He eyed them with a watering mouth, for his raging hunger had not been
in 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 I
shall not pay much attention to what Harrigan has to say. He's never
been to sea before. You can't expect a landlubber to understand all the
conditions of a life like this."

But a new thought which was gradually forming in her brain made Kate
reserve judgment. Harrigan came back and placed a few more sticks of
wood on the fire.

"I can't understand," said Kate, "how you could make a fire without a
sign of a match."

"That's simple," said McTee easily. "When a man has traveled about as
much as I have, he has to pick up all sorts of unusual ways of doing
things. 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 same
deep hostility in their eyes which she had noticed when they faced each