t had wit enough to realize that she was not at all typical. Her quick mind and changing moods bewildered him, while her outlook on life was so different from wha

e on him, which did not approximate at all to his ideal of woman's conduct when a man was around. Her assumption of equality with him was disconcerting, and at times he half-consciously resented the impudence and bizarreness of her intrusion upon him-rising out

prettily the woman-the girl, rather-that it cut him like a knife to see her, with quick, comprehensive eyes and sharply imperative voice, superintend the launching of the whale-boat through the surf. In imagination he could see her roping a horse, and it always made him shudder. Then, too, she was so many-sided. Her knowledge of literature and art surp

e sat entranced. Then she was all woman, and the magic of sex kidnapped the irritations of the day and made him forget the big revolver, the Baden-Powell, and all the rest. But what right, the next thought in his brain would whisper, had such a girl to swagger around like a man and exult that adventure w

d training. Berande, inhabited by one lone white man, was no place for Joan Lackland. Yet he racked his brain for a w

me here," she said. "I'll man the whal

tant understrapper and ex-sailor-a common sailor. He is in charge of the government of the Solomons, to say nothing of a hundred or so niggers-prisoners. Besides, he is su

uvutu," she

ok his

five white men who are drinking thems

ess I'll start to-day.-Viaburi! You go

sailor, who had been b

Sheldon asked in surpri

mediately," w

on't per

said it once before, and it

by her sudden anger. "If I

one fella Noa Noah al

boy starte

u. And now, Miss Lackland, I insist-you must ex

esumed, you

swallowed, and

ed the pictu

ound with it all," he said. "I

you told me that you would n

's wrong

he will permit or not permit. I'm too old to have a guardi

is every woma

allow me to send your boy for Noa Noah? I wish him to

black statue-taking no interest in the transactions of these incomprehensible whites, but dreaming with calm eyes of a certain bush village hig

o anything so fo

go again,

nner of speaking. Of course I am not your guardian. You know you can go to Guvutu if you want to"-"or to the devil," he was almost tempted to add.

d and sat

edom. It is a sore point with me, this being told what I am to do or not do by you self-constituted lords of creation.-Viaburi I You stop along k

d through had you not happened along. But that is not the point. Personally, purely selfishly personally, I should be sorry to see you go. But I am not consid

her hands in

t go, and in the next breath you tell me there is no place to go

rouble," he s

ituation a

or your

. Here is the situation. You are here. I am here. I can't go elsewhere, by your own account. You certainly can't go elsewhere and leave me here alone with a whole plantation and two hundred woolly cannibals on my ha

hed, but rem

were a man you'd wring my neck for me. And I deserve it, too

t," he said, relieved by the

cocoanut planting. In return, I'll run the kitchen end of your household and give you some decent food to eat. And finally, I won't listen to any of your protests. I know all that you are going to say and offer-your giving the bungalow up to me and building a grass house for yourself. And I won't