The spectator., 1922-01-06
A Man To His Mate By J. ALLEN DUNN


 on the ice after bear an we kill a Kadiak bear. Me--IIl never stand for the shootin' of another bear if l can stop it.
 I've bin havin' trouble with my eyes right along. I'm on the foe not eighty 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 bleed the brute. All of sudden, like it always hits you, snew-blindness gifts me, an shouts to Honest Simms.
 "Along comes Point Arrow blister. That's gale that breeds an bursts of q second out of nowhere. It gath CTS up all the loose snow an ice crys- tals an drives 'em in a whiriwind. You lose yore direction even when you got eyes. I'm left in it by that bilge- blooded skunk. blind on the rpckin', breakin' foe, while he scuds back to the schooner with his men. That's Honest Simms. Jim Lunds left be- hind but Honest Simms has the posi- tion of the island"
 q didn't hear you call out you were blind, Lund. The wind blew your words away. l didn't know but what you were as right as the rest of us. We found the schooner by sheer luck before We pershed. We looked for you-but the foe was broken up. We looked"
 
 sailed inside of twenty-four hours,. Honest Simms. The natives told me so later when could understand talk ag'in. Dye know what saved me? The bear! I stumbled over the carcass when was nigh spent. ripped 1t up and clnwed 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 Smms
 That bear was bed and board to me until the natives found it. an me in it. more dead than alive. Never mind the rest. I get here the day be- fore you start back for more gold.
 An I'm goin' with you. But first I'm goin' to have full an fair ac- countin' O what you got already. I've got this young chap with me, an he'll give me hand to'ard square deai." Lund propelled Rainey forward n | few steps and then loosened his grip. 1 The captain of the Karluk appealed to | him directly.
 "Mr. Lund is unstrung," said the | captain. "He is under the deluslon 1 that we deliberately deserted him and, later, found the gold he speaks of. The first charge is nonsense. We did all that was possible in the frightful weather. We barely saved the ship.
 "As for the gold, we touched on the island, and we did some prospecting, very little, before we were driven offshore. The. dust in the poke Is all we secured. We are going back for more, quite naturally. l can prove all this to you by the log"
 Lund had been standing with his great head thrust forward as if con. | centrating all his remaining senses in an attempt to judge the captains talk. | The doctor sat with one leg crossed, smoking cigarette, his expression sardonic, sphinxlike. To Rainey, a little bewildered at being dragged into the affair, and annoyed at 1t, Captain | Simms' words rang true enough. He did not know what to say. whether to speak at all. Lund supplied the gap.
 If that aih't the truth. you lie well, Simms," he said. But l don't trust ye. You lie when you say you didn't hear me call out was blind. Sixty yards away, l was an the wind hadn', started. You deserted me-left me blind. tucked in the bloody. freezin carcass of bear. Left me like the cur you are. Why, you"
 The rising frenzy of Lund's voice was suddenly broken by the clear note of girls voice. One of two doors IT the nfter-end of the main cabin haC opened, and she stood In the gap slim. yellow haired, with gray eye: that blazed as they looked on the little tableau.
 | "who says my father is cur?" sh' demanded. "You?" And she face' Lund with such intrepid challenge II her voice. such stlnging contempt, tha the giant was silenced..
 'T was dressing" she said. "or would have come out before. If vol say my father deserted you, you lie '
 Captain Simms turned to her. Doc tor Carlsen had risen and moved toward her. Rainey wished he wa on the dock.
 "Go into your cabin, Peggy salt the captain. "This Is no place 10