A Man to His Mate

by J. Allan Dunn

  Produced by Brian Janes, Suzanne Lybarger, Pilar SomozaFernAindez and the Online Distributed Proofreading Teamat https://www.pgdp.net

  A MAN TO HIS MATE

  The sea struck the opposite rail with a roar]

  A Man to His Mate

  _by_

  J. ALLAN DUNN

  AUTHOR OFJim Morse--Adventurer, Turquoise Canyon,Dead Man's Gold, etc.

  _Illustrated by_STOCKTON MULFORD

  INDIANAPOLISTHE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANYPUBLISHERS

  COPYRIGHT 1920THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY

  COPYRIGHT 1920THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

  _Printed in the United States of America_

  PRESS OFBRAUNWORTH & CO.BOOK MANUFACTURERSBROOKLYN. N. Y.

  _To_J. E. DE RUYTER, ESQUIREthis yarn is affectionately andappreciatively dedicated

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I BLIND SAMSON 1

  II A DIVIDED COMPANY 25

  III TARGET PRACTISE 47

  IV THE BOWHEAD 73

  V RAINEY SCORES 82

  VI SANDY SPEAKS 96

  VII RAINEY MAKES DECISION 117

  VIII TAMADA TALKS 132

  IX THE POT SIMMERS 151

  X THE SHOW-DOWN 163

  XI HONEST SIMMS 186

  XII DEMING BREAKS AN ARM 210

  XIII THE RIFLE CARTRIDGES 230

  XIV PEGGY SIMMS 241

  XV SMOKE 266

  XVI THE MIGHT OF NIPPON 277

  XVII MY MATE 293

  XVIII LUND'S LUCK 332

  A Man to His Mate

  CHAPTER I

  BLIND SAMSON

  It was perfect weather along the San Francisco water-front, and Raineyreacted to the brisk touch of the trade-wind upon his cheek, the breezetempering the sun, bringing with it a tang of the open sea and a hint ofOriental spices from the wharves. He whistled as he went, watching alumber coaster outward bound. The dull thump of a heavy cane upon thetimbered walk and the shuffle of uncertain feet warned him fromblundering into a man tapping his way along the Embarcadero, a giant whohalted abruptly and faced him, leaning on the heavy stick.

  "Matey," asked the giant, "could you put a blind man in the way offinding the sealin' schooner _Karluk_?"

  The voice fitted its owner, Rainey thought--a basso voice tempered tothe occasion, a deep-sea voice that could bellow above the roar of agale if needed. For all his shoregoing clothes and shuffle, the man wascertainly a sailor, or had been. All the skin uncovered by cloth or hairwas weathered to leather, the great hands curled in as if they clutchedan invisible rope. He wore dark glasses with side lenses, over whichheavy brows projected in shaggy wisps of red hair.

  Blind as the man proclaimed himself with voice and action, Rainey sensedsomething back of those colored glasses that seemed to be appraisinghim, almost as if the will of the man was peering, or listening, focusedthrough those listless sockets. A kind of magnetism, not at allattractive, Rainey decided, even as he offered help and information.

  "You're not fifty yards from the _Karluk_," Rainey replied. "But you'rebound in the wrong direction. Let me put you right. I'm going that waymyself."

  "That's kind of ye, matey," said the other. "But I picked ye for thatsort, hearin' you whistlin' as you came swingin' along. Light-hearted, Ithinks, an' young, most likely; he'll help a stranded man. Give me thetouch of yore arm, matey, an' I'll stow this spar of mine."

  He swung about, slinging the curving handle of the stick over his rightelbow as the fingers of his left hand placed themselves on Rainey'sproffered arm. Strong fingers, almost vibrant with a force manifestthrough serge and linen. Fingers that could grip like steel uponoccasion.

  Rainey wonderingly sized up his consort. The stranger's bulk wasenormous. Rainey was well over the average himself, but he was only astripling beside this hulk, this stranded hulk, of manhood. And, for allthe spectacled eyes and shuffling feet, there was a stamp of coordinatedstrength about the giant that bespoke the blind Samson. Given eyes,Rainey could imagine him agile as a panther, strong as a bear.

  His weight was made up of thews and sinews, spare and solid fleshwithout an ounce of waste, upon a mighty skeleton. His face washeavy-bearded in hair of flaming, curling red, from high cheek-bonesdown out of sight below the soft loose collar of his shirt. The bridgeof his glasses rested on the outcurve of a nose like the beak of anosprey, the ends of the wires looped about ears that lay close to thehead, hairy about the inner-curves, lobeless, the tips suggesting theear-tips of a satyr.

  Mouth and jaw were hidden, but the beard could not deny the boldprojection of the latter. About thirty, Rainey judged him. Buffeted bytime and weather, but in the prime of his strength.

  "Snow-blinded, matey," said the man. "North o' Point Barrow, a year an'more ago. Brought me up all standin'. What are you? Steamer man? Purser,maybe?"

  "Newspaperman," answered Rainey. "Water-front detail. For the _Times_."

  "You don't say so, matey? A writer, eh?"

  Again Rainey felt the tug of that something back of the dark lenses,some speculation going on in the man's mind concerning him. And he feltthe firm fingers contract ever so slightly, sinking into the muscles ofhis forearm for a second with a hint of how they could bruise andparalyze at will. Once more a faint sense of revulsion fought with hisnatural inclination to aid the handicapped mariner, and he shook it off.

  "The _Karluk_ sails to-morrow," he said.

  "Aye, so--so they told me, matey. You've bin aboard?"

  "I had a short talk with Captain Simms when she docked. Not much of ayarn. She didn't have a good trip, you know."

  "Why, I didn't know. But--hold hard a minnit, will ye? You see, Simms isan old shipmate of mine. He don't dream I'm within a hundred miles o'here. Aye, or a thousand." He gave a deep-chested chuckle. "Now, then,matey, look here."

  Rainey was anchored by the compelling grip. They stood next to the slipin which the sealer lay. The _Karluk's_ decks were deserted, thoughthere was smoke coming from the galley stovepipe.

  "Simms is likely to be aboard," went on the other. "Ye see, I know hisways. An' I've come a long trip to see him. Nigh missed him. Only got infrom Seattle this mornin'. He ain't expectin' me, an' it's in my mind tosurprise him. By way of a joke. I don't want to be announced, ye see.Just drop in on him. How's the deck? Clear?"

  "No one in sight," said Rainey.

  "Fine! Mates an' crew down the Barb'ry Coast, I reckon. Sealers haveliberties last shore-day. Like whalers. I've buried a few irons myself,matey, but I'll never sight the vapor of a right whale ag'in. Stranded,I am. So you'll do me a favor, matey, an' pilot me down into the cabin,if so be the skipper's there. If he ain't, I'll wait for him. I've gotthe right an' run o' the _Karluk's_ cabin. I know ev'ry inch of her.You'll see when we go aboard. Let's go."

  Rainey led him down the gangway to the deck of the sealer, stillcluttered a bit with unstowed gear. Once on board, the bl
ind man seemedto walk with assurance, guiding himself with touches here and there thatshowed his familiarity with the vessel's rig. And he no longer shuffled,but walked lightly, grinning at Rainey through his beard, with one bluntforefinger set to his mouth as he approached the cabin skylight, liftedon the port side. Through it came the murmur of voices. The blind mannodded in satisfaction and widened his grin with a warning "hush-h" tohis guide.

  "We'll fool 'em proper," he lipped rather than uttered.

  The companion doors were closed, but they opened noiselessly. The stairswere carpeted with corrugated rubber that muffled all sound. Two men satat the cabin table, leaning forward, hands and forearms outstretched,fingering something. One Rainey recognized as the captain, Simms--aheavy, square-built man, gray-haired, clean-shaven, his flesh tanned,yet somehow unhealthy, as if the bronze was close to tarnishing. Therewere deep puffs under the gray tired eyes.

  The other was younger, tall, nervously active, with dark eyes and a darkmustache and beard, the latter trimmed to a Vandyke. Between them was along slim sack of leather, a miner's poke. It was half full of somethingthat stuffed its lower extremity solid, without doubt the same substancethat glistened in the mouth of the sack and the palms of the twomen--gold--coarse dust of gold!

  Rainey felt himself thrust to one side as the blind man straddled acrossthe bottom of the companionway, towering in the cabin while he thrusthis stick with a thump on the floor and thundered, in a bellow thatseemed to fill the place and come tumbling back in deafening echo:

  "_Karluk_ ahoy!"

  The face of Captain Simms paled, the tan turned to a sickly gray, andhis jaw dropped. Rainey saw fear come into his eyes. His companion didnot stir a muscle except for the quick shift of his glance, but went onsitting at the table, the gold in one palm, the fingers of his otherhand resting on the grains.

  "Jim Lund!" gasped the captain hoarsely.

  "That's me, you skulking sculpin? Thought I was bear meat by this,didn't you, blast yore rotten soul to hell! But I'm back, Bill Simms.Back, an' this time you don't slip me!"

  Jim Lund's face was purple-red with rage, great veins standing out uponit so swollen that it seemed they must surely burst and discharge theircongested contents. Out of the purpling flesh his scarlet hair curled indiabolical effect. His teeth gleamed through his beard, strong, yellow,far apart. He looked, Rainey thought, like a blind Berserker, restrainedonly by his affliction.

  "You left me blind on the floe, Bill Simms!" he roared. "Blind, in adrivin' blizzard with the ice breakin' up! If I didn't have use foryore carcass I'd twist yore head from yore scaly body like I'd pull up acarrot."

  Lund's fingers opened and closed convulsively. Before Rainey the visionof the threatened crime rose clear.

  "I looked for you, Jim," pleaded the captain, and to Rainey his wordslacked conviction. "I didn't know you were blind. I heard you shout justbefore the blizzard broke loose."

  Lund answered with an inarticulate roar.

  "And there's others present, Jim. I can explain it to you when we're byourselves. When you're a mite calmer, Jim."

  Lund banged his stick down on the table with a smashing blow that madethe man with the Vandyke beard, still silent, keenly observant, drawback his arm with a catlike swiftness that only just evaded the stroke.The heavy wood landed fairly on the filled half of the poke and causedsome of the gold to leap out of the mouth.

  "What's that I hit?" asked Lund]

  "What's that I hit?" asked Lund. "Soft, like a rat." He lunged forward,felt for the poke, and found it, lifted it, hefted it, his foreheadpuckered with deep seams, discovered the open end, poured out some ofthe colors on one palm, and used that for a mortar, grinding at thegrains with his finger for a pestle, still weighing the stuff with aslight up-and-down movement of his hand.

  He nodded as he slipped the poke into a side pocket, and the cabin grewvery silent. Lund's face was grimly terrible. Rainey could have gonewhen the blind man reached for the gold and left the ladder clear. Hehad meant to go at the first opportunity, but now he was held fascinatedby what was about to happen, and Lund stepped back across thecompanionway.

  "So," said Lund, his deep voice muffled by some swift restraint. "Youfound it. And yo're going back after more?" His forehead was stillcreased with puzzlement. "Wal, I'm going with ye, eyes or no eyes, an'I'll keep tabs on ye, Bill Simms, by day and night. You can lay to that,you slimy-hearted swab!"

  His voice had risen again. Rainey saw the sweat standing out on thecaptain's forehead as he answered:

  "Of course you'll come, Jim. No need for you to talk this way."

  "No need to talk! By the eternal, what I've got to say's bin steamin' inme for fourteen months o' blackness, an' it's comin' out, now it'sstarted! Who's this man, who was talkin' with ye when I come aboard?"

  He wheeled directly toward the man with the Vandyke, who still satmotionless, apparently calm, looking on as if at a play that might turnout to be either comedy or tragedy.

  "That's Doctor Carlsen. He's to be surgeon this trip, Jim," said Simmsdeprecatingly, though he darted a look at Rainey half suspicious, halfresentful.

  Rainey, on the hint, turned toward the ladder quietly enough, but Lundhad nipped him by the biceps before Rainey had taken a step.

  "You'll stay right here," said Lund, "while I tell you an' this DocCarlsen what kind of a man Simms is, with his poke full of gold and mewith the price of my last meal spent two hours ago. I won't spin out theyarn.

  "I rescued an Aleut off a bit of a berg one time. There warn't much ofhim left to rescue. Hands an' feet an' nose was frozen so he lost 'em,but the pore devil was grateful, an' he told me something. Told about anisland north of Bering Strait, west of Kotzebue Sound, where there wasgold on the beach richer and thicker than it ever lay at Nome. I makesfor it, gits close enough for my Aleut to recognize it--it ain't an easyplace to forget for one who has eyes--an' then we're blown south, an' wegit into ice an' trouble. The Aleut dies, an' I lose my ship. But I wasclose enough to get the reckonin' of that island.

  "Finally I land at Seattle, broke. I meet up with the man they callHardluck Simms. Also they called him Honest Simms those days. Some saidhis honesty accounted for his hard luck. I like him, an' I finally tellhim about my island. I put up the reckonin', an' he supplies the_Karluk_, grub, an' crew.

  "Simms' luck is still ag'in' him. The _Karluk_ gits into ice, gitsnipped an' carried north, 'way north, with wind an' current, frozentight in a floe. It looks like we've got to winter there. Mind ye, I'vegiven Honest Simms the reckonin' of the island. We go out on the iceafter bear, though the weather's threatenin', for we're short of meat.An' we kill a Kadiak bear. Me--I'll never stand for the shootin' ofanother bear if I can stop it.

  "I've bin havin' trouble with my eyes. Right along. I'm on the floe noteighty yards from Simms. No, not sixty! It was me killed the bear, an'we're goin' back to the schooner for a sled. I stayed behind to bleedthe brute. All of a sudden, like it always hits you, snow-blindness gitsme, an' I shouts to Honest Simms. I'm blind, with my eyeballs on fire,an' the fire burnin' back inter my brain.

  "Along comes a Point Arrow blister. That's a gale that breeds an' burstsof a second out of nowhere. It gathers up all the loose snow an' icecrystals an' drives 'em in a whirlwind. Presently the wind starts theice to buckin' an' tremblin' like a jelly under you, splitting interlanes. You lose yore direction even when you got eyes. I'm left in it bythat bilge-blooded skunk, blind on the rockin', breakin' floe, while hescuds back to the schooner with his men. That's Honest Simms! Jim Lund'sleft behind but Honest Simms has the position of the island."

  "I didn't hear you call out you were blind, Lund. The wind blew yourwords away. I didn't know but what you were as right as the rest of us.The gale shut us all out from each other. We found the schooner by sheerluck before we perished. We looked for you--but the floe was broken up.We looked--"

  "Shut up!" bellowed Lund. "You sailed inside of twenty-four hours,Honest Simms. The natives told me so later, when I could understand
talkag'in. D'ye know what saved me? The bear! I stumbled over the carcasswhen I was nigh spent. I ripped it up and clawed some of the warm guts,an' climbed inside the bloody body an' stayed there till it got cold an'clamped down over me. Waitin' for you to come an' git me, Honest Simms!

  "That bear was bed and board to me until the natives found it, an' me init, more dead than alive. Never mind the rest. I get here the day beforeyou start back for more gold.

  "An' I'm goin' with you. But first I'm goin' to have a full an' fairaccountin' o' what you got already. I've got this young chap with me,an' he'll give me a hand to'ard a square deal."

  Lund propelled Rainey forward a few steps and then loosened his grip.The captain of the _Karluk_ appealed to him directly.

  "You're with the _Times_," he said. All through the talk Rainey wasconscious of the gaze of Doctor Carlsen, whose dark eyes appeared to bemocking the whole proceedings, looking on with the air of a man watchingcard-play with a prevision of how the game will come out.

  "Mr. Lund is unstrung," said the captain. "He is under the delusion thatwe deliberately deserted him and, later, found the gold he speaks of.The first charge is nonsense. We did all that was possible in thefrightful weather. We barely saved the ship.

  "As for the gold, we touched on the island, and we did some prospecting,a very little, before we were driven offshore. The dust in the poke isall we secured. We are going back for more, quite naturally. I can proveall this to you by the log. It is manifestly not doctored, for weimagined Mr. Lund dead. If we had been able to work the beachthoroughly, nothing would tempt me into going back again to add to evena moderate fortune."

  Lund had been standing with his great head thrust forward as ifconcentrating all his remaining senses in an attempt to judge thecaptain's talk. The doctor sat with one leg crossed, smoking acigarette, his expression sardonic, sphinxlike. To Rainey, a littlebewildered at being dragged into the affair, and annoyed at it, CaptainSimms' words rang true enough. He did not know what to say, whether tospeak at all. Lund supplied the gap.

  "If that ain't the truth, you lie well, Simms," he said. "But I don'ttrust ye. You lie when you say you didn't hear me call out I was blind.Sixty yards away, I was, an' the wind hadn't started. I was afraid--yes,afraid--an' I yelled at the top of my lungs. An' you sailed off insideof twenty-four hours."

  "Driven off."

  "I don't believe ye. You deserted me--left me blind, tucked in thebloody, freezin' carcass of a bear. Left me like the cur you are. Why,you--"

  The rising frenzy of Lund's voice was suddenly broken by the clear noteof a girl's voice. One of two doors in the after-end of the main cabinhad opened, and she stood in the gap, slim, yellow-haired, with grayeyes that blazed as they looked on the little tableau.

  "Who says my father is a cur?" she demanded. "You?" And she faced Lundwith such intrepid challenge in her voice, such stinging contempt, thatthe giant was silenced.

  "I was dressing," she said, "or I would have come out before. If you saymy father deserted you, you lie!"

  Captain Simms turned to her. Doctor Carlsen had risen and moved towardher. Rainey wished he was on the dock. Here was a story breaking thatwas a _saga_ of the North. He did not want to use it, somehow. Thegirl's entrance, her vivid, sudden personality forbade that. He felt anintruder as her eyes regarded him, standing by Lund's side in apparentsympathy with him, arrayed against her father. And yet he was notcertain that Lund had not been betrayed. The remembrance of the firstlook in the captain's face when he had glanced up from handling the goldand seen Lund was too keen.

  "Go into your cabin, Peggy," said the captain. "This is no place foryou. I can handle the matter. Lund has cause for excitement; but I cansatisfy him."

  Lund stood frozen, like a pointer on scent, all his faculties united inattention toward the girl. To Rainey he seemed attempting to visualizeher by sheer sense of hearing, by perceptions quickened in the blind.The doctor crossed to the girl and spoke to her in a low voice.

  Lund spoke, and his voice was suddenly mild.

  "I didn't know there was a lady present, miss," he said. "Yore father'sright. You let us settle this. We'll come to an agreement."

  But, for all his swift change to placability, there was a sinisterundertone to his voice that the girl seemed to recognize. She hesitateduntil her father led her back into the cabin.

  "You two'll sit down?" said the doctor, speaking aloud for the firsttime, his voice amiable, carefully neutral. "And we'll have a drop ofsomething. Mr. Lund, I can understand your attitude. You've suffered agreat deal. But you have misunderstood Captain Simms. I have heard aboutthis from him, before. He has no desire to cheat you. He is rejoiced tosee you alive, though afflicted. He is still Honest Simms, Mr. Lund.

  "I haven't your name, sir," he went on pleasantly, to Rainey. "Thecaptain said you were a newspaperman?"

  "John Rainey, of the _Times_. I knew nothing of this before I cameaboard."

  "And you will understand, of course, what Mr. Lund overlooked in hisnatural agitation, that this is not a story for your paper. We shouldhave a fleet trailing us. We must ask your confidence, Mr. Rainey."

  There was a strong personality in the doctor, Rainey realized. Not theblustering, driving force of Lund, but a will that was persistent,powerful. He did not like the man from first appearances. He was tooaloof, too sardonic in his attitudes. But his manner was friendlyenough, his voice compelling in its suggestion that Rainey was a man tobe trusted. Captain Simms came back into the cabin, closing the door ofhis daughter's room.

  "We are going to have a little drink together," said the doctor. "Ihave some Scotch in my cabin. If you'll excuse me for a moment? Captain,will you get some glasses, and a chair for Mr. Lund?"

  The captain looked at Rainey a little uncertainly, and then at Lund,whose aggressiveness seemed to have entirely departed. It was Rainey whogot the chair for the latter and seated himself. He would join in afriendly drink and then be well shut of the matter, he told himself.

  And he would promise not to print the story, or talk of it. That wasrotten newspaper craft, he supposed, but he was not a first-class man,in that sense. He let his own ethics interfere sometimes with his penand what the paper would deem its best interests. And this was a whaleof a yarn.

  But it was true that its printing would mean interference with the_Karluk's_ expedition. And there was the girl. Rainey was not going toforget the girl. If the _Karluk_ ever came back? But then she would bean heiress.

  Rainey pulled himself up for a fool at the way his thoughts were racingas the doctor came back with a bottle of Scotch whisky and a siphon. Thecaptain had set out glasses and a pitcher of plain water from a rack.

  "I imagine you'll be the only one who'll take seltzer, Mr. Rainey," saidthe doctor pleasantly, passing the bottle. "Captain Simms, I know, usesplain water. Siphons are scarce at sea. I suppose Mr. Lund does thesame. And I prefer a still drink."

  "Plain water for mine," said Lund.

  "We're all charged," said the doctor. "Here's to a betterunderstanding!"

  "Glad to see you aboard, Mr. Rainey," said the captain.

  Lund merely grunted.

  Rainey took a long pull at his glass. The cabin was hot, and he wasthirsty. The seltzer tasted a little flat--or the whisky was of anunusual brand, he fancied. And then inertia suddenly seized him. He lostthe use of his limbs, of his tongue, when he tried to call out. He sawthe doctor's sardonic eyes watching him as he strove to shake off alethargy that swiftly merged into dizziness.

  Dimly he heard the scrape of the captain's chair being pushed back. Fromfar off he heard Lund's big voice booming, "Here, what's this?" and thedoctor's cutting in, low and eager; then he collapsed, his head fallingforward on his outstretched arms.