A Man to His Mate Part 16

"Meanin' me." Lund seemed to be enjoying himself. Despite the fact that Carlsen was presiding and most evidently a.s.sumed the attributes of leader, despite the fact that ten of the twelve at the table were arrayed against him, with the rest of the seamen behind them, Lund was decidedly enjoying himself.

To Rainey, the matter of the gold was but a mask for the license that would inevitably be manifested in such a crude democracy if it was established, a license that threatened the girl, now, he imagined, watching her father, the captain of the vessel, tottering on the verge of death. His pulses raced, he longed for the climax.

"This gold," went on Carlsen, "is not a commodity made in a factory, obtained through the toil of others, through the expenditure of capital. If it were, it would not alter the principle of the thing. It is of nature's own providing for those of her sons who shall find it and gather it. Sons that, as brothers, must willingly share and share alike."

Lund yawned, showing his strong teeth and the red cavern of his mouth.

The hunters gazed at him curiously. The seamen, lacking initiative, lacking imagination, a crude collection of water-front drifters, more or less wrecked specimens of humanity who went to sea because they had no other capacity--were apathetic, listening to Carlsen with a sort of awe, a hypnosis before his argument that street rabble exhibit before the jargon of a soap-box orator.

Carlsen promised them something, therefore they followed him. But the hunters, more independent, more intelligent, seemed expecting an outburst from Lund and, because it was not forthcoming, they were a little uneasy.

"Share and share alike," said Lund. "I've got yore drift, Carlsen. Let's get down to bra.s.s tacks. The idea is to divvy the gold into equal parts, ain't it? How does she split? There's twenty-five souls aboard.

Does that mean you split the heap into a hundred parts an' each one gits four?"

"No." It was Deming who answered. "It don't. The j.a.p don't come in, for one."

"A cook ain't a brother?"

"Not when he's got a yellow skin," answered Deming. "We'll take up a collection for Sandy. Rainey ain't in on the deal. We split it just twenty-two ways. What have you got to say about it?"

His tone was truculent, and Carlsen did not appear disposed to check him. He appeared not quite certain of the temper of the hunters. Deming, like Rainey, evidently chafed under the preliminaries.

"You figger we're all equal aboard," said Lund slowly, "leavin' out Mr.

Rainey, Tamada an' Sandy. You an' me, an' Carlsen an' Harris there"--he nodded toward one of the seaman delegates who listened with his slack mouth agape, scratching himself under the armpit--"are all equal?"

Deming cast a glance at Harris and, for just a moment, hesitated.

Harris squirming under the look of Deming, which was aped by the sudden scrutiny of all the hunters, found speech: "How in h.e.l.l did you know I was here?" he demanded of Lund. "I ain't opened my mouth yit!"

"That ain't the truth, Harris," replied Lund composedly. "It's allus open. But if you want to know, I smelled ye."

There was a guffaw at the sally. Carlsen's voice stopped it.

"I'll answer the question, Lund. Yes, we're all equal. The world is not a democracy. Harris, so far, hasn't had a chance to get the equal share that belongs to him by rights. That's what I meant by saying that the _Karluk_ was a little world of its own. We're all equal on board."

"Except Rainey, Tamada an' Sandy. Seems to me yore argumint's got holes in it, Carlsen."

"We are waiting to know whether you agree with us?" replied Carlsen. His voice had altered quality. It held the direct challenge. Lund accepted it.

"I don't," he answered dryly. "There ain't enny one of you my equal, an'

you've showed it. There ain't enny one of you, from Carlsen to Harris, who'd have the nerve to put it up to me alone. You had to band together in a pack, like a flock of sheep, with Carlsen for sheepherder. _I'm talking_," he went on in a tone that suddenly leaped to thunder. "None of you have got the brains of Carlsen, becoz he had to put this scheme inter yore noddles. Deming, you think yo're a better man than Harris, you know d.a.m.n' well you play better poker than the rest, an' you agreed to this becoz you figger you'll win most of the gold afore the v'yage is over. The rest of you suckers listened becoz some one tells you you are goin' to get more than what's rightly comin' to you.

"This gold is mine by right of discovery. I lose my s.h.i.+p through bad luck, an' I make a deal whereby the skipper gets the same as I do, an'

the s.h.i.+p, which is the same as his daughter, gets almost as much. You men were offered a share on top of yore wages if you wanted to take the chance--two shares to the hunters. It was d.a.m.ned liberal, an' you grabbed at it. I got left on the ice, blind on a breakin' floe, an' you sailed off an' grabbed a handful or so of gold, enough to set you crazy.

"What in blazes would you know what to do with it, enny of you? Spill it all along the Barb'ry Coast, or gamble it off to Deming. Is there one of you 'ud have got off thet floe an', blind as I was, turned up ag'in? Not one of ye. An' when I _did_ show you got sore becoz you'd figgered there 'ud be more with me away.

"A fine lot of skunks. You can take yore d.a.m.ned bit of paper an' light yore pipes with it, for all of me. To h.e.l.l with it!

"_Shut up_!" His voice topped the murmurs at the table. Rainey saw Carlsen sitting back with his tongue-tip showing in a grin, tapping the table with the folded paper in one hand, the other in his lap, leaning back a little. He was like a man waiting for the last bet to be made before he exposed the winning hand.

"As for bein' equal, I've told you Carlsen's got the brains of you all.

The skipper's dyin', Carlsen expects to marry his gal. An' he figgers thet way on pullin' down three shares to yore one. You say Rainey ain't in on the deal. He's as much so as Carlsen. Carlsen b.u.t.ts in as a doctor an' a fine job he's made of it. Skipper nigh dead. A h.e.l.l of a doctor!

Smoke up, all of you."

Carlsen sat quiet, sometimes licking his lips gently, listening to Lund as he might have listened to the rantings of a melodramatic actor. But Rainey sensed that he was making a mistake. He was letting Lund go too far. The men were listening to Lund, and he knew that the giant was talking for a specific purpose. Just to what end he could not guess.

The big booming voice held them, while it lashed them.

"Equal to me? Bah! I'm a _man_. Yo're a lot of fools. Talk about me bein' blind. It was ice-blink got me. Then ophthalmy matterin' up my eyes. It's gold-blink's got you. Yo're cave-fish, a lot of blind suckers."

He leaned over the table pointing a ma.s.sive square finger, thatched with red wool, direct at Carlsen, as if he had been leveling a weapon.

"Carlsen's a fake! He's got you hipped. He thinks he's boss, becoz he's the only navigator of yore crowd. I ain't overlooked that card, Carlsen.

That ain't the only string he's got on ye. Nor the three shares he expects to pull down. He made you pore suckers fire off all your sh.e.l.ls; he found out you ain't got a gun left among you that's enny more use than a club. He's got a gun an' he showed you how he could use it. He's sittin' back larfin' at the bunch of you!"

The men stirred. Rainey saw Carlsen's grin disappear. He dropped the paper. His face paled, the veins showed suddenly like purple veins in dirty marble.

"I've got that gun yet, Lund," he snarled.

Lund laughed, the ring of it so confident that the men glanced from him to Carlsen nervously.

"Yo're a fake, Carlsen," he said. "And I've got yore number! To h.e.l.l with you an' yore popgun. You ain't even a doctor. I saw real doctors ash.o.r.e about my eyes. Niphablepsia, they call snow-blindness. I'll bet you never heard of it. Yo're only a woman-conning dope-shooter! Else you'd have known that niphablepsia ain't _permanent_! I've bin' gettin'

my sight back ever sence I left Seattle. An' now, d.a.m.n you for a moldy hearted, slimy souled fakir, stand up an' say yo're my equal!"

He stood up himself, towering above the rest as they rose from their chairs, tearing the black gla.s.ses from his eyes and flinging them at Carlsen, who was forced to throw up a hand to ward them off. Rainey got one glimpse of the giant's eyes. They were gray-blue, the color of agate-ware, hard as steel, implacable.

Carlsen swept aside the spectacles and they shattered on the floor as he leaped up and the automatic shone in his hand. Lund had folded his arms above his great chest. He laughed again, and his arms opened.

In an instant Rainey caught the object of Lund's speech-making. He had done it to enrage Carlsen beyond endurance, to make him draw his gun.

Giant as he was, he moved with the grace of a panther, with a swiftness too fast for the eye to register. Something flashed in his right hand, a gun, that he had drawn from a holster slung over his left breast.

The shots blended. Lund stood there erect, uninjured. A red blotch showed between Carlsen's eyes. He slumped down into his chair, his arms clubbing the table, his gun falling from his nerveless hand, his forehead striking the wood like the sound of an auctioneer's gavel. Lund had beaten him to the draw.

Lund, no longer a blind Samson, with contempt in his agate eyes, surveyed the scattering group of men who stared at the dead man dully, as if gripped by the exhibition of a miracle.

"It's all right, Miss Simms," he said. "Jest killed a skunk. Rainey, git that gun an' attend to the young lady, will you?"

The girl stood in the doorway of her father's cabin, her face frozen to horror, her eyes fixed on Lund with repulsion. As Rainey got the automatic, slipped it into his pocket, and went toward her, she shrank from him. But her voice was for Lund.

"You murderer!" she cried.

Lund grinned at her, but there was no laughter in his eyes.

"We'll thrash that out later, miss," he said. "Now, you men, jump for'ard, all of you. Deming, unlock that door. _Jump!_ Equals, are you?

I'll show you who's master on this s.h.i.+p. Wait!"

His voice snapped like the crack of a whip and they all halted, save Deming, who sullenly fitted the key to the lock of the corridor entrance.

"Take this with you," said Lund, pointing to Carlsen's sagging body.

"When you git tired of his company, throw him overboard. Jump to it!"