"Don't you remember 'Annexation'?"
"The Philippines!" he cried triumphantly.
"No, Hawaii. I was born there. It is a beautiful land. My, I'm almost
homesick for it already. Not that I haven't been away. I was in New
York when the crash came. But I do think it is the sweetest spot on
earth--Hawaii, I mean."
"Then what under the sun are you doing down here in this God-forsaken
place?" he asked. "Only fools come here," he added bitterly.
"Nielsen wasn't a fool, was he?" she queried. "As I understand, he made
three millions here."
"Only too true, and that fact is responsible for my being here."
"And for me, too," she said. "Dad heard about him in the Marquesas, and
so we started. Only poor Dad didn't get here."
"He--your father--died?" he faltered.
She nodded, and her eyes grew soft and moist.
"I might as well begin at the beginning." She lifted her head with a
proud air of dismissing sadness, after, the manner of a woman qualified
to wear a Baden-Powell and a long-barrelled Colt's. "I was born at Hilo.
That's on the island of Hawaii--the biggest and best in the whole group.
I was brought up the way most girls in Hawaii are brought up. They live
in the open, and they know how to ride and swim before they know what six-
times-six is.
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