“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.