Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 3 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

. A MAN -TO carcass when I was nigh spent. I ripped it up and clawed some of the warm guts, an’ climbed inside the bloody gay, an’ stayed there till it got cold an’ clamped down over me. Waitin’ for you to come an’ git me, Honest Simms! “That bear was bed and board to me until the natives found it, an’ me in it, more dead than alive. Never mind the rest of it. I get here the day before you start back for more gold. ‘An’ I’m goin’ with you. But RE I’m goin’ to have a full an’ fair accountin’ o’ what you got already. I’ve got this young chap with me, an’ he’ll give me a hand to’ard a square deal.” Lund propelled Rainey forward a few steps and then loosened his grip. The captain of the Karluk appealed to him di- rectly. “You’re with the Times,” he said. All the while he talked Rainey was conscious of the gaze of Dr. Carlsen, whose dark eyes appeared to be mocking the whole pro- ceedings, looking on with the air of a man watching card play with a prevision of how the game will come out. ‘““Mr. Lund is unstrung,” said the cap- tain. ‘‘ He is under the delusion that we deliberately deserted him and, later. found the gold he speaks of. The first charge is nonsense. We did all that was possible in the frightful weather. We barely saved the ship. “As for the gold, we touched on the island, and we did some prospecting, a very little, before we were driven offshore. The dust in the poke is all we secured. We are going back for more, quite naturally. I can prove all this to you by the log. It is manifestly not doctored, for we imagined Mr. Lund dead. If we had been able to work the beach thoroughly, nothing would tempt mie into going back again to add to even a moderate fortune.” Lund had been standing with his great head thrust forward as if concentrating all his remaining senses in an attempt to judge the captain’s talk. The doctor sat with one leg crossed, smoking a cigarette, his ex- pression sardonic, sphinxlike. To Rainey, a little bewildered at being dragged into the affair, and annoyed at it, Captain HIS MATE. 320 Simms’s words rang true enough. He did not know what to say, whether to speak at all. Lund supplied the gap. ‘“Tf that ain’t the truth, you lie well, Simms,” he said. ‘“ But I don’t trust ye. You lie when you say you didn’t hear me call out I was blind. Sixty yards away, I was, an’ the wind hadn’t started. I was afraid—yes, afraid—an’ I yelled at the top of my lungs. An’ you sailed off inside of twenty-four hours.” -“ Driven off.” ‘I don’t believe ye. You deserted me— left me blind, tucked in the bloody, freez- in’ carcass of a bear. Left me like the cur you are. Why, you—”’ The rising frenzy’ of Lund’s voice was suddenly broken by the clear note of a girl. One of two doors in the after-end of the main cabin had opened, and a girl stood in the gap, slim, yellow-haired, with gray eyes that blazed as they looked on the little tableau. “Who says my father is a cur?” she de- manded. “You?” And.she faced Lund with such intrepid challenge in her voice, such stinging contempt, that the giant was | silenced. ““T was dressing,” she said, “ or I would have come out before. If you say my father deserted you, you lie!” Captain Simms turned to her. Dr. Carlsen had risen and moved toward her. Rainey wished he was on the dock. Here was a story breaking that was a saga of the north. He did not wish to use it, somehow. The girl’s entrance, her vivid, sudden personality forbade that. He felt an intruder as her eyes regarded him, standing by Lund’s side in apparent sym- pathy with him, arrayed against her father. And yet he was not certain that Lund had not been betrayed. The remembrance of the first look in the captain’s face when he had glanced up from handling the gold and seen Lund was too keen. ‘Go into your cabin, Peggy,” said the captain. “ This is no place for you. I can handle the matter. Lund has cause for excitement; but I can satisfy him.” Lund stood frozen, like a pointer on scent, all his faculties united in attention toward the girl. To Rainey he seemed COMMUC IOOKS (C@