It seemed to me that the decks of the Wanderer merely hid a cauldron of seething elements, ready to explode and destroy.

Then Wilson came on deck to take the watch in Captain Brack’s absence, and at the sight of his trig seaman’s figure I felt assured. There was one man at least who had not lost his sense of duty toward ship and owner. The yacht might be a mad-house, surcharged with dangerous greed, but Wilson would do his duty as if nothing were out of the way.

“Yesterday morning we had news of losing a man, this morning we pick one up,” I said.

“Yes sir,” he said, and looked at me narrowly.

“A strange coincidence.”

“Yes sir.” He looked at me again, and turned his eyes out over the sea.

“Mr. Pitt,” he said after awhile, “yesterday you spoke of Larson’s disappearance as if you believed it might have been something besides an accident, and that things were not as they should be aboard. Well, now I know that you are right; things are not as they should be on this yacht.”

“What have you discovered?”

He took his time about replying.

“That man never was picked up in an open boat at sea, Mr. Pitt,” he said quietly. “The land where he claims to have come from is about six hundred miles away. No small boat could have lived five minutes in the storm we have been having, and that storm was stronger farther north.”

He spoke as if he were stating an ordinary fact, and his calmness helped me to control myself.

“What does it mean, then, Wilson?” I asked as easily as I could.

“I don’t know, sir. I’m a seaman; I can’t follow such a queer course. I only know that this man was not picked up, after a long voyage as he claims; because his boat could not have lived through.”

“Captain Brack must know that, too?”

“Any seaman who has sailed these waters in Springtime knows that, sir.”

“Yet Brack seemed to accept the man’s story as true. Oh!” I gasped as I saw him smile. “Then it was Captain Brack who claimed to have picked him up?”

“I can’t discuss that, sir; Captain Brack is my superior. But I know that what I have told you is the truth; and I thought it right you should know.”

“Why do you tell me, Wilson? Mr. Chanler is the owner.”

“Yes sir.” He hesitated a moment, then added: “You are near to the owner. You’ll tell him if you see fit.”

XIII

Chanler was in fine fettle that morning. He arose early, snatched a cup of coffee for breakfast and came out to pace the deck, frequently turning his glasses on the horizon over the yacht’s stern.

“Greetings and salutations, Gardy!” he exclaimed as we met. “Down with the long face, up with the merry-merry! Hang it, Gardy, get enthused. Can’t you see I’m actually not bored this morning?”

Captain Brack soon appeared with a detailed account of the new man’s adventures. The man had been one of the crew of a sealing schooner which had been blown far off its course and lost the Autumn before with all hands, save our man and one companion.

Clinging to an upturned boat they had been driven ashore in an inlet which appeared on no map of Alaska to that date, a region so secluded that the man called it the “Hidden Country.” The pair had wintered precariously. With the beginning of the Spring break-up they had discovered that in the upper reaches of a river running into the inlet they had but to turn up the sand and find gold in quantities unheard of.

Rendered desperate by lack of food, they had set forth in their open boat in hope of somehow striking the first steamers going North. The man’s companion had died of hardships two days before. They had called the inlet Kalmut Fiord, after the wrecked sealer; it was so well hidden behind an island that a thousand boats might sail past and never guess of its existence, never know there was a hidden country there in which nature had hoarded a great amount of the stuff men prize above all other things material.

“By Jove!” cried Chanler, as Brack finished. “Sounds like a book, doesn’t it? Have the beggar up, cappy, and let’s have a look at him; let’s see the gold and hear his story.”

We were sitting on the long settee in the stern at the time. A couple of hands were working near by, polishing brass work.

As word was sent below to bring the miner up, the number of men near by gradually increased to half a dozen, and half of these loafed around boldly, making no pretense at being occupied. They looked at Chanler and myself with hard, insolent eyes. They did not fancy the notion of going bone-hunting for wages while fortunes waited to be dug from the sands of the nearest shore.

I looked idly back over the yacht’s wake. On the horizon appeared what seemed to be a peculiar cloud. I watched it curiously, and saw that with each minute the cloud grew larger. It became a long smudge on the horizon, and I was about to call Chanler’s attention to it, when——

“City of Nome overhauling us, sir!” megaphoned Pierce from the wireless house. “They say: ‘Heave to. Have passenger for you.’”

“Ah, ha!” cried Chanler springing up, for the moment his blasé countenance flushing with life. “Never mind about the gold-hunter, cappy. We’ll have him another time. Just have Riordan shut down, will you, and lay to for our passenger?”

He started for his state-room, when, seeing the men lounging about, he added:

“Send ’em below, cappy. They look tough; they’d give any one a bad impression. Simmons! Come here.”

Not a man moved. No order was given as he had requested. Captain Brack laughed shortly and went forward to the engine-room telephone.

The men smiled with an evil showing of teeth at Chanler’s retreating back. When he had disappeared in his stateroom they spat generously upon the Wanderer’s immaculate deck, lounged over to the rail and stood looking back toward the rapidly approaching steamer. I stared at them with a sickening weakness at my knees.

I scarcely noticed the steamer. For what had just taken place told as plainly as words that Chanler no longer was master of his own yacht, that the men, and Brack, had thrown off the cloak and were in open revolt.

The City of Nome came to a stop a good distance away to port. A boat, well loaded with baggage, and with four oarsmen and an officer in place, was swung briskly out from the davits and dropped into the water. A slender, be-capped figure, sheathed in a coat that reached from chin to ankles, flashed down the ladder and leaped to a seat in the stern. Along the rail of the City of Nome ranged crew and passengers, waving and shouting farewells. The passenger in the boat stood up bowing, cap in hand, and at that a sharp-eyed seaman near me blurted out:

“Well, I’ll be ——! It’s a woman—a girl!”

Wilson was standing near our lowered ladder, looking through his glasses, and I hurried to him.

“Was the man right, Mr. Wilson?” I asked. “Is it a woman?”

“Yes sir,” said he and handed me his glasses.

I placed them to my eyes, swept the sea until I picked up the boat, and let the glasses rest on the passenger in the stern.

The seaman was right; it was a girl. She was probably twenty-one or two, and she was laughing. I had but a glimpse of her face, for as the men pushed off from the steamer she leaned forward and spoke to the officer in charge. The men stopped rowing. One of them let go his oar and crawled forward, and the girl took his place and swung the long oar in a fashion that brought cheer after cheer from the watching passengers and crew.

Chanler now emerged from his stateroom and took the glasses from my hand. For several seconds he studied the girl in the boat as she swung herself easily against the oar.

“Gad!” he whispered excitedly. “Gad!”

He looked around and saw the men gathered aft.

“Wilson,” he commanded, “drive that bunch below. Where’s Brack? On the bridge? All right.”

I moved away, but he called: “No, Gardy, you stay right here; you look civilized. I need you. Stay and get introduced.”

I remained, but my interest was all for Wilson as he walked briskly toward the lounging men. Brack had been ordered to send the men below, and he had gone forward laughing, and the men had remained. Would they obey the command of the second officer?

Wilson’s first order was given in a tone too low for us to hear. In reply the men grinned at him, and Garvin, through his bandages growled—

“Who the —— are you?”

Wilson’s voice raised itself slightly.

“I am one officer on board that you can’t talk back to or get chummy with,” he said. “Get below or, by glory, I’ll show you what it means to give slack to an officer. Move there! You—Garvin! Get below!”

And they went. Bad men that they were, and in revolt, they were not able to defy Wilson when his blood was up. Chanler looked up at the bridge, puzzled.

“I told cappy to send them below,” he said. “Why didn’t he do it?”

“He gave no order at all,” I volunteered.

George looked at me unsteadily, his tongue wetting his lips.

“He didn’t give any order—after I told him to?”

“No.”

He looked up at the bridge again, hesitated, and smiled carelessly.

“Oh, well, what’s the difference? Here’s the boat. Ah! By gad!”

The boat was alongside our grating and the girl was springing out. A seaman offered to assist her, and she laughed and ran up the swaying stairway. Half-way she stopped and threw back her head, looking up at us.

“Yo-hoo, George!” she called and came running up the rest of the way, landing on the deck with a leap.

“Oh, George!” she cried. “Isn’t it glorious!”

She turned to the rail and waved her farewells to the sailors in the boat. They touched their hats and rowed away, their eyes upon her.

“And what a beautiful yacht you’ve got, George. And, oh! This wonderful sea! Isn’t it all splendid!”

She paused and looked at George carefully. The animation of her countenance disappeared for a moment; something she saw disappointed her.

“You—you’re not—looking quite as well as you were, George,” she said slowly.

“I’ve been awf’ly lonesome, Betty,” he replied. “I—it was awf’ly good of you to come.”

“Good of me? Why, it was a privilege. It was too sweet of your sister to invite me to come.”

“No, no! Don’t—don’t say that. I—” He stopped confused. “Betty, I was desperate to see you—just see you, you understand.”

She reached out and took his hand impulsively.

“You poor boy! And your sister, Mrs. Payne——”

Chanler was tugging at his collar.

“Here, here! I’ve forgotten,” he interrupted nervously, “Here’s Gardy—Miss Baldwin, Mr. Gardner Pitt.”

And Miss Beatrice Baldwin looked at me squarely for the first time. Her look was frankly appraising. We shook hands. I do not remember that we spoke a word. She looked up at George Chanler’s drink-hardened face; her eyes turned again to me, and after awhile she looked away.

There was a tiny up-flaring of lace about her neck. It was this picture that stuck in my mind: the delicate femininity of the lace collar, its suggestion of defenselessness, and, rising out of it, the firm, white neck, the slightly tanned face, girlishly delicate, but with the look on it of the outdoor girl who is not afraid.

Miss Baldwin was not afraid. She stood firmly upright; for my eyes, dropping in confusion, saw how the red rubber soles of her tan shoes gripped the deck, and the strong slim ankles above them. Her chin was almost childishly round, her hair was dark and wavy, and her mouth seemed eager to smile. Yet there was a seriousness about her frank eyes which told that while on the surface she might be a laughing, romping girl, in reality the woman was full grown.

There was a moment of silence while she looked out to sea and I looked at the deck; and then the men come rushing back on deck. They had been reinforced by two or three of their fellows, and with Garvin at their head they came marching forward in determined fashion.

At the sight of Miss Baldwin they paused. Some remaining shred of respect for womanhood held them, and they stood, a compact, menacing mob, some twenty feet away, undecided on their next move.

“Come along, Betty, I’ll show you to your stateroom,” said Chanler hurriedly.

He led the way toward the unoccupied owner’s suite, the suite which from the beginning had been furnished for her coming.

Miss Baldwin hesitated.

“But where’s Mrs. Payne, George?” she called.

Chanler paused and looked away. “Well, you see, Betty, I was crazy to see you, and—and, Sis’ took ill, and—” He pulled himself together in desperation. “She didn’t come with us, Betty, that’s all there is to it.”

Miss Baldwin had stopped at the cabin door.

“Then I am the only woman on board?” she asked.

“Yes.”

I expected her to shrink, to demand that she be sent back to the City of Nome.

Instead, she looked around calmly, looked out upon the sea, at the rough faces of the men who were staring at her curiously, at the free sweep of the Wanderer’s deck and said with quiet resignation—

“Oh, how jolly!”

XIV

Captain Brack and Riordan had joined the men by the time Chanler returned from showing Miss Baldwin to her stateroom. The entire crew of the Wanderer now was assembled, and Chanler ran his eyes nervously over the group.

“Cappy,” he said, “what is the meaning of this?”

Brack stepped forward.

“Mr. Chanler,” he said solemnly, “it has become necessary to tell you that this crew will not go to Petroff Sound—directly, at least.”

Chanler looked around. The men were standing in a semicircle about him, watching him menacingly.

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Do you mean that you refuse to fulfil your contract?”

Brack shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, for myself, I don’t say,” he said. “Perhaps I would be willing to go to Petroff Sound, even after picking up this gold-hunter. But that doesn’t matter. I can’t sail the Wanderer without the crew, and the crew refuses to go any place but to the hidden country at Kalmut Fiord, where this man’s gold came from.”

“That’s what we said,” supplemented Garvin. “Give us boats and grub, if you want to, and turn us loose; or go with us in the yacht. But we ain’t goin’ bonehuntin’ when there’s gold laying round loose so close by.”

An inarticulate growl came from the rest of the men. Too stupid to put their plans in words they uttered a single, primitive sound which told better than Garvin’s words what was working in their primitive minds. They had seen gold; they had been told there was enough of it to make them all rich; their sluggish desires had been aroused, and consequently they growled.

They were white men, as to skin, but they were savages at heart. And into this company Chanler had brought Miss Baldwin.

“Cappy,” said Chanler, falling back into his blasé manner, “what are you trying to do? Do you mean to tell me that you’re letting this crew walk over you? D’you mean to tell me that you no longer can run ’em? Come, come! I won’t have such poppycock.”

Riordan now stepped forward.

“It is not only the crew that wants to quit, Mr. Chanler,” said he. “I’m through, too. Here is our proposition: Kalmut Fiord, where this miner came from, is about three days’ sailing due north. We want to go there and take a look. If you’ll let the yacht go there, and we find there’s no gold there, we’ll go on with you to Petroff Sound, and there’s only a week lost, which you can dock from our pay. If you won’t let the yacht go there—well, we’re going there anyhow.”

Chanler laughed his dry, cynical laugh.

“Cappy,” said he, “this is what they call mutiny in stories, isn’t it?”

“No, sir,” said Brack promptly. “Mutiny is the refusal of seamen to obey their captain. None of these men has refused to obey me.”

“Hah? Come again, cappy.”

“I have given them no orders which they have refused to obey.”

“You mean—you’re in with ’em, eh?”

“I mean that it would be a crime against us for this expedition to continue on its original course without first investigating, at least, the story which the miner has told. There may be much gold there; certainly there is some. You have more money than you need, Chanler; we haven’t enough to make our lives comfortable.”

“This voyage is a pastime to you; to us it’s a means of making a living. The bones at Petroff Sound will keep. I have this suggestion to make: that we alter the course of the yacht and go to Kalmut Fiord. There will be more credit for you if you lead the way to a new gold field than if you come back with a hold full of old bones. And it will be much easier and pleasant, I assure you.”

“You—you’re not threatening, cappy?” said George.

“Not at all. I am merely asking you to see this thing from our point of view.”

“‘Our? Our point of view?’ You’re not one of the crew are you, cappy?”

Brack did not reply.

“What shall it be, Mr. Chanler?” he said curtly. “Petroff Sound or Kalmut Fiord?”

Chanler looked once more at the crew. He had no special reason for going to Petroff Sound, but as he saw himself defied by his servants a flare of anger showed in his eyes.

“This may not be mutiny, but it is —— insolent, cappy,” said he. “I can’t say I like it at all.”

Garvin laughed. Chanler, looking at Brack, waved a hand toward the pugilist.

“Kindly have that man removed, cappy.”

The captain merely smiled; the scene was pleasing him. Chanler swore at him, and once more I saw that swift, terrible change come over Brack’s countenance.

“Careful, Chanler,” he said softly.

“Careful! On my own yacht!” Chanler’s voice was strong, but his eyes were wavering before Brack’s.

I stepped to his side, and as I did so, Miss Baldwin, a shimmering blue sweater in place of her rain-coat, and a tiny white tasseled cap on her head, came running out of the cabin toward us. Her eyes were taking in the Wanderer’s beauty and her nostrils were quivering with excitement.

“Oh, what a jolly boat!” she cried. “George, take me round; I want to see it all at once.”

Then she noticed the crew.

“Why!” She looked at the threatening faces of the men. “Why, George, what’s the matter?”

Chanler laughed easily.

“Oh, nothing much, Betty. We picked up a man in a boat last night with a bag of gold nuggets on him, and he told a story about a new gold field in a hidden country not far away, and the men want to go there instead of to Petroff Sound, that’s all.”

Her eyes widened.

“Really, George?” she asked incredulously.

“Really,” he said.

“But—do such things really happen, picking up men in boats with bags of gold on them?”

“It happened this time, at least,” he replied.

“Oh, how perfectly thrilling! A hidden country. And there’s more gold to find in the place he came from?”

“So the man says.”

“Oh, George!” cried Miss Baldwin eagerly “let’s go to this hidden country, and let me dig some gold with my own hands!”

Chanler looked puzzled, then relieved. Here was a creditable way out of an unpleasant situation, and his interest in Petroff Sound already was gone.

“Would you rather do that than go bone-hunting, Betty?” he asked.

“Of course. Wouldn’t you? Who cares for old bones? And think of the thrill and adventures in exploring a hidden country and of hunting gold!”

Chanler turned and nodded curtly to Brack.

“We go to Kalmut Fiord then, cappy.”

“All right, men,” snapped Brack. They broke at his orders; he was the captain again. “Full speed ahead, Mr. Riordan, please; I’ll take the bridge myself.”

He stood for a moment looking at Miss Baldwin. When George introduced them she first looked at Brack’s brutal features and wonderful eyes as casually as if he had been an ordinary member of the crew. Then her look became interested. After awhile she blushed and looked away, confused.

Brack bowed, and spoke and smiled courteously, but as he hurried up on the bridge there was a new look in his eyes. I could compare it only to the look that was in Garvin’s eyes when he had seen the little raw pile of gold.

XV

The Wanderer seemed galvanized into new life. The sullenness and tension that had hung over her decks all morning vanished as a fog vanishes before the rising sun. The men jumped to their tasks, grotesque grins on their faces where truculence had reigned a moment before.

Down below decks the engines began humming, slowly at first, rising steadily, until presently we were racing along at a speed that sent the water hissing along our sides. On the bridge Brack paced energetically, now speaking to the wheelman, now down the engine-room telephone. Our course was changed so abruptly that we felt the impact when the wheel went over, and minutes later we were holding steady and true on a course nearly at right angles to the one we had been following.

“Ha!” said Chanler. “Apparently cappy knows where he’s going, and is going there as fast as the old scow can travel.”

Miss Baldwin, bracing herself against the breeze, laughed nervously. Chanler reached down and took her hand. She looked up at him; then she drew her hand away.

I turned to go. A sailor, dragging a hose aft, blocked my way for a moment and I was forced to hear what they said.

“George,” said she, “tell me the truth; did Mrs. Payne ever intend to come on this voyage? Or did you deceive me altogether?”

“I—I had to see you, Betty,” he faltered. “I——”

“Don’t say any more, please.”

As I entered the cabin she was looking out over the sea. Chanler was chewing his under lip and staring hard at the deck.

I had barely settled myself in my stateroom to try to think coherently on the events of the morning when Freddy Pierce slipped in, closing the door noiselessly behind him.

“It’s all right, Brains,” he said. “Brack’s too busy on the bridge to pay any attention to me. Let me roll one before you say anything; I’m forty miles up in the air.”

“Pierce,” I said, as he manufactured his cigaret, “what sort of message did Mr. Chanler send Miss Baldwin?”

“Ah ha! You’ll let me tell you now will you? Well, he sent two kinds; one from himself, saying Mrs. Payne was on board, and one that he signed ‘Dora Payne’, inviting Miss Baldwin to come on this voyage. Oh, it’s a fine piece of business, I tell you——”

“Stop!” I said. “Don’t tell me any more; that’s plenty.”

He drew strongly at his cigaret and blew a shaft of smoke at the ceiling.

“And a Jane—I mean, a girl like that, for anybody to do what Chanler did! What’s his game, Brains? He isn’t so raw——”

“He isn’t himself,” I interrupted. “That’s the stuff; stick up for your pals. But, think of me. I had a hand in getting this girl on board ship.” He rose and tramped the room. “Chanler must be crazy, especially after this morning, to let a girl come aboard. Can’t he see what Brack is? And what do we know about where we’re going now? It’s bad enough for us; I’d blow the job myself if there was any way out and it didn’t look like being a quitter; but for a girl like this to be pulled into it, it’s a fine business—I don’t think!”

“Pierce,” said I, “could we get that steamer to turn back to us?”

“Sure—if Chanler would give the order. They know he can pay for their time, even if they are carrying mail.”

“Then you may have a message to send them soon,” I said, and went out to seek Chanler and Miss Baldwin.

I did not find Chanler. Miss Baldwin was alone in a deck-chair under the awning on the forward deck. She was sitting with her chin in her hand, and to my surprise a look of relief came upon her face as she glanced up and saw me. Before I could speak she said.

“Mr. Pitt, what has happened to George Chanler?”

“Happened to Chanler?” I stammered. I tried to make light of it, but the look on her face stopped the foolish words on my lips.

“You know he is changed,” she continued. “What has done it?”

“How do you mean he has changed,” I asked.

“Don’t, please don’t try to deceive me?” She broke out. “I am not blind. I can see he has changed, and I can see that your attitude toward him is not what it would have been if he—if he were himself. You’re an old friend of his?”

“I have known him for several years.”

“So he said. Then you know he has changed. Why, he was like a good-natured boy last Winter; you couldn’t help liking him. And now he is so different. What has happened to him?”

I looked at her, and her eyes were frankly searching me for the truth. The eyes were gray and very calm.

“There is a change in him,” I admitted. “But I am still his friend.”

Her eyes widened a little.

“Do you mean by that that you can’t be my friend? Don’t you think I have a right to know?”

“Chanler has been very lonely——”

“It’s drink, isn’t it?” she interrupted. “Don’t be afraid to tell me; you can see I’m not afraid.”

“He has been lonely,” I continued, “and therefore he has probably been drinking more than is good for him. Now that you are here he will undoubtedly become himself again.”

“Do you think so, really?”

“I do,” I said earnestly. “How can he do anything else now?”

She rose and crossed over to the starboard rail. I followed. Looking aft I saw Simmons hurrying into Chanler’s stateroom with a bottle wrapped in a napkin, and Chanler’s absence was explained.

Miss Baldwin did not see Simmons. She was looking down at the water along our side. After several minutes she raised her head.

“Poor George!” she said, “He’s never had to fight anything in his life, so he’s handicapped. But we’ll hope, at least.”

“Miss Baldwin,” I said vigorously, “it is not too late for you to leave this yacht. We can reach the City of Nome by wireless. You can return there now.”

The look which she bestowed on me had nothing in it but surprise.

“Leave the yacht now, just at the beginning of the voyage? Why do you suggest that, Mr. Pitt?”

“I thought,” I stammered, “I thought that after you had seen how things are on board you might be wishing you were safely back on the steamer.”

“But—but you said my being here would help straighten George up?”

I was silent.

“Why did you suggest that I leave, Mr. Pitt?”

“Miss Baldwin,” said I, “I do not wish to alarm you, but I do not think this yacht at present is a place for a young woman to take a pleasure trip in. It is Chanler’s place to tell you this, but I am quite sure he will not do so.”

“Go on,” she said, “you must explain fully now.”

“Well, to be blunt, the yacht is in the hands of Captain Brack and the crew.”

“Yes?”

“You saw Captain Brack, Miss Baldwin; I saw that you studied him with interest.”

“Yes!” she said eagerly, and at the sudden play of excitement in her expression I once more felt the old familiar chill creeping up my spine.

The power, the fascination, the dominant will of Captain Brack suddenly took on new possibilities. How would those terrible, compelling eyes affect a woman, a young girl? How had they affected her? For it was obvious that Miss Baldwin’s brief meeting with him had left its mark.

“He has,” said she, “such strange eyes.”

“Miss Baldwin,” I said, “when you came on board the crew practically was in a state of mutiny. Captain Brack sided with them. The crew is composed of a choice lot of brutes, ex-criminals, who may do Heaven knows what.”

Miss Baldwin stood firmly upright and looked at me, her eyes alight with excitement. Her thin nostrils widened and trembled.

“Oh, how you thrill me, Mr. Pitt!” she said. “Tell me honest truth—you’re not joking? Is it really true, about the mutiny and the crew of choice brutes?”

“Miss Baldwin,” I stammered. “Do you mean to say that you’re pleased to hear this? That you’d wish to stay on board if I assured you that we are practically in the hands of a crew of dangerous men, with no knowing what sort of adventure they may be going on?”

“Would I?” she cried promptly. “Why, it’s what I’ve been longing for all my life.”

“You—you have—what?” I stammered.

She smiled mischievously at my astonishment.

“Mr. Pitt, who was it that said, ‘most men lead lives of quiet desperation’? No matter. He should have included girls, too. Did you ever think that we, too, sometimes might get tired of the hum drum lives we’re born to and long for something wild to flavor our existence?”

“Good Lord, no!”

“Of course, you haven’t. Well, possibly I’m different from other girls. I don’t know. But I’ve always felt that if I had to live all my life without one great adventure I—I’d burst.”

“The great adventure for a girl,” said I severely, “is to love, marry, and——”

“Ah, yes! But somehow I seem to recall having heard that before.”

A sea-gull, following the Wanderer in search of galley droppings, swooped past us, struck the crest of a small wave with a splash, and soared upward and away.

“There,” she said quietly, “that’s what I’ve longed for; just once, to be absolutely free. Do you understand?”

I shook my head.

“There is nothing of the adventurer in me, Miss Baldwin.”

“Then why are you here; why don’t you leave the yacht?”

“That’s different. I came aboard as part of the expedition. I remain because——”

“Because you are not a quitter.” She laughed gaily, then grew serious. “I’m a queer bird, am I not, Mr. Pitt?”

“Well, you have succeeded in startling me. When you came on board I judged you to be the typical young girl of your class who has led so sheltered a life——”

“I have, I have! Oh, so—so sheltered! That’s why I’m wild to be something else for once.”

“So sheltered a life that you would shrink and flee when you discovered that you were the only woman on board the yacht. And that you would be terror-stricken when I told you the true state of affairs on board.”

She nodded with mock contrition.

“I know. That’s what I should have done to be proper. But I can’t help it, Mr. Pitt. I’m not afraid; I don’t want to shrink and flee; and I do look forward to something different with unholy joy. Awful, isn’t it? But it’s all so thrilling—the wicked crew, the mutiny, and—and Captain Brack.”

XVI

Chanler came up briskly before we had time to speak further. His dullness had given place to animation. It was apparent that he had wasted no time while in his stateroom.

“Let’s go aft, Betty,” he said. “There’s an awning up there, and deck-chairs, and no wind. Come on.”

I watched them as they went, he, nervous, with unsteady eyes, she, calm, buoyant, strong. He leaned toward her and talked excitedly, and I saw that she drew a little away from him.

They did not sit down. I saw Chanler urging her, and she shook her head and continued to walk to and fro, Chanler following. He was talking and gesticulating excitedly. She looked at him long and steadily once, then looked away.

As I turned I found myself face to face with Captain Brack. He had come down noiselessly from the bridge and was studying me with that old superior smile on his lips.

“Ah, you idealist, Mr. Pitt!” he said softly.

“Idealist, Captain Brack? Why do you say that?”

“It is in your eyes. It is in the position of your chin; it is all over you. You are uplifted and exalted for the moment. You feel that you really are something; you feel strong, is that not so?”

“Perhaps.”

“No, not perhaps, but positively. You feel at this moment that you are a big, strong man; in reality you are—Mr. Gardner Pitt.” He chuckled carelessly at the flush that came to my cheek. “I have been watching you for some seconds, Mr. Pitt; I have seen you swell and think you were growing. In your calm reason—for you can reason somewhat, Mr. Pitt—you know that you are not growing; but for the moment you have allowed your emotions to hypnotize you. You are a victim of your own emotions. For instance—” he waved his thick hand toward the aft where Chanler and Miss Baldwin now were promenading together—“you fancy that in Mr. Chanler’s partner you have been looking at something wonderful and fine. Is that not so?”

“That is so, captain.”

“Something above the common, raw, crawling stuff of life?”

“Decidedly so.”

“Something which it is not the sphere of reason to grasp, but which the emotions alone can appreciate?”

“Go on.”

He laughed unctuously.

“Then I have diagnosed your delusion accurately.”

“Are you sure it is a delusion, captain?”

“Yes. Self-hypnosis. What you see is not there.”

Betty turned at this moment so that her face was toward us.

“What do you see back there, Brack?” I asked.

He looked at her steadily; his head was lowered a little, and again there was in his eyes the look comparable to Garvin’s when he saw the raw gold.

“I see,” said he slowly, without taking his eyes off Betty, “just what there is there; a very fine, healthy young specimen of the female of the species.”

His words were like a dull knife on my nerves, but I controlled myself.

“Nothing more?” I asked casually.

“No. For there is no more.”

I laughed, and I was conscious of a sensation of relief. The man had his limitations then, even though one glance from his eyes had left so strong an impression on Miss Baldwin.

“I feel sorry for you then,” said I. “You are to be pitied for your lack of imagination.”

He did not take his eyes off Betty.

“No,” he said, “for that is enough to see. It is more than enough. A fine young woman. Only once or twice in my life have I seen finer. Too fine to be wasted on a silly ineffectual. Yes, too fine to be won except by a man.”

He swung around on me and said with a wink:

“I have a feeling, Mr. Pitt, that an interesting voyage lies before us. And—and a short time ago I didn’t think anything could interest me much except gold—which means power.”

“Do you feel that we are going to find gold at this alleged gold-field in the alleged hidden country to which we are going?”

“Naturally. Else we would not be found there now.”

“Have you any positive reason for believing gold is to be found there? Not that story of the alleged miner,” I hastened on. “You don’t expect any reasoning being to accept that story as a reason. Have you any real reason for thinking there is gold at this so-called Kalmut Fiord?”

His eyebrows raised a trifle and he smiled as one might at a child who displays unexpected shrewdness.

“You do not have much confidence in the miner’s story, Mr. Pitt?” he asked.

“The maundering of a delirious man,” I retorted. “Surely you would not change the purpose of this expedition on such slender information as that.”

He ceased smiling for a moment.

“I know that there is gold at Kalmut Fiord,” he said. “Does that ease you?”

“If I knew how you know there is gold there, I would be more satisfied. And even granting that you know there is gold there—Captain Brack, you will pardon me—but it scarcely seems in keeping with your character to cheerfully sail a ship-load of people to this gold-field, where they will have an equal chance with you to enrich themselves.”

“No?” he said, and his smile was back in its place. “You have sounded my character then, have you, Mr. Pitt?”

“My dear captain! I am sure you hardly expect to impress even a casual observer as a man who would freely invite a crowd to share a gold find with him.”

He laughed, nodding at me approvingly.

“That isn’t bad, Pitt. The sea air sharpens wits. But have you ever been in the North, away from police officers and courts?”

“Never.”

“Have you ever been in a spot where laws do not reach?”

“No.”

“Well, it is such a place that you are going to now, Pitt. You will find yourself in a new world, in this hidden country, a world as it was in the beginning, with the laws of nature the only ones necessary to consider. In such places gold naturally is attracted to the strongest man, no matter who digs it out of the ground. Gold, do I say? Ha! All things to the strong in this place, Pitt. Nature’s law; all things to the strong, and especially—” he looked again toward the after deck— “women.”

XVII

My expressed faith that Chanler would straighten up now that Miss Baldwin was on board was doomed to early destruction. George had sunk further than his face betrayed, further than any of us had guessed. As a matter of fact this probably was the first time in his life that he had seriously struggled with a big problem, and the struggle had exposed him in a fashion I had not thought possible.

Twice that afternoon he left Miss Baldwin for short runs into his stateroom, and each time he returned vivacious and aggressive. At luncheon he was glum and distrait. Out of regard for Miss Baldwin he had banished liquor from the table and he suffered without it.

Captain Brack was not present at luncheon. He was too occupied between the bridge and the engine-room. Riordan also was absent.

“We are running at our maximum now, yes sir,” said Wilson in reply to a question. “The captain is anxious to hold her so, and he is laying the course himself.”

“Do you know where we are going, Wilson?” I asked.

“No sir. Our course is due north. We should strike somewhere on the Kenai Peninsula, sir.”

“What kind of a country is it there?” asked Betty.

“No country at all, Miss. Entirely unsettled. A rough coast-line.”

“Cappy apparently knows where he’s going,” muttered Chanler.

“Yes sir,” said Wilson.

“And nobody else does.”

“No sir.”

“And that’s what I call a situation to keep a chap from being bored. What do you say, Wilson?”

“I’m not easily bored, sir.”

“You lucky dog!”

“Yes sir,” said Wilson, and excusing himself went out.

When Dr. Olson had done likewise Chanler looked long and lovingly at Miss Baldwin.

“Betty,” he said, as if rousing himself with an effort.

“Yes, George.”

“Betty, don’t you think you were an awful fool to come on a crazy trip like this?”

She smiled as if humoring him.

“Why do you say that, George?”

“Suppose folks should hear about it?”

“What then?”

“Betty—you—all alone on a yacht with me. What’ll folks think if they know?”

“They do know,” she said. “I told my folks and friends where I was going.”

“Yes, but you told them my sister was on board.”

“Certainly—as you told me.”

“Oh, don’t rub it in, Betty. That’s past. But what do you think people will think when they know she wasn’t on board, and that you came ’way up here alone to join me?”

She looked at him steadily. I half rose to leave, but a glance from her eyes told me to remain. It was not a pleasant scene. I stared at my napkin.

“You see, Betty,” he continued, leaning loosely across the table, “that’s what it will look like. Won’t it, Gardy?”

I did not reply.

“What will it look like, George?” she asked evenly.

“Like you were chasing me.”

She laughed, and her laughter was like a song-burst of wholesome young life in the atmosphere of Chanler’s drink-drugged maundering.

“Well, George, isn’t that what I am doing?”

“People will talk, Betty,” he persisted. “It’s a bad situation—for you. I—I’m sorry I got you to come here—no, hang it! I’m not. But I am worrying about your reputation, Betty.”

“I think I can take care of my reputation, George,” she said quietly.

“Let me take care of it, Betty!” he cried hoarsely, taking her hand.

“Please, George,” she said, smiling, as she rose.

“Betty!” He clung to her hand.

With swift, confident strength she drew her hand free, lifting him slightly from his chair in doing so.

“You’ll excuse me now, won’t you?” she said, and went to her room.

Chanler flung himself back in his chair, laughing harshly.

“Did you see that—did you see it, Gardy?” he said, as he pressed the bell. “She doesn’t care if I do own this yacht. I’m nothing to her. Oh, what a rotten trip this is going to be!”

“Chanler,” I said, “sit still for a minute and listen. You have got to pull yourself together. You have got to straighten out this mess. You have got to show Miss Baldwin that you are the man she is hoping to find in you. Buck up, man! Her hopes are pinned on you. She cares. Do you think she would have come this far if she didn’t care? She has done her share; she’s here. Now, for her sake, do your share. Pull yourself together and be the man she has been hoping all this time she would find you.”

“Hooray!” he whispered mockingly. “Go on, Gardy; you’re the boy who can say things. King’s peg,” he said to the steward who had come in.

“Wait!” I said. The man stopped. “Chanler, you’ve been overdoing it. You’re not yourself. You’ve done things that aren’t done; you’ve got to sober up and straighten them out.”

“Got to!”

“Yes; as a gentleman you’ve got to. Miss Baldwin’s happiness—perhaps her whole life’s happiness—depends on your being a gentleman from now on. For God’s sake man! Isn’t it worth sobering up to win a prize like that?”

“Oh, leave me alone, Gardy,” he growled. “Don’t you think I know what I’m doing? It doesn’t make any difference what I do now. I’ve lost her. She wouldn’t have me no matter what I did now. I know it. Knew it five minutes after she came on board. Saw it in her eyes. Felt it. My hold on her’s slipped—just like that. Gone—forever. No use trying. King’s peg,” he repeated, “and hurry.”

I sat silent, rage and disgust choking me, while the man brought in that terrible mixture of champagne and brandy in equal parts. Chanler drank it in gulps.

“Have some, Gardy? No? That’s right. Some men shouldn’t touch rum; you’re one of them. ’Cause why? ’Cause you’ve got a conscience. Rot, rot, rot! Got to straighten up, have I, Gardy? ‘Got to’ are words that weren’t made for me, my boy.”

“For God’s sake! Chanler, drop that sort of talk!” I cried, springing to my feet. “If you knew what a sickening parody you are on the gentleman you were at home, you wouldn’t put on airs.”

“Not to me, Gardy, not to me can you utter such contemptuous words,” he said harshly.

“You be ——, you and your big talk!” I exploded. “Do you think you’re entitled to any respect? Do you think I or any one else on board cares who you are at present? Do you think your money is still a power? Well, it’s not. It ceased to be this morning. Brack and the crew—Brack especially—there’s the power aboard this yacht. And you’re disgracing yourself and your class before them all.

“First you lie by wireless to get Miss Baldwin on board, and now you’re taking the easiest way, keeping drunk, because you’re not man enough to face the situation sober—not man enough to make things right for the girl who came here trustfully depending on you. Think of it, Chanler; think who you are—of your family. Have one more try at decency, at least. Chuck away that poison in your hand and let me call Dr. Olson and get you straightened up.”

He raised the large glass to his lips and drank the peg down without a falter.

“Gardy,” he said, setting the glass down, “you’re fired.”

I laughed.

“I like you, Gardy; you’re a dear old fellow,” he continued, “but you mustn’t presume on our friendship and talk to me like that. I’ve got to let you out.”

“And I suppose I’m to pack my things and go?” said I. “Oh, come, Chanler; wake up. Try to see things with sane eyes. I don’t care whether I’m fired or whether we remain friends. We’re all on the same plane for the present; you, Miss Baldwin, myself, we’re in the hands of Captain Brack and the crew.”

He shuddered nervously.

“Don’t say such things, Gardy; I forbid them in my hearing.”

“You’re afraid to hear them, you mean.”

“Afraid or not, it makes no difference. They annoy me and I won’t be annoyed. I won’t, you hear. Been annoyed enough on this trip. Here I was waiting for Betty’s coming. Felt sure she’d have me if I got her away alone, just herself and me. She comes, looks around. I look in her eyes and bang! I see she won’t have me. Plain as print. Whole trip useless. It’s a rotten world!”

“You’re giving up without a struggle, Chanler?”

“No use, my boy. I don’t like struggling, anyhow.”

“But, Miss Baldwin is, at least your guest, on board your yacht. The yacht is in the hands of Brack and the crew. Haven’t you thought that this situation might develop into one that may be unpleasant and even unsafe for Miss Baldwin?”

“I have,” he said, signaling for another peg. “And I wish I was back home in the big leather chair at the club, looking out on Fifth Avenue.” He waved his hand drunkenly toward me. “I entrust—entrust Miss Beatrice Baldwin—safety, pleasure, honor, rep’tation to you, Gardy. Ha! There’s a bright little idea. I hire you again, Gardy. New job. You—you see Betty safe and sound back to her folks.”

That hour marked the beginning of Chanler’s eclipse. At dinner-time Simmons reported him indisposed. During the next three days he left his room but seldom. He had but one desire now: to eliminate himself as a responsible factor in the storm of events about to break upon the Wanderer and its people.

XVIII

Captain Brack was sitting in Chanler’s chair when we went in to dinner that evening and Miss Baldwin’s place was beside him. Dr. Olson and myself—neither Riordan nor Wilson had appeared—sat opposite.

Brack was dressed with the care of a captain of a popular trans-Atlantic liner, and his attitude toward Miss Baldwin was solely that of a captain solicitous for his passenger’s comfort and pleasure. The yacht might have been the Mauretania, our little party the dinner crowd of the liner’s first saloon. Brack’s personality, polished and radiant for the time being, his flashing conversation, filled and illumined the room. It was difficult not to forget young Larson as one sat beneath his spell.

“An apology is necessary, Miss Baldwin, for my absence from luncheon,” he said. “It is not etiquette to fail to welcome a passenger to her first meal on board. It was necessary, however, that I stay on the bridge until I was sure that the Wanderer had reached her limit of speed and that we were holding true on our course. I have stolen thirty minutes from that duty this evening to fulfil my social obligation as captain.”

“Then we are in a hurry, Captain Brack?” she asked.

His eyes were upon her—those eyes with their compelling power—and her manner was subdued.

“The crew is in a desperate hurry, Miss Baldwin,” he said with one of his flashing smiles. “Men are always in a hurry when they hear of gold. And, really—” he bowed to her deferentially—“we have much to thank you for, Miss Baldwin, for relieving a tense situation this morning. I do not mean that there was the slightest danger of any trouble. No, no! But the situation was a trifle uncomfortable when you appeared and voted that we go hunting for gold instead of bones.” He laughed softly. “I have wondered why you did that, Miss Baldwin; is it presumptuous to ask?”