aia_ trees burdened with their golden fruit.

Koolau had been driven to this refuge from the lower valley by the beach.
And if he were driven from it in turn, he knew of gorges among the
jumbled peaks of the inner fastnesses where he could lead his subjects
and live. And now he lay with his rifle beside him, peering down through
a tangled screen of foliage at the soldiers on the beach. He noted that
they had large guns with them, from which the sunshine flashed as from
mirrors. The knife-edged passage lay directly before him. Crawling
upward along the trail that led to it he could see tiny specks of men. He
knew they were not the soldiers, but the police. When they failed, then
the soldiers would enter the game.

He affectionately rubbed a twisted hand along his rifle barrel and made
sure that the sights were clean. He had learned to shoot as a
wild-cattle hunter on Niihau, and on that island his skill as a marksman
was unforgotten. As the toiling specks of men grew nearer and larger, he
estimated the range, judged the deflection of the wind that swept at
right angles across the line of fire, and calculated the chances of
overshooting marks that were so far below his level. But he did not
shoot. Not until they reached the beginning of the passage did he make
his presence known. He did not disclose himself, but spoke from the
thicket.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"We want Koolau, the leper," answered the man who led the native police,
himself a blue-eyed American.

"You must go back," Koolau said.

He knew the man, a deputy sheriff, for it was by him that he had been
harried out of Niihau, across Kauai, to Kalalau Valley, and out of the
valley to the gorge.

"Who are you?" the sheriff asked.

"I am Koolau, the leper," was the reply.

"Then come out. We want you. Dead or alive, there is a thousand dollars
on your head. You cannot escape."

Koolau laughed aloud in the thicket.

"Come out!" the sheriff commanded, and was answered by silence.

He conferred with the police, and Koolau saw that they were preparing to
rush him.

"Koolau," the sheriff called. "Koolau, I am coming across to get you."

"Then look first and well about you at the sun and sea and sky, for it
will be the last time you behold them."

"That's all right, Koolau," the sheriff said soothingly. "I know you're
a dead shot. But you won't shoot me. I have never done you any wrong."

Koolau grunted in the thicket.