thing very few men except sealers
could have done had they been cast ashore without stores or tools to
face the awful winter of the North.

"How did you get through?" he asked.

"Well," explained Lewson, "we had a rifle, and the ca'tridges weren't
spoilt. The killers hadn't taken their cooking outfit, and by and by we
got a walrus in an open lane among the ice. They'd left some gear behind
them, but we were most of two days cutting and heaving the beast out
with a parbuckle under him. There was no trouble about things keeping in
that frost. Besides, we'd the holluschickie blubber to burn, and there
was a half-empty bag or two of stores in one of the shacks. No, we
hadn't any great trouble in making out."

"You had to stay there until the ice broke up," Charly observed.

"And after. The boat was gone, and we couldn't get away. She broke up in
the surf, and we burned what we saved of her. At last a schooner came
along, and we hid out across the island until she'd gone away. It was
blowing fresh, and hazy, and she just shoved a new gang of killers
ashore. There was an Okotsk Russian with them, but he made no trouble
for us. He was white, anyway, and it kind of seemed to me he didn't like
one of the other men who got hurt that night on the beach."

"Then some of them did get badly hurt?" Wyllard broke in.

"Well," Lewson said, "from what that Russian told us--and we got to
understand each other after a time--one of the killers had his ribs
broke, and it seems that another would go lame for life. Besides, among
other things, there was a white man got his face quite smashed. I saw
him with his nose flattened way out to starboard, and one eye canted. He
was a boss of some kind. They called him Smirnoff."

Overweg looked up sharply. "Ah," he commented, "Smirnoff. A man with an
unsavory name. I have heard of him."

"Anyway," Lewson went on, "we killed seals all the open season with that
Russian, and I've no fault to find with him. In fact, I figure that if
he could have fixed it he'd have left us on the island that winter, but
when a schooner came to take the killers off and collect the skins
Smirnoff was on board of her. That"--an ominous gleam crept into
Lewson's eyes--"was the real beginning of the trouble. He had us hauled
up before him--guess the other man had to tell him who we were--and when
I wouldn't answer he slashed me across the face with a dog whip."

Lewson clenched a lean brown fist. "Yes" he added, hoar