Part 3

“All right then,” he said with a comical air of resignation and relief. “I’ve done me jooty. It’s something out of my class; I wanted to pass it up to somebody with a better nut than I’ve got; but if I can’t—all right. I suppose after you ’n’ me ’ve known each other five or six years we’ll be well enough acquainted to talk together like a couple o’ human beings, eh? I know I hadn’t ought to be talking to you like this, Mr. Pitt; you’re a New York highbrow and I’m from back o’ the Yards; but I’ll make you a nice little bet right now, that before this trip is over—if you’re the guy I think you are, Brains—you ’n’ me’ll tear off more’n one little confab behind the boss’s back, and you’ll be darn glad to do it.”

I rose to go.

“I can imagine no reason why we should,” I said. “This is a scientific expedition; you are the wireless operator, and I am Mr. Chanler’s literary secretary. Under the circumstances, why should you be willing to bet?”

“Under those circumstances, I wouldn’t be willing to bet,” he retorted. “But—scientific expedition!” he exploded in disgust. “Scientific ——!”

VI

I retired precipitately to my stateroom, not wishing to hear more. By this time I had seen enough to realize that the hard-drinking George Chanler of the present was not the same man whom I had been friendly with back East. That Chanler never would have endured the brutal sport with Garvin and the negro. He would not have fallen under the spell of a man like Brack; he would not have sent wireless messages to a girl which would make an honest operator like Pierce wish he had never learned his trade. I remembered the owner’s suite, unoccupied and furnished for a woman’s comfort.

“Scientific ——!” Pierce had said.

But it was too late for me to consider quitting now. Captain Brack and his taunting smile had attended to that. If I left now the contempt in his eyes would be justified: I would be the weakling which his look announced me to be. He would smile that smile as I went over the side; would continue to smile it whenever my name was mentioned.

I was disgusted with Chanler. But in my heart I was afraid of Brack, and, paradoxically, for this reason I was afraid to quit.

“Scientific ——!” What did Pierce mean? Whatever it was I judged it to concern only Chanler, therefore it did not greatly concern me. But Brack—so greatly did his smile distress me that I actually looked forward to meeting him again with something akin to relish.

That evening, near the end of the dinner, Dr. Olson happened to speak of the totem gods of the Northern Pacific tribes.

“Yes,” said Brack, “they whittle their gods out of wood with knives; white men use their minds to whittle theirs. Men are greater than gods. What would gods amount to if they didn’t have men to worship them? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Can you imagine anything more impotent than an unworshiped god? Man creates gods; not gods man. Men are absolutely indispensable to gods; but men can do very well without gods if it pleases them to do so.”

“Has it pleased you to do so, Captain Brack?” I asked.

“Decidedly so. I sail light. Men make a slavery of this job of existence because they encumber themselves with laws, gods, and so on. I decided long ago not to be a slave to gods or anything.” He turned upon me with his devilish smile. “Now, Mr. Pitt, it is easy to see, is a slave to his gods.”

“Which gods, for instance.”

He burst into ready laughter, as if I had fallen into a trap he had laid for me.

“The petty, insignificant gods of civilized conduct!”

“Hear, hear!” interjected Chanler, lazily blowing away the smoke. “What you two doing: making religious speeches? ‘God,’ you said. Stow that. There’s no room for gods of any kind on board this boat.”

“Except the gods of science,” laughed Brack.

“Ha! Science! That’s good, awf’ly good, cappy. You don’t know how good that is. I’ll stand for science, cappy, but not religion. Religion sort of suggests conscience, and conscience—m’boy, I cut the chap dead days ago and refuse to be re-introduced. One bottle to science, men, and then it’ll be time to kiss our native land good-by. Pitt, if you’ve a tender woman’s heart pining for you some place, better go send her your farewell message, ’cause cappy and I are going to make a wet evening of it until we sail in the interests of science! Glor-ee-ous, glorious science! Hah!”

I accepted his suggestion eagerly as a means to escape from the cabin. There was no woman pining for me; there was no woman in my life. I had no farewell message to send to any one. While Chanler, Brack and the doctor made merry over their bottle I sought the solitude of the upper deck.

* * * * *

It was a dark night, and a rising wind was blowing in from the sea. Along the water-front lights twinkled and gleamed, mere red-hot dots in the all-encompassing darkness.

At a dock near by the outline of a long steamer showed beneath the flare of a myriad gasoline torches, and across the water there came from her decks the clang of hammers and the hollow rumble of trucks pouring freight into her hold.

“The _City of Nome_, sir,” said a voice behind me, and turning I beheld the sturdy figure of Mr. Wilson, the second officer. “They’re rushing the job of preparing her for her first trip of the season. She follows the _Wanderer_ up. She’ll be about forty-eight hours behind us.”

“Will she overtake us?”

“Hardly, sir. We’re as fast as she is, if not faster. No, we’ll show her the way into Bering Sea if nothing happens to check our speed.”

A sudden gust of wind shook us and a splattering of great rain-drops struck the deck. The mate turned toward the sea and sniffed the air.

“Hello!” he exclaimed, as if the wind had told him something. “I hope you’re a good sailor, Mr. Pitt; it may be a little rough outside tomorrow and for a couple of days to come.”

VII

I was awakened next morning by a sensation as of mighty blows being struck against the yacht’s hull, shaking it from stem to stem. My nostrils caught the tang of cold sea air, while gusts of fog-laden wind swept whistling past the open port-hole.

I dressed, went on deck, and swiftly retreated to shelter. The _Wanderer_ was out at sea and boring her twelve-knot way through the smoke and welter of a raw Spring gale from the north.

The entire aspect of the yacht, of its personnel, and of the expedition seemed to have changed overnight. Captain Brack was upon the bridge. His neat, gold-braided uniform had vanished and he wore a rough sheepskin jacket and oilskin trousers. A shaggy cap was pulled down to his eyes and he chewed and spat tobacco.

In the gray light of a raw day, shuddering and washed by spray, the _Wanderer_ had become a grim, serviceable sea-conqueror rather than the magnificent pleasure-boat she had seemed yesterday, and two seamen, roughly clad and dripping, were putting extra lashings on a life-boat forward.

I went down to breakfast with new impressions of the grim potentialities of this expedition.

I had breakfast alone. Chanler was still in his stateroom and the officers all had breakfasted long before. While I was eating, Freddy Pierce popped his head in.

“Oh, hello; it’s you, is it,” he greeted. “I was looking for the boss; another message.”

“Mr. Chanler is in his stateroom,” I said.

“He sent another message to this Jane—to Miss Baldwin, last night,” said Pierce.

I continued to eat.

“This is a reply to it that I’ve got here.”

“Pierce,” said I, looking up, “you will find Mr. Chanler in his stateroom.”

“Right!” said he. Saying which the messenger boy turned and ran. “Oh, Simmons! Come here. Message for the boss.”

Simmons, who was passing, paused and bestowed on Freddy his most freezing look of disapproval.

“Mr. Chanler is not to be disturbed,” said he, and made to pass on.

“Not so, old Frozen Face,” said Freddy, catching him by the arm. “You don’t pass me by with a haughty look this time. This is the reply to the message the boss sent last night. He wants it while it’s hot off the griddle. Get busy.”

Simmons seemed about to choke.

“Mr. Chanler is not to be disturbed,” he repeated with emphasis.

Freddy turned toward Chanler’s door.

“Will you take it in—or shall I?” he asked.

“But you can’t—it is forbidden!” cried Simmons.

Freddy knocked loudly on the owner’s door.

“The reply to your message from last night, Mr. Chanler,” he called. “It just came.”

An instant later he opened the door, to Simmons’s horror, and entered. When he came out he bore another message and went straight up to the wireless house to send it.

Soon after this Captain Brack came to Chanler’s stateroom, knocked and entered. He remained within for some time. When he emerged his look was dark and scowling, and he hurried straight to the bridge. A moment later the _Wanderer’s_ twelve-knot rush began to diminish, and presently we were moving along at a speed that seemed barely sufficient to keep our headway against the sea.

Not long after this came the clash between Brack and Garvin.

I was starting on my morning constitutional when I came upon the pair facing one another on the fore-deck. Chanler was looking on from the bridge. Garvin was an unpleasant-looking brute to behold. His face was swollen and he had evidently slept in his clothes. He was standing lowering ferociously at Brack, who stood leaning against the chart-house, his arms folded.

“Sa-a-ay, sa-a-ay guy; what kind uv a game d’yah think yah’re running? Eh?” the fighter was snarling. “What d’yah think yah’re putting over on me? Hah? D’yah know who yah got hold of? I’m Bill Garvin.”

“That is how I have put you down—as one of the crew,” said Brack. He placed himself more firmly against the wall of the wheel-house.

“Put—put me down?” cried Garvin incredulously. “Me—one of your crew? Guess again, bo, guess again.”

“I never guess,” retorted Brack and there was just a warning hint of coldness in his tones.

“Wa-ll, git next tuh yerself den, bo, an’ quit dat crew talk wid me. When do we git back tuh Seattle?”

“Perhaps never—for you—unless you soon say ‘sir’ when you speak to me.”

“Hah?”

“‘Sir!’” bellowed Brack, and even the sodden plug-ugly blinked in alarm at the menace in his tones. But only for a moment. He was a true fighting brute, Garvin; his courage only swelled at a challenge.

“Step out here an’ put up yer mitts, Bo,” he snapped. “I’m Bill Garvin; who the —— are you?”

From the bridge came Chanler’s cynical cackle.

“He wants an introduction, cappy,” he chuckled. “Come, come; let’s have your come-back.”

Brack smiled in his old suave manner as he looked up at Chanler, but as he turned away the smile changed to a black scowl. He looked steadily at Garvin for several seconds, and it grew very quiet.

Garvin started a little in surprise and fright, as if suddenly he had seen something in Brack’s face which he had not expected to find there. He was a stubborn fighting brute, however, and instinct told him to charge when in fear. He leaped at Brack, his fists held taut; and an instant later he was on his back on the deck, screaming in agony, his hands covering his scalded face.

Then for the first time I saw the hose-nozzle that the captain had concealed beneath his folded arms. He had been standing so that his broad back entirely concealed the hose, running from a fire-plug in the wall. So the fighter had rushed, open-eyed, open-mouthed, against a two-inch stream of hot water which swept him off his feet and left him groveling and screaming on the deck.

“Ha!” said George Chanler. “Sharp repartee that, cappy—though a bit rough.”

Brack found Garvin’s hands, neck, head with the water, and suddenly turned it off.

“Don’t!” cried Garvin. “For Gawd’s sake, don’t.”

“Sir,” said Brack.

“You go to ——!”

The water found him again.

“Sir.”

“Sir,” whimpered Garvin. “Oh, Gawd! You’ve killed me!”

“Sir.”

“Sir.”

Brack tossed the hose aside and wiped his hands.

“Take him below,” he directed a couple of seamen. “Tell Dr. Olson to care for him. I have too much need for Garvin to have him lose his sight.”

He turned abruptly toward Chanler on the bridge.

“The wind is rising, sir,” he said. “At five knots we will barely crawl.”

“Yes?” said Chanler, yawning. “Well, crawling is exactly my mood today.”

“We’ll lose precious days up north if we continue at this speed.”

Chanler smiled the shrewd smile of a man who has a joke all to himself.

“No, cappy; that’s once you’re wrong. It’s just the other way round: I’d lose precious days if we didn’t continue at this speed, as you’ll see when the time comes.”

The captain glared after him as Chanler leisurely went aft to his stateroom. The glare turned for an instant to a smile, of a sort that Chanler would have been troubled to understand had it been seen. Then Brack stamped forward and stood with folded arms, looking ahead over the gray, tossing sea, his face raging with impatience over the slowness of the yacht’s progress.

VIII

I climbed to the wireless house and found Freddy Pierce eagerly looking for my appearance.

“Did you see it?” he demanded. “Did you see it?”

“Brack and Garvin? Yes, I saw it. It was horrible. Is that the way Brack handles the men of the crew?”

“Na-ah! I should say not. That isn’t his regular system. He don’t need to touch ’em; he laughs at ’em and scares ’em stiff. He’s got a fighting grouch on this morning, and Garvin was just something to take it out on. Poor Garvin! He had to come staggering up and make his play just after the captain come out of the boss’s cabin boiling mad. Any other time the cap’ would ’a’ laughed at him so he’d snuck back to his bunk like a bad little boy.”

“Then what was wrong with the captain this morning?”

Freddy shrugged his shoulders.

“You notice we cut our speed down to a crawl, didn’t you? Well, it must have been that that gave Brack his grouch. I haven’t quite got it doped out yet. All I know is, I grab a bunch of words off the air for the boss, I take him the message, he reads it, smiles, slips me a double saw-buck for good luck and says: ‘Kindly tell Captain Brack to step down here at once.’ I do. Captain Brack goes in smiling and comes out with his eyes showing he’d been made to do something he didn’t want to do. Bing! He gets Riordan on the engine-room phone. Zowie! He shouts an order. And then the screw begins easing off little by little, and pretty soon we’ve stopped running and are walking the way we are now. Dope: the boss made cappy cut her down, and it made cappy so sore he burnt Garvin’s face half off to blow off his grouch.”

“But why in the world should Captain Brack grow so angry over that!” I exclaimed. “Chanler is owner. Certainly it is to be expected that he can sail where, when and how he pleases.”

“Sure. It got cap’s goat, though.”

“By Captain Brack’s own statement we may have to wait for the Spring drift-ice to clear when we get up north. Surely there can be no sensible objection to slow running under the circumstances, especially as that is the owner’s wish.”

Pierce doubled up, grasping his thin ankles and staring at the floor, as was his custom when thinking seriously.

“Brack has been hurrying ever since we lay in ’Frisco. Hurried about the crew; took Wilson because he couldn’t find another officer in a hurry; and, we ran at maximum all last night after we cleared the Sound.”

“What of that?”

“That would take us to Petroff Sound just a week before we scheduled.”

“Well?”

“On our schedule time we’d probably have to lay offshore a week before the ice breaks up so we could go in. Then what would be the sense of getting there a week ahead of schedule? I saw the log this morning, too, just after Brack’d written it. He had the night’s run down at nine knots an hour; we were going better’n twelve. Put your noodle to working, Mr. Brains. What’s the answer?”

“Apparently Captain Brack wishes to reach Petroff Sound ahead of our schedule.”

“Without letting the boss know we were going to do it. Yep. Go on.”

“It is impossible for me to guess at what his object may be.”

“Same here, Brains. Brack isn’t doing it just for the fast ride though, that’s a cinch. Go on.”

“Chanler’s orders to slow down may be ascribed to one of his whims——”

“Huh!” interrupted Freddy. “I wish you were right there.”

“Why?”

“The boss didn’t play up a whim when he cut down our speed. He’d done some close figuring before he did that.”

“How do you know?”

“I ought to know. I’m operator, ain’t I? I handle his messages, don’t I? Well, that’s how I know.”

“Then the order to slow down was not due to a whim, but to a message?”

“To the one he got this morning in reply to the one he sent last night. Yep.”

“There seems, then,” said I, “to be a conflict of interests on board; Captain Brack wishes to go fast and Mr. Chanler wishes to go slow.”

“Yes,” said Freddy Pierce, scratching his red head, “and if the captain’s reasons are anything like the boss’s I’ve got a feeling that you’ll have some —— funny things to write about before we get back home. What’s more, if one of ’em’s got to have his way about the speed you can put your money on the captain and cash.”

“Nonsense! Mr. Chanler is the owner.”

“Yes, and Captain Brack is—Brack.”

I recalled what I had heard Brack called back in Billy Taylor’s in Seattle.

“Pierce,” I said, “how much do you know about Brack?”

He cast a look of disapproval at me.

“You don’t need to ask me that, Brains,” he said. “I got eyes—I can see you got him sized up, too.”

“You joined the _Wanderer_ in San Francisco two weeks before I did,” I reminded him. “Surely you know more about the man than I do.”

“Well,” he said, “I know that he’s a devil with men.”

“A masterful personality,” I agreed. “Any one can see that.”

“Yep. But that ain’t what’s worrying me.”

“Worrying? Are you worrying about Brack?”

“Oh, sort of.”

“Why?”

“Why,” he said, as his instrument began to crackle. He turned to take a message. “Brack’s a devil toward men, but that ain’t a marker to what he is with women.”

IX

While I stood watching Pierce busied at his instruments Simmons came climbing up with word that Mr. Chanler wished me to come to his stateroom. The sky had begun to clear to the eastward by now; a rift of clean blue Spring heaven was showing through the great pall of Winter-like gray clouds; and as I entered Chanler’s stateroom the sun broke through and relieved the ugly monotony of the raw day.

Chanler was trailing his mandarin-like dressing-gown behind him as he paced the room, and his face was not the face of a man at ease.

“Gardy,” he said, “I want to talk with you. Got to talk with you. Brack’s all right to drink with; Doc Olson doesn’t talk at all; you’re the only one fit to talk to on board. ’Member I started to tell you yesterday how I discovered I had to do something useful, and then I changed my mind and didn’t tell you after all? Well, I’m going to tell you the whole story now. Gardy, how much do you know about women—girls?”

By this time I was prepared for any turn of thought on Chanler’s part and replied—“Not as much as you do, that’s sure.”

The careless reply seemed exactly what he wished to hear. He nodded gravely.

“That’s right. You don’t know how right that is. You may know a lot about ’em, Gardy, but I know more. I’ve learned a lot about ’em lately, a whole lot. You think that Brack, and those Petroff Sound mammoths, and old Doc Harper are responsible for this little trip we’re on. Well, they’re not.”

He paused, then concluded slowly—

“Gardy, it’s a girl.”

I recalled Chanler’s bachelor fear that some day a shrewd mama would snare him for her young daughter, and the determination with which he had fled whenever he found himself growing interested in a girl in a way that threatened his bachelor’s liberty.

“Arctic Alaska is a long way to run away,” I laughed.

“Hang it, Gardy!” he snapped. “Don’t talk that way. I’m not running away.”

“No?”

“No. I—I’m doing this because I want to—want to—I know it will shock you—but, hang it, Gardy! I want to marry her.”

I had an uncomfortable series of visions: Chanler entangled by some woman, a light actress, probably; family objections, and George being sent away to the Arctic Circle while the family money convinced the woman that she had made a mistake.

“You mean that you’re being sent up here?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, his chin sunk on his chest. “Yes, that’s it; I’m being sent up here.”

“By——”

“By—her.” He looked straight out of the window, gnawing his underlip nervously. “By a little girl, almost a kid, by Jove!”

He paused again, then went on didactically:

“The trouble with girls, Gardy—young girls; pretty, clever, charming girls, you know—the trouble is they’re too popular. Too many pursuers. Men are too eager to marry ’em. Fact. Girls have too many chances. Get an exaggerated idea of their own importance, and pick and pick before they decide on a chap, and then they demand that the one they’ve picked is—is a little, white god. Fact. Even the common ones. Ordinary man try to marry one—hah! Got to show ’em. Money? Oh, yes; big percentage, show ’em money and they don’t ask anything else. Limousine and poodle-dog type.

“But, hang it, Gardy, there’s a new kind of girl growing up in this country at present, and she’s the one who makes a man trouble. New American breed. She doesn’t look back over her shoulder to make you follow her. Hang it, no! She stands right up to you and looks you square in both eyes. She won’t notice when you show her money; what she’s looking at is you. Fact. Not what you got; but what you are. New type.

“Rotten world for men it’s getting to be. Our own fault, though. We chase ’em; make ’em think themselves worth too much. Men ought to quit—lose interest. That’d bring ’em to their senses, and they wouldn’t ask a man uncomfy questions. But hang it, it’d be too late now to do me any good,” he concluded gloomily. “I’m shot.”

I said nothing, and he soon went on.

“Shot, by Jove! Shot by a little girl. Just like a kid fresh from school. Hit so hard I’ve got to have her, and, hang it! She’s one of that—that new kind.”

Still I remained silent, and for many seconds Chanler struggled with his next words.

“Gardy!” he broke out in mingled anger and awe. “She wouldn’t have me!”

Once more we sat in silence, an uncomfortable silence for me. I had no desire to discuss affairs of the heart with any one. Up to that time I had never felt the need of any woman in my life.

Presently Chanler opened his writing-desk and drew out a small photograph which he passed to me.

“There she is, there’s the cause of this expedition, Gardy.”

I looked with interest at the picture in my hand.

It was as poor a specimen of the outdoor picture as any amateur ever made on a sunny Sunday. It represented a bareheaded girl in tennis costume, her hair considerably tousled as if she had just finished a set; but as the picture had been taken against the sun the face was so dark as to be scarcely discernible. Just an ordinary outdoor girl, apparently, as ordinary as the photograph.

“That’s the reason for this trip,” said George, carefully returning the picture to its place. “She isn’t anybody you know or have heard of. She’s nobody. She’s just a common doctor’s daughter from a little town in the Middle West, and I want to marry her, Gardy, and by Jove—she wouldn’t have me!”

He was started now, and there was no opportunity to stop him had I so wished. I listened in humble resignation. I was Chanler’s hired man. I was engaged as his literary secretary, but probably he counted me paid for listening to him while he poured out his amazement and despair at having been refused.

“She wouldn’t have me, Gardy,” he repeated over and over again; and, considering how many girls had fished for Chanler’s name and money, I wondered what sort of a girl this could be.