anding party at all; and then the silence was harder than ever, and
the mangroves grew blacker, and it was all I could do to keep from
calling out to Curtis in there in the landing boat, just to make sure
that I wasn't the only white man left alive.

"Of course there was a row. It had to come, and I knew it; but it
startled me just the same. I never heard such screeching and yelling in
my life. The niggers must have just dived for the bush without looking
to see what was up, while her Tahitians let loose, shooting in the air
and yelling to hurry 'em on. And then, just as sudden, came the silence
again--all except for some small kiddie that had got dropped in the
stampede and that kept crying in the bush for its mother.

"And then I heard them coming through the mangroves, and an oar strike on
a gunwale, and Miss Lackland laugh, and I knew everything was all right.
We pulled on board without a shot being fired. And, by God! she had made
the books come true, for there was old Kina-Kina himself being hoisted
over the rail, shivering and chattering like an ape. The rest was easy.
Kina-Kina's word was law, and he was scared to death. And we kept him on
board issuing proclamations all the time we were in Poonga-Poonga.

"It was a good move, too, in other ways. She made Kina-Kina order his
people to return all the gear they'd stripped from the _Martha_. And
back it came, day after day, steering compasses, blocks and tackles,
sails, coils of rope, medicine chests, ensigns, signal flags--everything,
in fact, except the trade goods and supplies which had already been _kai-
kai'd_. Of course, she gave them a few sticks of tobacco to keep them in
good humour."

"Sure she did," Sparrowhawk broke forth. "She gave the beggars five
fathoms of calico for the big mainsail, two sticks of tobacco for the
chronometer, and a sheath-knife worth elevenpence ha'penny for a hundred
fathoms of brand new five-inch manila. She got old Kina-Kina with that
strong hand on the go off, and she kept him going all the time. She--here
she comes now."

It was with a shock of surprise that Sheldon greeted her appearance. All
the time, while the tale of happening at Poonga-Poonga had been going on,
he had pictured her as the woman he had always known, clad roughly, skirt
made out of window-curtain stuff, an undersized man's shirt for a blouse,
straw sandals for foot covering, with the Stetson hat and the eternal
revolver completing her costu