He turned to Kate.
"These eggs are new-laid--they"re--they"re not more than twenty-four hours old."
His glance dared McTee to doubt the statement. The captain accepted the challenge.
"I suppose you watched "em being laid, Harrigan?"
Harrigan sneered.
"I can tell by the taste partly and partly"--here he cracked the sh.e.l.l of another egg and, stripping it off, held up the little white oval to the 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 be stale."
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 covert glances, amazed, wondering. They had saved each other from death at sea, and now they were quarreling bitterly over the qualities of eggs.
And not eggs alone, for McTee, not to be outdone in courtesy, pa.s.sed a handful of his sh.e.l.lfish to Harrigan. The Irishman regarded the fish and 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 sh.e.l.lfish," he demanded.
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 salt food, an" he ate a lot of these sh.e.l.lfish. 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 a tentative finger against her white teeth, as if expecting to find them loose.
"I didn"t want to hurt McTee"s feelin"s. Besides, maybe a few of them won"t hurt you--much!"
McTee suddenly burst into laughter, but there was little mirth in the sound.
"Maybe you know these are the great blue clams that are famous for their salt."
"Really?" said Kate, greatly relieved.
"Yes," went on McTee, his eyes wandering slightly. "This species of clam has an unusual organ by which it extracts some of the salt from the sea water while taking its food. Look here!"
He held up a sh.e.l.l and indicated a blue-green spot on the inside.
"You see that color? That"s what gives these clams their name and this is also the place where the salt deposit forms. This clam has a high percentage of salt--more than any other."
Harrigan, sending a bitter side glance at McTee, rose to bring some more wood, for it was imperative that they should keep the fire burning always.
"I"m so glad," said Kate, "that we have both the eggs and the clams to rely on. At least they will keep us from starving in this terrible place."
"H"m. I"m not so sure about the eggs."
He eyed them with a watering mouth, for his raging hunger had not been in the least appeased by the sh.e.l.lfish.
"But I"ll try one just to keep you company."
He peeled away the sh.e.l.l 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 other in the captain"s cabin aboard the _Mary Rogers_.
"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 to be 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 handful of the sh.e.l.lfish.
"Speakin" of salt," he said apologetically, "I"ll have to try a couple of these to be sure that the captain"s right. I can tell by a taste or two."
He pried open one of the sh.e.l.ls and ate the contents hastily, keeping one eye askance against the return of McTee.