ght and
not yet regained, exhibited an unusual vocabulary as he bossed them.
Lund turned to the two hunters, who had stood apart.

"Wal, you yellow-bellied neutrals," he said, his voice cold and his eyes
hard. "Thought I might lose, and hoped so, didn't you? Pick up that
skunk Beale an' tote him aboard. Then come back an' go to work. You'll
git yore shares, but you'll not git what's comin' to those who stood by.
Now git out of my sight. You can bury That when you come back." He
nodded at the sodden corpse of Deming, flung up on the grit. "You can
take yore pay as grave-diggers out of what you owe him at poker. He
ain't goin' to collect this trip."

Rainey, lame and sore, helped Tamada patch up the wounded, turning the
hunters' quarters into a sick bay, using the table for operation. Beale
was the worst off, but Tamada pronounced him not vitally damaged. After
he had finished with them he insisted upon Rainey's lying, face down, on
the table, stripped to the waist, while he rubbed him with oil and then
kneaded him. Once he gave a sudden, twisting wrench, and Rainey saw a
blur of stars as something snapped into place with a click.

"I think you soon all right, now," said Tamada.

"You and Miss Simms turned the tide," said Rainey. "If they'd got those
tools first they'd have finished us in short order."

"Fools!" said Tamada. "Suppose they kill Lund, how they get away? No one
to navigate. Presently the gunboat would find them. I think Mr. Lund
will maybe trust me now," he said quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"Mr. Lund think in the back of his head I arrange for that gunboat to
come. He can not understand how they know the schooner at island. He
think to come jus' this time too much curious, I think."

"It was a bit of a coincidence."

Tamada shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"I think Japanese government know all that goes on in North Polar
region," he said. "There is wireless station on Wrangell Island. We pass
by that pretty close."

Rainey chewed that information as he put on his clothes, wondering if
they had seen the last of the gunboat. They would have to pass south
through Bering Strait. It would be easy to overhaul them, halt them,
search the schooner, confiscate the gold. They were not out of trouble
yet.

When he went into the cabin to replace his torn coat--he had hardly a
button intact above the waist, from jacket to undershirt--he found the
girl there with Lund. Apparently, they had just come in.