CHAPTER 11
"Eggs! How perfectly wonderful, Mr. Harrigan! And I'm starved!"
She looked up to him, radiant with delight; but the triumphant eye ofHarrigan fell not upon her but on McTee, who had suddenly grownpensive.
"But how can we cook them? There's nothing to boil water in--and no panfor frying them," ventured McTee.
"Roast 'em," said Harrigan scornfully. "Like this."
He wrapped several eggs in wet clay and placed them in the glowingashes of the fire which had now burned low.
"While they're cooking," said McTee, "I'm going off. I've an idea."
Harrigan watched him with a shade of suspicion while he retreated. Heturned his head to find Kate studying him gravely.
"Before you came, Mr. Harrigan--"
"My name's Dan. That'll save time."
"While you were gone," she went on, thanking him with a smile, "CaptainMcTee told me a great many things about you."
Harrigan stirred uneasily.
"Among other things, that you had no such record as he hinted at whilewe were on the _Mary Rogers_. So I have to ask you to forgive me--"
The blue eyes grew bright as he watched her.
"I've forgotten all that, for the sea washed it away from my mind."
"Really?"
"As clean as the wind has washed the sky."
Not a cloud stained the broad expanse from horizon to horizon.
"That's a beautiful way to put it. Now that we are here on the island,we begin all over again and forget what happened on the ship?"
"Aye, all of it."
"Shake on it."
He took her hand, but so gingerly that she laughed.
"We have to be careful of you," he explained seriously. "Here we are,as McTee puts it, on the rim of the world, two men an' one woman. Ifsomething happens to one of us, a third of our population's gone."
"A third of our population! Then I'm very important?"
"You are."
He was so serious that it disconcerted her. It suddenly becameimpossible for her to meet his eyes, they burned so bright, so eager,with something like a threat in them. She hailed the returning figureof McTee with relief.
He came bearing a large gourd, and he knelt before Kate so that shemight look into it. She cried out at what she saw, for he had washedthe inside of the gourd and filled it with cool water from the spring.
"Look!" said she to Harrigan. "It's water--and my throat is fairlyburning."
"Humph," growled Harrigan, and he avoided the eye of McTee.
The gourd was too heavy and clumsy for her to handle. The captain hadto raise and tip it so that she might drink, and as she drank, her eyeswent up to his with gratitude.
Harrigan set his teeth and commenced raking the roasted eggs from thehot ashes. When her thirst was quenched, she looked in amazement atHarrigan; even his back showed anger. In some mysterious manner it wasplain that she had displeased the big Irishman.
He turned now and offered her an egg, after removing the clay mold. Butwhen she thanked him with the most flattering of smiles, she becameaware that McTee in turn was vexed, while the Irishman seemed perfectlyhappy again.
"Have an egg, McTee," he offered, and rolled a couple toward the bigcaptain.
"I will not. I never had a taste for eggs."
"Why, captain," murmured Kate, "you can't live on shellfish?"
"Humph! Can't I? Very nutritious, Kate, and very healthful. Have to becareful what you eat in this climate. Those eggs, for instance. Can youtell, Harrigan, whether or not they're fresh?"
Harrigan, his mouth full of egg, paused and glared at the captain.
"For the captain of a ship, McTee," he said coldly, "your head ispacked with fool ideas. Eat your fish an' don't spoil the appetites ofothers."
He turned to Kate.
"These eggs are new-laid--they're--they're not more than twenty-fourhours old."
His glance dared McTee to doubt the statement. The captain accepted thechallenge.
"I suppose you watched 'em being laid, Harrigan?"
Harrigan sneered.
"I can tell by the taste partly and partly"--here he cracked the shellof another egg and, stripping it off, held up the little white oval tothe light--"and partly by the color. It's dead white, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"That shows it's fresh. If there was a bit of blue in it, it'd bestale."
McTee breathed hard.
"You win," he said. "You ought to be on the stage, Harrigan."
But Harrigan was deep in another egg. Kate watched the two with covertglances, amazed, wondering. They had saved each other from death atsea, and now they were quarreling bitterly over the qualities of eggs.
And not eggs alone, for McTee, not to be outdone in courtesy, passed ahandful of his shellfish to Harrigan. The Irishman regarded the fishand then McTee with cold disgust.
"D'you really think I'm crazy enough to eat one of these?" he queried.
Black McTee was black indeed as he glowered at the big Irishman.
"Open up; let's hear what you got to say about these shellfish," hedemanded.
Harrigan announced laconically: "Scurvy."
"What?" This from Kate and McTee at one breath.
"Sure. There ain't any salt in 'em. No salt is as bad as too much salt.A friend of mine was once in a place where he couldn't get any saltfood, an' he ate a lot of these shellfish. What was the result? Scurvy!He hasn't a tooth in his head today. An' he's only thirty."
"Why didn't you tell me?" cried Kate indignantly, and she laid atentative finger against her white teeth, as if expecting to find themloose.
"I didn't want to hurt McTee's feelin's. Besides, maybe a few of themwon't hurt you--much!"
McTee suddenly burst into laughter, but there was little mirth in thesound.
"Maybe you know these are the great blue clams that are famous fortheir salt."
"Really?" said Kate, greatly relieved.
"Yes," went on McTee, his eyes wandering slightly. "This species ofclam has an unusual organ by which it extracts some of the salt fromthe sea water while taking its food. Look here!"
He held up a shell and indicated a blue-green spot on the inside.
"You see that color? That's what gives these clams their name and thisis also the place where the salt deposit forms. This clam has a highpercentage of salt--more than any other."
Harrigan, sending a bitter side glance at McTee, rose to bring somemore wood, for it was imperative that they should keep the fire burningalways.
"I'm so glad," said Kate, "that we have both the eggs and the clams torely on. At least they will keep us from starving in this terribleplace."
"H'm. I'm not so sure about the eggs."
He eyed them with a watering mouth, for his raging hunger had not beenin the least appeased by the shellfish.
"But I'll try one just to keep you company."
He peeled away the shell and swallowed the egg hastily, lest Harrigan,returning, should see that he had changed his mind.
"Maybe the eggs are all right," he admitted as soon as he could speak,and he picked up another, "but between you and me, I'll confess that Ishall not pay much attention to what Harrigan has to say. He's neverbeen to sea before. You can't expect a landlubber to understand all theconditions of a life like this."
But a new thought which was gradually forming in her brain made Katereserve judgment. Harrigan came back and placed a few more sticks ofwood on the fire.
"I can't understand," said Kate, "how you could make a fire without asign of a match."
"That's simple," said McTee easily. "When a man has traveled about asmuch as I have, he has to pick up all sorts of unusual ways of doingthings. The way we made that fire was to--"
"The way _we_ made it?" interjected Harrigan with bitter emphasis.
Kate frowned as she glanced from one to the other. There was the samedeep hostility in their eyes which she had noticed when they faced eachother in the captain's cabin aboard the _Mary Roge
rs_.
"An' why were ye sittin' prayin' for fire with the gir-rl thremblin'and freezin' to death in yer ar-rms if ye knew so well how to be makin'one?"
"Hush--Dan," said Kate; for the fire of anger blew high.
McTee started.
"You know each other pretty well, eh?"
"Tut, tut!" said Harrigan airily. "You can't expect a slip of a girl tobe calling a black man like _you_ by the front name?"
McTee moistened his white lips. He rose.
"I'm going for a walk--I always do after eating."
And he strode off down the beach. Harrigan instantly secured a handfulof the shellfish.
"Speakin' of salt," he said apologetically, "I'll have to try a coupleof these to be sure that the captain's right. I can tell by a taste ortwo."
He pried open one of the shells and ate the contents hastily, keepingone eye askance against the return of McTee.
"Maybe he's right about these shellfish," he pronounced judicially,"but it's a hard thing an' a dangerous thing to take the word of a manlike McTee--he's that hasty. We must go easy on believin' what he says,Kate."