ey were; for he had moved and lived always under the aegis of the great
two-legged and be-trousered god, _Mister_ Haggin.

Then there were the strange return boys, from Pennduffryn and the Bay of
a Thousand Ships. He insisted on knowing them all. He might need to
know them in some future time. He did not think this. He merely
equipped himself with knowledge of his environment without any awareness
of provision or without bothering about the future.

In his own way of acquiring knowledge, he quickly discovered, just as on
the plantation house-boys were different from field-boys, that on the
_Arangi_ there was a classification of boys different from the return
boys. This was the boat's crew. The fifteen blacks who composed it were
closer than the others to Captain Van Horn. They seemed more directly to
belong to the _Arangi_ and to him. They laboured under him at word of
command, steering at the wheel, pulling and hauling on ropes, healing
water upon the deck from overside and scrubbing with brooms.

Just as Jerry had learned from _Mister_ Haggin that he must be more
tolerant of the house-boys than of the field-boys if they trespassed on
the compound, so, from Captain Van Horn, he learned that he must be more
tolerant of the boat's crew than of the return boys. He had less license
with them, more license with the others. As long as Captain Van Horn did
not want his boat's crew chased, it was Jerry's duty not to chase. On
the other hand he never forgot that he was a white-god's dog. While he
might not chase these particular blacks, he declined familiarity with
them. He kept his eye on them. He had seen blacks as tolerated as
these, lined up and whipped by _Mister_ Haggin. They occupied an
intermediate place in the scheme of things, and they were to be watched
in case they did not keep their place. He accorded them room, but he did
not accord them equality. At the best, he could be stand-offishly
considerate of them.

He made thorough examination of the galley, a rude affair, open on the
open deck, exposed to wind and rain and storm, a small stove that was not
even a ship's stove, on which somehow, aided by strings and wedges,
commingled with much smoke, two blacks managed to cook the food for the
four-score persons on board.

Next, he was interested by a strange proceeding on the part of the boat's
crew. Upright pipes, serving as stanchions, were being screwed into the
top of the _Arangi's_ rail so th