n' to get more than what's rightly comin' to you.

"This gold is mine by right of discovery. I lose my ship through bad
luck, an' I make a deal whereby the skipper gets the same as I do, an'
the ship, 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 damned 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 damned bit of paper an' light
yore pipes with it, for all of me. To hell 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 butts in as a doctor
an' a fine job he's made of it. Skipper nigh dead. A hell 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 massive square finger, thatched with
red wool, direct at Carlsen, as if he had been leveling a weapon.

"Carlse