big canoes came down from Port Adams. They landed in
the night-time, and caught Oscar asleep. What they didn't steal they
burned. The _Flibberty-Gibbet_ got the news at Mboli Pass, and ran down
to Ugi. I was at Mboli when the news came."

"I think I'll have to abandon Ugi," Sheldon remarked.

"It's the second trader you've lost there in a year," Young concurred.
"To make it safe there ought to be two white men at least. Those Malaita
canoes are always raiding down that way, and you know what that Port
Adams lot is. I've got a dog for you. Tommy Jones sent it up from Neal
Island. He said he'd promised it to you. It's a first-class
nigger-chaser. Hadn't been on board two minutes when he had my whole
boat's-crew in the rigging. Tommy calls him Satan."

"I've wondered several times why you had no dogs here," Joan said.

"The trouble is to keep them. They're always eaten by the crocodiles."

"Jack Hanley was killed at Marovo Lagoon two months ago," Young announced
in his mild voice. "The news just came down on the _Apostle_."

"Where is Marovo Lagoon?" Joan asked.

"New Georgia, a couple of hundred miles to the westward," Sheldon
answered. "Bougainville lies just beyond."

"His own house-boys did it," Young went on; "but they were put up to it
by the Marovo natives. His Santa Cruz boat's-crew escaped in the whale-
boat to Choiseul, and Mather, in the _Lily_, sailed over to Marovo. He
burned a village, and got Hanley's head back. He found it in one of the
houses, where the niggers had it drying. And that's all the news I've
got, except that there's a lot of new Lee-Enfields loose on the eastern
end of Ysabel. Nobody knows how the natives got them. The government
ought to investigate. And--oh yes, a war vessel's in the group, the
_Cambrian_. She burned three villages at Bina--on account of the
_Minota_, you know--and shelled the bush. Then she went to Sio to
straighten out things there."

The conversation became general, and just before Young left to go on
board Joan asked,--

"How can you manage all alone, Mr. Young?"

His large, almost girlish eyes rested on her for a moment before he
replied, and then it was in the softest and gentlest of voices.

"Oh, I get along pretty well with them. Of course, there is a bit of
trouble once in a while, but that must be expected. You must never let
them think you are afraid. I've been afraid plenty of times, but they
never knew it."

"You would th