A breeze, fresh and gripping with the taste of brine, swept over the stern of the ship and filled the canvas which Cushner and Whitehouse ordered set. The anchor was brought inboard and lashed to the cleats close by the port cat. The crew, feeling their sea legs, brought out hose and swabs and started cleaning up the shore litter and dunnage, working to the old-time chantey: "'Rah for the grog—the jolly, jolly grog."

Stirling turned the wheel over to the quartermaster after Marr had indicated a compass point, then rolled across the quarter-deck and stood by the green starboard light of the ship, which was turned out. He felt the warm breath of the following wind, gulped the sea air, and squared his shoulders, casting a shrewd eye at the poop-deck log, which was outrigged from the starboard rail.

The land of California was a haze over the starboard quarter. It lifted in places like a cloud bank, and the cleft which marked the Golden Gate was crossed by the white water of the bar. The Ice Pilot smiled, as the simplicity of clean living came to him as a flood.

He turned away from the land vision and studied the ship. On what mission was she headed, he wondered? Upon what seas would they force the taper jib boom? What trade stuff and spoil would be crammed between the hatches? He revolved these questions over and over in his mind, and was in the grip of the unknown. The little dapper skipper, the woman's voice, the mention of Disko Island, and the seal rookeries, all wove their spell:

"Though I plow the land with horses,

Yet my heart is ill at ease,

For the wise men come to me now and then

With their sagas of the seas."

He quoted this verse as he pulled out a great silver watch, gathered in the log line, and timed fifty revolutions.

The Pole Star was striking out into the Pacific on her first leg at fourteen point three knots an hour.

"Somebody's pullin' the strings," Stirling said as he let the slack out of the line and replaced the silver watch. "Maybe the Mazeka girls of Indian Point," he added, striding to the poop rail.

He stared with idle interest at the crew which were still under the able tutelage of Whitehouse and Cushner. The British whaler had a voice like a costermonger, and "Blym me, yes" and "Heaven strike me pink" rolled up the wind and burst like shrapnel upon the poop.

Stirling narrowed his eyes, and indeed the sight of the two mates in sea boots and the ragged crew swarming along the waist was one to charm the heart of a sailor. It brought to his mind other voyages, and he recalled an expedition he had piloted to Point Barrow and the reaches of the Mackenzie. A younger son, with money to spend, had chartered a whaler and taken the Northern seas in search of new game. Game he had found in plenty: walrus, seals—both hair and fur—killer whales, bowheads, polar bears, and musk ox had fallen to the younger son's rifle or harpoon. The crew, however, had proved too strong a stench for polite nostrils. They were picked from the slums of the Barbary Coast.

The Pole Star's foremast hands and the most of the harpooners and boat steerers would have delighted the eyes of an ethnologist. Stirling studied them and called their breeds. One was a cockney, like the mate. Another was a blue-eyed Dane. Three Gay Island natives were mixed with two Kanakas. Two bore the high cheekbones of Swedes. Four, at least, were Frisco dock rats who had been gathered in by the boarding-house runners and promised an advance, little of which they secured.

Stirling searched the faces for the sailor whom he had seen in the Frisco room, but he was not in evidence. That sailor had impressed Stirling as far out of the ordinary. It was not only the polished fingernails and the resolute set to the jaw, but also the certain air which the seaman had carried that led to the deduction that he had at one time commanded other men.

Cushner mopped his face with the back of his sleeve and worked aft to the break of the poop on the starboard side where he glanced up at Stirling.

"Hello, old man!" he said, out of hearing of the busy crew. "What do you think of the Pole Star by now?"

"Good ship. Some crew, though."

The second mate mopped his brow for a second time, then squinted at a gang working down the deck with squeegees. "Eighteen hands before the mast," he said. "That ain't much for six boats. We'll need them all if we lower for bowheads."

"Where's the sailor who came out with me?"

"He's below!" This was said expressively, with a heavy wink. "I think he'll stay below for a watch or two. Somebody—maybe it was Marr—bounced a belaying pin over his figurehead. It'll heal in time."

"What did you make of the sailor?"

"Maybe a spy. Maybe a good man gone wrong."

"He recognized Marr in the Blubber Room!"

Cushner shook his head. "We'll watch that fellow like a killer whale. He'll walk straight under me and Whitehouse."

The second mate closed his jaws with a snap and glared forward, then was off with a rolling lurch to where a slight spot showed on the deck. Grasping a Gay Islander by the neck, he led him to the omission and pointed downward. Stirling heard the racking volley of exclamations as the native fell to work with vigour.

The Pole Star plunged on. She took the long, oily rollers of the North Pacific and parted them like a sharp knife going through frosting. She was logging fourteen knots with reserve steam. The fore, main, and mizzen sails filled and billowed and the foretopmast staysail and jib held the following wind. Whitehouse, casting an eye aloft, ordered the top-sails braced then sprang to the weather braces as the crew hauled manfully under the directions of Cushner.

Marr leaned over the canvas of the poop and rested his elbows on the light rail, searching the sea ahead with his glasses. He turned to the wheelsman. "How you heading?" he asked as the last yard was braced.

"Nor'west by north."

"Hold her northwest by north. Hold her steady!"

The ship drove through the day and into a purple twilight, and the land of California disappeared astern. It left to mark its position a low line of gray clouds upon which the sun gleamed and paled and died to darker hues.