an any two of them,
and, though Rainey could see a shrinkage, or a compression, of his bulk
as day by day he called upon it for heroic service, he never seemed to
tire.

"Got to keep 'em at it," he would say in the cabin. "No time to lose,
an' the odds all against us, in a way. Barring Luck. That's what we got
to count on, but we don't want them thinkin' that. If the weather don't
break--an' break jest right--as soon as we've cleaned up, we're stung.
Though I'll blast a way out of this shore ice, if it comes to the worst.
I saved out some dynamite on purpose."

"We ought to have brought a steam-shovel along," said Rainey. He was
hard as iron, but he had served a tough apprenticeship to labor, and his
hands and nails, he fancied, would never get into shape again.

"Now you're talkin'," agreed Lund. "We c'ud have handled it in fine
shape an' left the machine behind as junk or a souvenir for our Jap
friends. We've got to cut out this four-hour shift. Too much time wasted
changin'. Too many meals. We'll make it one long, steady shift of all
hands long as we can stand up to it, an' all git reg'lar sleep. I'm
needin' some myself."

Rainey knew that neither he nor Hansen got within two-thirds as much
out of their shifts as when Lund was in command, though he had given
them the pick of the men. It was not that the men malingered, they
simply, neither of them, had the knack of keeping the work going at top
speed and top effectiveness.

But, with Lund handling all of them as a unit, it was not long before
the shovels began to scrape on the bare rock that underlay the gravel at
tide edge, and work swiftly back to the end of the U. The outdoors
kitchen had been established on top of the promontory between the
schooner and the beach, a primitive arrangement of big pots slung from
tripods over fires kindled on a flat area that was partly sheltered from
the sea and the prevailing winds by outcrops of weathered lava.

At dawn the men trooped from the schooner to be fed and warmed, and then
they flung themselves at their task. The more they got out the more
there was in it for them. But Lund was their overlord, their better, and
they knew it. Only Deming worked with one hand the handle of the forge
bellows, or fed the fires, and sneered.

Lund stood a full head above the tallest of them, which was Rainey, and
he was always in the thick of the work, directing, demanding the utmost,
and setting example to back command. His eyes ha