ard his galley, promptly emerging with a wet cloth.

The girl put her hands over her eyes as Tamada methodically mopped up
the telltale stains.

"The brute!" she said. Then took away her hands and extended them toward
Rainey.

"What will he do with my father?" she said. "He thinks that dad deserted
him. And the doctor, who might have saved him, is dead. My God, what
shall I do? What shall I do?"

Rainey found himself murmuring some attempts at consolation, a defense
of Lund.

"You too?" she said with a contempt that, unmerited as it was, stung
Rainey to the quick. "You are on his side. Oh!"

She wheeled into her father's room and shut the door. Rainey heard the
click of the bolt on the other side. Tamada was going on with his
table-laying. Rainey saw that he had left Carlsen's place vacant. He
listened for a moment, but heard nothing within the skipper's cabin. The
swift rush of events was still a jumble. Slowly he went up the
companionway to the deck.

CHAPTER XI

HONEST SIMMS

Lund greeted Rainey with a curt nod. Hansen was still at the helm. The
crew on duty were standing about alert, their eyes on Lund. They had
found a new master, and they were cowed, eager to do their best.

"It ain't noon yet," said Lund. "I hardly need to shoot the sun with the
land that close."

Rainey looked over the starboard bow to where a series of peaks and
lower humps of dark blue proclaimed the Aleutian island bridge
stretching far to the west.

"I'll show this crew they've got a skipper aboard," said Lund. "How's
the cap'en?"

Rainey told him.

"We'll see what we can do for him," said Lund. "He's better off without
that fakir, that's a cinch. Called me a murderer," he went on with a
good-humored laugh. "Got spunk, she has. And she's a trim bit. A slip of
a gal, but she's game. An' good-lookin' eh, Rainey?"

He shot a keen glance at the newspaperman.

"You're in her bad hooks, too, ain't ye? We'll fix that after a bit. She
don't know when she's well off. Most wimmin don't. An' she's the sort
that needs handlin' right. She's upset now, natural, an' she hates me."

He smiled as if the prospect suited him. A suspicion leaped into
Rainey's brain. Lund had said he would not see a decent girl harmed. But
the man was changed. He had fought and won, and victory shone in his
eyes with a glitter that was immune from sympathy, for all his air of
good-nature.

He had said that a man under his skin was just an animal.