Her very words--"lend a hand"; and in his fancy,
he could see and hear her saying them.
There was much in her wilful conduct that caused him to wince in the
heart of him. He was appalled by the thought of her shoulder to shoulder
with the drunken rabble of traders and beachcombers at Guvutu. It was
bad enough for a clean, fastidious man; but for a young woman, a girl at
that, it was awful. The theft of the _Flibberty-Gibbet_ was merely
amusing, though the means by which the theft had been effected gave him
hurt. Yet he found consolation in the fact that the task of making
Oleson drunk had been turned over to the three scoundrels. And next, and
swiftly, came the vision of her, alone with those same three scoundrels,
on the _Emily_, sailing out to sea from Guvutu in the twilight with
darkness coming on. Then came visions of Adamu Adam and Noa Noah and all
her brawny Tahitian following, and his anxiety faded away, being replaced
by irritation that she should have been capable of such wildness of
conduct.
And the irritation was still on him as he got up and went inside to stare
at the hook on the wall and to wish that her Stetson hat and revolver-
belt were hanging from it.
CHAPTER XVIII--MAKING THE BOOKS COME TRUE
Several quiet weeks slipped by.
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