The Ice Pilot reached the deck by way of the chains in the waist, and
saw that the entire crew had gathered between the galley house and the
break of the poop.
Marr was with them. He wheeled, strutted over the planks, and planted
himself before Stirling. "What did you find at East Cape?" he asked.
Stirling doubled his fists and stepped back. "Little or nothing," he
said, glancing over the skipper's slight shoulder and meeting the eyes
of the crew which seemed suddenly hostile. "Little or nothing," he
repeated, simply. "There's pelts there and ivory, but no bone. I told
them we had no whisky to trade."
"You did?"
Stirling flushed and backed to the rail. He heard Eagan drop to the deck
beside him, and the seaman was followed by the two sailors who had made
the trip to East Cape.
"I did!"
"Don't you know that this crew is trying to make an honest living? Don't
you know that every brave man aboard gets a two hundredth lay of the
bone we trade or capture? Why didn't you try the natives with a little
whisky bait? You'd have found bone hidden in every igloo."
"Go yourself!" said Stirling. "I won't do your dirty work!"
Marr turned to the half-moon of menacing men. "You heard that," he said.
"That's the kind of man this pilot is--all for himself. I told you we'd
have to look out for him. We can't go on any further until he is taken
care of."
The crew had reached some sort of agreement before Stirling arrived from
East Cape; this much he saw with widening eyes, glancing from face to
face. The Kanakas had been chosen for their loyalty to the little
skipper. The boat steerers were Frisco dock rats who had the run of the
steerage--an elevated position to them. The rest of the crew had scant
hopes for anything save plunder and spoils in this life. They would have
willingly followed Marr through the entire group of rookeries, starting
at Disko Island and winding up at the Pribilofs.
Stirling reached and rested his hand on the pinrail, where were a dozen
brass belaying pins. He lifted his hand, wound his fingers about the
nearest, and raised it an inch or more. A tenseness of desperate right
steeled his muscles; his jaw muscles hardened to balls, and his lips
closed in a grim line.
Marr reached backward and clapped his palm over his right hip. The
motion was a signal. The crew snarled in a running line of anger,
advanced in a half-circle, and closed about Stirling. One held a sheath
knife openly displayed in his hand.
"Kill the squealer!" he exclaimed. "Kill him! He's preventing us from
getting what's coming on this voyage. Darn, says I, if I'll go to Frisco
broke. What d'ye say, mates?"
"Hold on!" cried Stirling, raising his ponderous right fist. "The first
man who tries anything gets this!"
Eagan stepped out from the rail a half step, and stood partly between
Stirling and the little skipper. There was that written in the seaman's
face which held every man upon the ship. His eyes glittered with high
light, and his body rested on the balls of his feet as if to spring.
"A moment!" Eagan snapped in steeled tones. "This layout will lead to
murder. Murder leads to swingin'. I don't want to swing. I'm with the
skipper in every way. Get that?"
The crew glanced at each face before them--Stirling's strong, but
uncertain; Eagan's masterful; Marr's openly sneering.
"We get it," a sailor answered back.
"Then, I suggest we all go slow. This Stirling has been cracking too
much about whisky and seals. He's liable to see too much and say too
many things afterward. You get me, don't you?"
"We get you."
"On the other hand," continued Eagan, "there's the danger of messing the
whole voyage up. If we croak this fellow, it'll get out and we'll have
to pay. If we maroon him anywhere along this coast, he'll find a way to
signal that cruiser that went north, or the _Bear_."
"How about an island?" a boat steerer asked.
"That's it!" declared Eagan, dropping his hand. "We'll put him on an
island after we get done with the little trip the captain has planned
for us. That island will be in the North Pacific. We can pick out a
nice, quiet one."
Stirling, with fist still ready for action, turned toward Eagan and
exclaimed: "You're with them, eh?"
"Certainly; all the way! You're one against thirty--more than that,
counting the engine-room force and the stokehold bunch. Put down that
fist and get into your cabin; stay there and don't come on deck.
Otherwise they're going to mop up the ship with you."
"I'll chance that----" started Stirling, advancing upon the crew, both
fists now clenched.
He never hesitated in the charge. It was bull strong and intended to
clear the way to the poop; men went over as ninepins; blows glanced from
his shoulders. He reached the poop steps with arms twined about him,
threw these off with a savage twist and squirm, and went up as a Kanaka
harpooner seized his legs. Dragging slowly, he grasped the rail and bent
his body.
It was then that a belaying pin flew across the waist of the ship,
glanced from the quarter-deck rail, and struck Stirling in the temple.
He rolled down the steps--the centre of a snarling pack of men--then lay
quiet, with blood flowing from the wound in his head.
Eagan pulled off the pack and lifted him like a heavy sack of meal.
"I'll put him in his cabin," he said with a grunt. "I'll watch him.
Leave that part to me."
Marr turned and faced the crew. "Get the anchor up!" he ordered. "We'll
drop down the wind and make for our landfall. Remember, we're looking
for bowheads until I give other instructions."
Eagan laid Stirling on his bunk and went to work. He found water and a
clean towel, bathed the swollen wound, leaned over, and shook Stirling
into consciousness.
"Lay low!" he whispered. "Don't you know who I am?"
Stirling rolled, and pressed his hand to his eyes. "I don't know," he
said, weakly. "Who are you?"
Eagan reached into his pocket and drew forth a gold badge. He held it
before Stirling's swimming eyes.
"I am a Deputy Seal Commissioner," said the seaman.