that would have ruined the digestion of a camel. Anyway, I've
remedied that; and since we are to be partners, it will stay

remedied. You won't die of malnutrition, be sure of that."
"If we enter into partnership," he announced, "it must be

thoroughly understood that you are not allowed to run the schooner.
You can go down to Sydney and buy her, but a skipper we must have--

"
"At so much additional expense, and most likely a whisky-drinking,

irresponsible, and incapable man to boot. Besides, I'd have the
business more at heart than any man we could hire. As for

capability, I tell you I can sail all around the average broken
captain or promoted able seaman you find in the South Seas. And

you know I am a navigator."
"But being my partner," he said coolly, "makes you none the less a

lady."
"Thank you for telling me that my contemplated conduct is

unladylike."
She arose, tears of anger and mortification in her eyes, and went

over to the phonograph.
"I wonder if all men are as ridiculous as you?" she said.

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Discussion was useless--he
had learned that; and he was resolved to keep his temper. And

before the day was out she capitulated. She was to go to Sydney on
the first steamer, purchase the schooner, and sail back with an

island skipper on board. And then she inveigled Sheldon into
agreeing that she could take occasionalcruises in the islands,

though he was adamant when it came to a recruiting trip on Malaita.
That was the one thing barred.

And after it was all over, and a terse and business-like agreement
(by her urging) drawn up and signed, Sheldon paced up and down for

a full hour, meditating upon how many different kinds of a fool he
had made of himself. It was an impossible situation, and yet no

more impossible than the previous one, and no more impossible than
the one that would have obtained had she gone off on her own and

bought Pari-Sulay. He had never seen a more independent woman who
stood more in need of a protector than this boy-minded girl who had

landed on his beach with eight picturesque savages, a long-
barrelled revolver, a bag of gold, and a gaudy merchandise of

imagined romance and adventure.
He had never read of anything to compare with it. The fictionists,

as usual, were exceeded by fact. The whole thing was too
preposterous to be true. He gnawed his moustache and smoked

cigarette after cigarette. Satan, back from a prowl around the
compound, ran up to him and touched his hand with a cold, damp

nose. Sheldon caressed the animal's ears, then threw himself into
a chair and laughed heartily. What would the Commissioner of the

Solomons think? What would his people at home think? And in the
one breath he was glad that the partnership had been effected and

sorry that Joan Lackland had ever come to the Solomons. Then he
went inside and looked at himself in a hand-mirror. He studied the

reflection long and thoughtfully and wonderingly.
CHAPTER XIV--THE MARTHA

They were deep in a game of billiards the next morning, after the
eleven o'clock breakfast, when Viaburi entered and announced, -

"Big fella schooner close up."
Even as he spoke, they heard the rumble of chain through hawse-

pipe, and from the veranda saw a big black-painted schooner,
swinging to her just-caught anchor.

"It's a Yankee," Joan cried. "See that bow! Look at that
elliptical stern! Ah, I thought so--" as the Stars and Stripes

fluttered to the mast-head.
Noa Noah, at Sheldon's direction, ran the Union Jack up the flag-

staff.
"Now what is an American vessel doing down here?" Joan asked.

"It's not a yacht, though I'll wager she can sail. Look! Her
name! What is it?"

"Martha, San Francisco," Sheldon read, looking through the
telescope. "It's the first Yankee I ever heard of in the Solomons.

They are coming ashore, whoever they are. And, by Jove, look at
those men at the oars. It's an all-white crew. Now what reason

brings them here?"
"They're not proper sailors," Joan commented. "I'd be ashamed of a

crew of black-boys that pulled in such fashion. Look at that
fellow in the bow--the one just jumping out; he'd be more at home

on a cow-pony."
The boat's-crew scattered up and down the beach, ranging about with

eager curiosity, while the two men who had sat in the stern-sheets
opened the gate and came up the path to the bungalow. One of them,

a tall and slender man, was clad in white ducks that fitted him
like a semi-military uniform. The other man, in nondescript

garments that were both of the sea and shore, and that must have
been uncomfortably hot, slouched and shambled like an overgrown

ape. To complete the illusion, his face seemed to sprout in all
directions with a dense, bushy mass of red whiskers, while his eyes

were small and sharp and restless.
Sheldon, who had gone to the head of the steps, introduced them to

Joan. The bewhiskered individual, who looked like a Scotsman, had
the Teutonic name of Von Blix, and spoke with a strong American

accent. The tall man in the well-fitting ducks, who gave the
English name of Tudor--John Tudor--talked purely-enunciated English

such as any cultured American would talk, save for the fact that it
was most delicately and subtly touched by a faint German accent.

Joan decided that she had been helped to identify the accent by the
short German-looking moustache that did not conceal the mouth and

its full red lips, which would have formed a Cupid's bow but for
some harshness or severity of spirit that had moulded them

masculinely.
Von Blix was rough and boorish, but Tudor was gracefully easy in

everything he did, or looked, or said. His blue eyes sparkled and
flashed, his clean-cut mobile features were an index to his

slightest shades of feeling and expression. He bubbled with
enthusiasms, and his faintest smile or lightest laugh seemed

spontaneous and genuine. But it was only occasionally at first
that he spoke, for Von Blix told their story and stated their

errand.
They were on a gold-hunting expedition. He was the leader, and

Tudor was his lieutenant. All hands--and there were twenty-eight--
were shareholders, in varying proportions, in the adventure.

Several were sailors, but the large majority were miners, culled
from all the camps from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. It was the old

and ever-untiring pursuit of gold, and they had come to the
Solomons to get it. Part of them, under the leadership of Tudor,

were to go up the Balesuna and penetrate the mountainous heart of
Guadalcanar, while the Martha, under Von Blix, sailed away for

Malaita to put through similar exploration.
"And so," said Von Blix, "for Mr. Tudor's expedition we must have

some black-boys. Can we get them from you?"
"Of course we will pay," Tudor broke in. "You have only to charge

what you consider them worth. You pay them six pounds a year,
don't you?"

"In the first place we can't spare them," Sheldon answered. "We
are short of them on the plantation as it is."

"WE?" Tudor asked quickly. "Then you are a firm or a partnership?
I understood at Guvutu that you were alone, that you had lost your

partner."