e fore companionway as Peggy Simms dived below.

Lund did not follow her. Instead, he laughed shortly and appeared to see
Rainey for the first time.

"Jumped me, the bunch of 'em!" he said, his chest heaving, his breath
coming in spurts from his laboring lungs. "Couldn't use my gun. But I
licked 'em. Damn 'em! _Equals?_ Hell!"

He seemed to have a clear recollection of the fight. He smiled grimly at
Deming, who glared at him, nursing his broken arm, then glanced at the
man that Rainey had mastered.

"Did him up, eh? Good for you, matey! You didn't have to use your gun.
Jest as well, you might have plugged me. An' the gal had one, after
all."

He seemed to ruminate on this thought as if it gave him special cause
for reflection.

"Game!" he said. "Game as they make 'em!"

He surveyed the rueful, groaning combatants with the smile of a
conqueror, then turned to the seamen.

"Here, you!" he roared, and they jumped as if galvanized into life by
the shout. "Chuck a bucket of water over 'em! Chuck water till they git
below. Then clean the decks. Off-watch, you're out of this. Below with
you, where you belong. Jump!

"They all fought fair," he went on. "Not a knife out. Only Deming there,
when he knew he was licked, tried to git my gun. Yo're yeller, Deming,"
he said, with contempt that was as if he had spat in the hunter's face.
"I thought you were a better man than the rest. But you've got yores.
Git down below an' we'll fix you up."

He strode over to Hansen, stolid at the wheel.

"Wal, you wooden-faced squarehead," he said, "which way did you think it
was coming out? Damn me if you didn't play square, though! You kept her
up. If you'd liked you could have chucked us all asprawl, an' that would
have bin the end of it, with me down. You git a bottle of booze for
that, Hansen, all for yore own Scandinavian belly. Come on, Rainey.
Tamada, I want you."

While Tamada got splints and did what he could for the badly shattered
arm, Lund taunted Deming until the hunter's face was seamed with useless
ferocity, like a weasel's in a trap.

"I wonder you fix him at all, Tamada," he said. "He wanted to cut you
out of yore share. Called you a yellow-skinned heathen, Tamada. What
makes you gentle him that way? You've got him where you want him."

Tamada, binding up the splints professionally, looked at Deming with
jetty eyes that revealed no emotion.

Lund passed his hand over his face.

"I'm some mess myself," he said,