smuggler, and she sailed like a
witch. Her master was a squarehead who would do anything for money, and
we made a charter to China worth his while. He sailed from San
Francisco, and a few days later we took out Landhouse's sloop for a
cruise. She was only a five-ton yacht, but we slammed her fifty miles to
windward into the north-east trade. Seasick? I never suffered so in my
life. Out of sight of land we picked up the _Halcyon_, and Burnley and I
went aboard.

"We ran down to Molokai, arriving about eleven at night. The schooner
hove to and we landed through the surf in a whale-boat at Kalawao--the
place, you know, where Father Damien died. That squarehead was game.
With a couple of revolvers strapped on him he came right along. The
three of us crossed the peninsula to Kalaupapa, something like two miles.
Just imagine hunting in the dead of night for a man in a settlement of
over a thousand lepers. You see, if the alarm was given, it was all off
with us. It was strange ground, and pitch dark. The leper's dogs came
out and bayed at us, and we stumbled around till we got lost.

"The squarehead solved it. He led the way into the first detached house.
We shut the door after us and struck a light. There were six lepers. We
routed them up, and I talked in native. What I wanted was a _kokua_. A
_kokua_ is, literally, a helper, a native who is clean that lives in the
settlement and is paid by the Board of Health to nurse the lepers, dress
their sores, and such things. We stayed in the house to keep track of
the inmates, while the squarehead led one of them off to find a _kokua_.
He got him, and he brought him along at the point of his revolver. But
the _kokua_ was all right. While the squarehead guarded the house,
Burnley and I were guided by the _kokua_ to Lyte's house. He was all
alone.

"'I thought you fellows would come,' Lyte said. 'Don't touch me, John.
How's Ned, and Charley, and all the crowd? Never mind, tell me
afterward. I am ready to go now. I've had nine months of it. Where's
the boat?'

"We started back for the other house to pick up the squarehead. But the
alarm had got out. Lights were showing in the houses, and doors were
slamming. We had agreed that there was to be no shooting unless
absolutely necessary, and when we were halted we went at it with our
fists and the butts of our revolvers. I found myself tangled up with a
big man. I couldn't keep him off me, though twice I s