g.

Peggy Simms, under cover of pouring the coffee, sweetened heavily with
condensed milk, found time to speak to Rainey.

"They're all drunk," she said.

"Not all of them. Here comes Lund. He'll handle it."

Lund seemed still pondering the problem of the floe. At first he did not
notice the condition of the sailors. Then he apparently ignored it. But,
after they had eaten, he talked to all the men.

"Two more days of it, lads, and we're through. The beach is nigh
cleared. We can git out of the floe to blue water easy enough, an' we'll
git a good start on the patrol-ship. We'll go back with full pockets an'
heavy ones. The shares'll be half as large again as we've figgered. I
wouldn't wonder if they averaged sixteen or seventeen thousand dollars
apiece."

Rainey had picked out a black-bearded Finn as the leader of the sailors
in their debauch. The liquor seemed to have unchained in him a spirit of
revolt that bordered on insolence. He stood with his bowed legs apart,
mittened hands on hips, staring at Lund with a covert grin.

Next to Lund he was the biggest man aboard. With the rum giving an
unusual coordination to his usually sluggish nervous system, he promised
to be a source of trouble.

Rainey was surprised to see him shrug his shoulders and lead the way to
the beach. Perhaps breakfast had sobered them, though the fumes of
liquor still clung cloudily on the air.

Lund went down, with Rainey beside him, reporting Sandy.

"I'll work it out of 'em," said Lund. "That booze'll be an expensive
luxury to 'em, paid for in hard labor."

They found the men ranged up in three groups. Deming and Beale, against
custom, had gone down to the beach. They were supposed to help clean the
food utensils, and aid Tamada after a meal, besides replenishing the
fires.

They stood a little away from the hunters and Hansen and the sailors.
The Finn, talking to his comrades in a low growl, was with a separate
group.

There was an air of defiance manifest, a feeling of suspense in the tiny
valley, backed by the frowning cone, ribbed by the two icy promontories.
Lund surveyed them sharply.

"What in hell's the matter with you?" he barked. "Hansen, send up a man
for the drills an' shovels. Yore work's laid out; hop to it!"

"We ain't goin' to work no more," said the Finn aggressively. "Not fo'
no sich wage like you give."

"Oh, you ain't, ain't you?" mocked Lund. He was standing with Rainey in
the middle of the space they h