y,
I'll make 'cards' on you. That's all I need."

"I'll let you save little casino----" Grief paused to calculate. "Yes,
and the ace as well, and still I'll make 'cards' and go out with big
casino. Play."

"No 'cards' and I win!" Deacon exulted as the last of the hand was
played. "I go out on little casino and the four aces. 'Big casino' and
'spades' only bring you to twenty."

Grief shook his head. "Some mistake, I'm afraid."

"No," Deacon declared positively. "I counted every card I took in.
That's the one thing I was correct on. I've twenty-six, and you've
twenty-six."

"Count again," Grief said.

Carefully and slowly, with trembling fingers, Deacon counted the cards
he had taken. There were twenty-five. He reached over to the corner of
the table, took up the rules Grief had written, folded them, and put
them in his pocket. Then he emptied his glass, and stood up. Captain
Donovan looked at his watch, yawned, and also arose.

"Going aboard, Captain?" Deacon asked.

"Yes," was the answer. "What time shall I send the whaleboat for you?"

"I'll go with you now. We'll pick up my luggage from the _Billy_ as we
go by, I was sailing on her for Babo in the morning."

Deacon shook hands all around, after receiving a final pledge of good
luck on Karo-Karo.

"Does Tom Butler play cards?" he asked Grief.

"Solitaire," was the answer.

"Then I'll teach him double solitaire." Deacon turned toward the door,
where Captain Donovan waited, and added with a sigh, "And I fancy he'll
skin me, too, if he plays like the rest of you island men."

Chapter Seven--THE FEATHERS OF THE SUN

I

It was the island of Fitu-Iva--the last independent Polynesian
stronghold in the South Seas. Three factors conduced to Fitu-Iva's
independence. The first and second were its isolation and the
warlikeness of its population. But these would not have saved it in
the end had it not been for the fact that Japan, France, Great
Britain, Germany, and the United States discovered its desirableness
simultaneously. It was like gamins scrambling for a penny. They got
in one another's way. The war vessels of the five Powers cluttered
Fitu-Iva's one small harbour. There were rumours of war and threats of
war. Over its morning toast all the world read columns about Fitu-Iva.
As a Yankee blue jacket epitomized it at the time, they all got their
feet in the trough at once.

So it was that Fitu-Iva escaped even a joint protectorate, and K