As Sheldon rode about the plantation, acknowledging to himself
the comfort and convenience of a horse and wondering why he had not
thought of getting one himself, he pondered the various improvements for
which Joan was responsible--the splendid Poonga-Poonga recruits; the
fruits and vegetables; the _Martha_ herself, snatched from the sea for a
song and earning money hand over fist despite old Kinross's slow and safe
method of running her; and Berande, once more financially secure,
approaching each day nearer the dividend-paying time, and growing each
day as the black toilers cleared the bush, cut the cane-grass, and
planted more cocoanut palms.
In these and a thousand ways Sheldon was made aware of how much he was
indebted for material prosperity to Joan--to the slender, level-browed
girl with romance shining out of her gray eyes and adventure shouting
from the long-barrelled Colt's on her hip, who had landed on the beach
that piping gale, along with her stalwart Tahitian crew, and who had
entered his bungalow to hang with boy's hands her revolver-belt and Baden-
Powell hat on the nail by the billiard table. He forgot all the early
exasperations, remembering only her charms and sweetnesses and glorying
much in the traits he at first had disliked most--her boyishness and
adventurousness, her delight to swim and risk the sharks, her desire to
go recruiting, her love of the sea and ships, her sharp authoritative
words when she launched the whale-boat and, with firestick in one hand
and dynamite-stick in the other, departed with her picturesque crew to
shoot fish in the Balesuna; her super-innocent disdain for the commonest
conventions, her juvenile joy in argument, her fluttering, wild-bird love
of freedom and mad passion for independence.
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