Part 24 (1/2)

”What d'ye figger on doin' with yore share, Rainey?” Lund asked him the night that they pa.s.sed Nome. It was stormy weather in the Strait, and the _Karluk_ was snugged down under treble reefs, fighting her way north. Ice in the Narrows was scarce, though Lund predicted broken floes once they got through. The cabin was cozy, with a stove going. Peggy Simms was busied with some sewing, the canary and the plants gave the place a domestic atmosphere, and Lund, smoking comfortably, was eminently at ease.

”'Cordin' to the way the men figgered it out,” he went on, ”though I reckon they're under the mark more'n over it, you'll have forty thousan' dollars. That's quite a windfall, though nothin' to Miss Peggy, here, or me, for that matter. I s'pose you got it all spent already.”

”I don't know that I have,” said Rainey. ”But I think, if all goes well, I'll get a place up in the Coast Range, in the redwoods looking over the sea, and write. Not newspaper stuff, but what I've always wanted to.

Stories. Yarns of adventure!”

Peggy Simms looked up.

”You've never done that?” she asked.

”Not satisfactorily. I suppose that genius burns in a garret, but I don't imagine myself a genius and I don't like garrets. I've an idea I can write better when I don't have to stand the bread-and-b.u.t.ter strain of routine.”

”Goin' to write second-hand stuff?” asked Lund. ”Why don't you _live_ what you write? I don't see how yo're goin' to git under a man's skin by squattin' in a bungalow with a j.a.p servant, a porcelain bathtub, an'

breakfast in bed. Why don't you travel an' see stuff as it is? How in blazes are you goin' to write Adventure if you don't live it?

”Me, I'm goin' to git a schooner built accordin' to my own ideas. Have a kicker engine in it, mebbe, an' go round the world. What's the use of livin' on it an' not knowin' it by sight? Books and pictures are all right in their way, I reckon, but, while my riggin' holds up, I'm for travel. Mebbe I'll take a group of islands down in the South Seas after a bit an' make somethin' out of 'em. Not jest _copra_ an' pearl-sh.e.l.l, but cotton an' rubber.”

”A king and his kingdom,” suggested the girl.

”Aye, an' mebbe a queen to go with it,” replied Lund, his eyes wide open in a look that made the girl flush and Rainey feel the hidden issue that he felt was bound to come, rising to the surface.

”That's a _man's_ life,” went on Lund. ”Travel's all right, but a man's got to do somethin', buck somethin', start somethin'. An' a red-blooded man wants the right kind of a woman to play mate. Polish off his rough edges, mebbe. I'd rather be a rough castin' that could stand filin' a bit, than smooth an' plated. An', when I find the right woman, one of my own breed, I'm goin' to tie to her an' her to me.

”I'm goin' to be rich. They've cleaned up the sands of Nome, but there's others'll be found yit between Cape Hope an' Cape Barry. Meantime, we've got a placer of our own. With plenty of gold they ain't much limit to what a man can do. I've roughed it all my life, an' I'm not lookin' for ease. It makes a man soft. But--”

He swept the figure of the girl in a pause that was eloquent of his line of thought. She grew uneasy of it, but Lund maintained it until she raised her eyes from her work and challenged his. Rainey saw her breast heave, saw her struggle to hold the gaze, turn red, then pale. He thought her eyes showed fear, and then she stiffened. Almost unconsciously she raised her hand to where Rainey was sure she kept the little pistol, touched something as though to a.s.sure herself of its presence, and went on sewing. Lund chuckled, but s.h.i.+fted his eyes to Rainey.

”Why don't you write up _this_ v'yage? When it's all over? There's adventure for you, an' we ain't ha'f through with it. An' romance, too, mebbe. We ain't developed much of a love-story as yit, but you never can tell.”

He laughed, and Peggy Simms got up quietly, folded her sewing, and said ”Good night” composedly before she went to her room.

”How about it, Rainey?” quizzed Lund. ”How about the love part of it?

She's a beauty, an' she'll be an heiress. Ain't you got enny red blood in yore veins? Don't you want her? You won't find many to hold a candle to her. Looks, built like a racin' yacht, smooth an' speedy. Smart, an'

rich into the bargain. Why don't you make love to her?”

Rainey felt the burning blood mounting to his face and brain.

”I am not in love with Miss Simms,” he said. ”If I was I should not try to make love to her under the circ.u.mstances. She's alone, and she's fatherless. I do not care to discuss her.”

”She's a woman,” said Lund. ”And yo're a d.a.m.ned prig! You'd like to bust me in the jaw, but you know I'm stronger. You've got some guts, Rainey, but yo're hidebound. You ain't got ha'f the git-up-an'-go to ye that she has. She's a woman, I tell you, an' she's to be won. If you want her, why don't you stand up an' try to git her 'stead of sittin' around like a sick cat whenever I happen to admire her looks?

”I've seen you. I ain't blind enny longer, you know. She's a woman an'

I'm a man. I thought you was one. But you ain't. Yore idea of makin'

love is to send the gal a box of candy an' walk p.u.s.s.y-footed an' write poems to her. You want to _write_ life an' I want to _live_ it. So does a gal like that. She's more my breed than yores, if she has got eddication. An' she's flesh and blood. Same as I am. Yo're half sawdust.

Yo're stuffed.”