ins? Don't you want her? You won't find many to hold a candle
to her. Looks, built like a racin' yacht, smooth an' speedy. Smart, an'
rich into the bargain. Why don't you make love to her?"

Rainey felt the burning blood mounting to his face and brain.

"I am not in love with Miss Simms," he said. "If I was I should not try
to make love to her under the circumstances. She's alone, and she's
fatherless. I do not care to discuss her."

"She's a woman," said Lund. "And yo're a damned prig! You'd like to bust
me in the jaw, but you know I'm stronger. You've got some guts, Rainey,
but yo're hidebound. You ain't got ha'f the git-up-an'-go to ye that she
has. She's a woman, I tell you, an' she's to be won. If you want her,
why don't you stand up an' try to git her 'stead of sittin' around like
a sick cat whenever I happen to admire her looks?

"I've seen you. I ain't blind enny longer, you know. She's a woman an'
I'm a man. I thought you was one. But you ain't. Yore idea of makin'
love is to send the gal a box of candy an' walk pussy-footed an' write
poems to her. You want to _write_ life an' I want to _live_ it. So does
a gal like that. She's more my breed than yores, if she has got
eddication. An' she's flesh and blood. Same as I am. Yo're half sawdust.
Yo're stuffed."

He went on deck laughing, leaving Rainey raging but helpless. Lund
appeared to think the situation obvious. Two men, and a woman who was
attractive in many ways. The _only_ woman while they were aboard the
schooner, therefore the more to be desired, admired by men cut off from
the rest of the world.

He expected Rainey to be in love with her, to stand up and say so, to
endeavor to win her. Lund sought the ardor of competition. He might be
looking for the excuse to crush Rainey.

But he had said she was of his breed, and that was a true saying. If
Lund was a son of the sea, she was a daughter of a line of seamen. Lund,
sooner or later, meant to take her, willing or unwilling. He had said
so, none too covertly, that very evening. And, if Rainey meant to stand
between her and Lund as a protector, Lund would accept him in that
character only as the girl's lover and his rival.

And Rainey did not know whether he was in love with her or not. He could
not even be certain of the girl. There were times when Lund seemed to
fascinate her. One thing he braced himself to do, to be ready to aid her
against Lund if occasion came, and she needed protection. The luck,