Noa Noah, at Sheldon's direction, ran the Union Jack up the flagstaff.
"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.
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