hot climate when they went out to take
up land! Whoof! I'd give a lot for ten cubic feet of 'Frisco fog
right now! Turn the blowers on in our rooms, Wilkins, and say, aim
mine at the bath water. Well, look who's here! If that isn't Trask
I'll----"

"Mr. Trask!" cried Miss Locke. "How jolly! Fancy meeting you!"

"Fancy meeting him!" exclaimed Locke, derisively. "It's a frameup,
that's what it is, a frameup on me and my prickly heat!"

Trask climbed out from behind his paper and stood up, bowing and
grinning.

"I'm sorry you missed your boat--almost," he said.

"Oh, shucks!" said Locke, taking his hand and pulling him forward.
"I don't give a whoop. Marge, I'll bet forty dollars you knew that
Dagupan train wouldn't catch the _Taming_!"

"Don't be absurd, Dad. We're so glad to meet you again, Mr. Trask.
We were stupid about the train, but----"

"You'll have to excuse me," said her father, "I hear the bath
going. Wilkins! Feed us tiffin till we're blue in the face," and he
disappeared into the _sala_.

"And there isn't a boat to connect with the Pacific Mail for
twenty-six days," said Trask. "I'm on a vacation."

"You know so much about Manila, too," she said. "But we may go on
the Thursday boat."

"The Thursday boat?"

"Yes."

"If there's a Thursday boat, I'll wreck it," said Trask, and
clapped his hands for the _muchacho_.

CHAPTER II

DINSHAW TELLS OF HIS ISLAND

"Here," said Locke, "comes Rip Van Winkle--without his dog."

"A beggar!" whispered Marjorie, looking past Trask. "Poor old man!"

Trask turned from the table, and saw at the end of the veranda an
old man approaching with a package under his arm. He looked like a
vagabond, in khaki trousers with the bottoms fringed by tatters
through which showed his bare ankles; pitiful old cloth shoes; a
patched coat of white drill with frogging across the front such as
Chinese mess boys wear; and a battered, rimless straw hat. He drew
near the table with weary feet, hesitatingly and dazed, as though
he had lost his way, peering about like an owl thrust into the
light of mid-day from a darkened belfry.

"Why, it must be Captain Dinshaw!" said Trask.

The old man stopped ten feet from the trio and lifting his head
like a hound who has taken scent, gazed at them suspiciously. Then
he smiled toothlessly and swung off his bowl of a hat with a grand
air.

"Aye, sir," he said, in a weak but shrill voice. "Cap'n Dinshaw,
late of the bark, _James B