Part 28 (2/2)

Lund seemed still pondering the problem of the floe. At first he did not notice the condition of the sailors. Then he apparently ignored it. But, after they had eaten, he talked to all the men.

”Two more days of it, lads, and we're through. The beach is nigh cleared. We can git out of the floe to blue water easy enough, an' we'll git a good start on the patrol-s.h.i.+p. We'll go back with full pockets an'

heavy ones. The shares'll be half as large again as we've figgered. I wouldn't wonder if they averaged sixteen or seventeen thousand dollars apiece.”

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

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

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

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

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

They found the men ranged up in three groups. Deming and Beale, against custom, had gone down to the beach. They were supposed to help clean the food utensils, and aid Tamada after a meal, besides replenis.h.i.+ng the fires.

They stood a little away from the hunters and Hansen and the sailors.

The Finn, talking to his comrades in a low growl, was with a separate group.

There was an air of defiance manifest, a feeling of suspense in the tiny valley, backed by the frowning cone, ribbed by the two icy promontories.

Lund surveyed them sharply.

”What in h.e.l.l's the matter with you?” he barked. ”Hansen, send up a man for the drills an' shovels. Yore work's laid out; hop to it!”

”We ain't goin' to work no more,” said the Finn aggressively. ”Not fo'

no sich wage like you give.”

”Oh, you ain't, ain't you?” mocked Lund. He was standing with Rainey in the middle of the s.p.a.ce they had cleared of gravel, the seamen lower down the beach, nearer the sea, their ranks compacted. ”Why, you booze-bitten, lousy hunky, what in h.e.l.l do you want? You never saw twenty dollars in a lump you c'u'd call yore own for more'n ten minnits.

You boardin'-house loafer an' the rest of you sc.u.m o' the seven seas, git yore shovels an' git to diggin', or I'll put you ash.o.r.e in San Francisco flat broke, an' glad to leave the s.h.i.+p, at that. _Jump!_”

The Finn snarled, and the rest stood firm. Not one of them knew the real value of their promised share. Money represented only counters exchanged for lodging, food and drink enough to make them sodden before they had spent even their usual wages. Then they would wake to find the rest gone, and throw themselves upon the selfish bounty of a boarding-house keeper.

But they had seen the gold, they had handled it, and they were inflamed by a sense of what it ought to do for them. Perhaps half of them could not add a simple sum, could not grasp figures beyond a thousand, at most. And the sight of so much gold had made it, in a manner, cheap. It was there, a heap of it, and they wanted more of that s.h.i.+ning heap than had been promised them.

”You talk big,” said the Finn. ”Look my hands.” He showed palms calloused, split, swollen lumps of chilblained flesh worn down and stiffened. ”I bin seaman, not G.o.ddam navvy.”

Lund turned to the hunters.

”You in on this?” he asked. Deming and Beale moved off. Two of the others joined them. ”Neutral?” sneered Lund. ”I'll remember that.”

Hansen and the two remaining came over beside Lund and Rainey.

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

”You talk big with yore gun in pocket,” said the Finn. ”Me good man as you enny day.”

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