He spoke with the calm assumption of one controlling the schooner,
Rainey noted, rather as skipper than surgeon. But Rainey felt that he
had made a fool of himself, and he took the second draft, which almost
instantly relieved him, cleansing his mouth and throat and, as his
headache died down, clearing his brain.

"Why did you drug me?" he demanded. "Pretty high-handed. I can make you
pay for this."

"Yes? How? When? We're well off Cape Mendocino, heading nor'west or
thereabouts. Nothing between us and Unalaska but fog and deep water.
Before we get back you'll see the payment in a different light. We're
not pirates. This was plain business. A million or more in sight.

"Lund nearly spilled things as it was, raving the way he did. It's a
wonder some one didn't overhear him with sense enough to tumble.

"We didn't take any chances. Rounded up the crew, and got out. The man
who's made a gold discovery thinks everybody else is watching him. It's
a genuine risk. If they followed us, they'd crowd us off the beach. I
don't suppose any one has followed us. If they have, we've lost them in
this fog.

"But we didn't take any risks after Lund's blowing off. He might have
done it ashore before you brought him aboard. I don't think so. But he
might. And so might you, later."

"I'd have given you my word."

"And meant to keep it. But you'd have been an uncertain factor, a weak
link. You might have given it away in your sleep. You heard enough to
figure the general locality of the island when Lund blurted it out. You
knew too much. Suppose the _Karluk_ fought up to Kotzebue Bay and found
a dozen power-vessels hanging about, waiting for us to lead them to the
beach? And we'd have worried all the way up, with you loose. You're a
newspaperman. The suppression of this yarn would have obsessed you, lain
on your reportorial conscience.

"I don't suppose your salary is much over thirty a week, is it? Now,
then, here you are in for a touch of real adventure, better than
gleaning dock gossip, to a red-blooded man. If we win--and you saw the
gold--_you_ win. We expect to give you a share. We haven't taken it up
yet, but it'll be enough. More than you'd earn in ten years, likely,
more than you'd be apt to save in a lifetime. We kidnapped you for your
own good. You're a prisoner _de luxe_, with the run of the ship."

"I can work my passage," said Rainey. He could see the force of the
doctor's argument, though he didn't like the man.