arply, and for some time she
gazed at him steadily. At last, speaking to two of the men, who turned
and followed her, she started up the path.

Sheldon attempted to rise, got half up out of his chair, and fell back
helplessly. He was surprised at the size of the men, who loomed like
giants behind her. Both were six-footers, and they were heavy in
proportion. He had never seen islanders like them. They were not black
like the Solomon Islanders, but light brown; and their features were
larger, more regular, and even handsome.

The woman--or girl, rather, he decided--walked along the veranda toward
him. The two men waited at the head of the steps, watching curiously.
The girl was angry; he could see that. Her gray eyes were flashing, and
her lips were quivering. That she had a temper, was his thought. But
the eyes were striking. He decided that they were not gray after all,
or, at least, not all gray. They were large and wide apart, and they
looked at him from under level brows. Her face was cameo-like, so clear
cut was it. There were other striking things about her--the cowboy
Stetson hat, the heavy braids of brown hair, and the long-barrelled 38
Colt's revolver that hung in its holster on her hip.

"Pretty hospitality, I must say," was her greeting, "letting strangers
sink or swim in your front yard."

"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered, by a supreme effort dragging
himself to his feet.

His legs wobbled under him, and with a suffocating sensation he began
sinking to the floor. He was aware of a feeble gratification as he saw
solicitude leap into her eyes; then blackness smote him, and at the
moment of smiting him his thought was that at last, and for the first
time in his life, he had fainted.

The ringing of the big bell aroused him. He opened his eyes and found
that he was on the couch indoors. A glance at the clock told him that it
was six, and from the direction the sun's rays streamed into the room he
knew that it was morning. At first he puzzled over something untoward he
was sure had happened. Then on the wall he saw a Stetson hat hanging,
and beneath it a full cartridge-belt and a long-barrelled 38 Colt's
revolver. The slender girth of the belt told its feminine story, and he
remembered the whale-boat of the day before and the gray eyes that
flashed beneath the level brows. She it must have been who had just rung
the bell. The cares of the plantation rushed upon him, and he sat up in