d.

"Let us talk," said Koolau.

The man's head and shoulders arose, then his whole body. He was a smooth-
faced, blue-eyed youngster of twenty-five, slender and natty in his
captain's uniform. He advanced until halted, then seated himself a dozen
feet away.

"You are a brave man," said Koolau wonderingly. "I could kill you like a
fly."

"No, you couldn't," was the answer.

"Why not?"

"Because you are a man, Koolau, though a bad one. I know your story. You
kill fairly."

Koolau grunted, but was secretly pleased.

"What have you done with my people?" he demanded. "The boy, the two
women, and the man?"

"They gave themselves up, as I have now come for you to do."

Koolau laughed incredulously.

"I am a free man," he announced. "I have done no wrong. All I ask is to
be left alone. I have lived free, and I shall die free. I will never
give myself up."

"Then your people are wiser than you," answered the young captain.
"Look--they are coming now."

Koolau turned and watched the remnant of his band approach. Groaning and
sighing, a ghastly procession, it dragged its wretchedness past. It was
given to Koolau to taste a deeper bitterness, for they hurled
imprecations and insults at him as they went by; and the panting hag who
brought up the rear halted, and with skinny, harpy-claws extended,
shaking her snarling death's head from side to side, she laid a curse
upon him. One by one they dropped over the lip-edge and surrendered to
the hiding soldiers.

"You can go now," said Koolau to the captain. "I will never give myself
up. That is my last word. Good-bye."

The captain slipped over the cliff to his soldiers. The next moment, and
without a flag of truce, he hoisted his hat on his scabbard, and Koolau's
bullet tore through it. That afternoon they shelled him out from the
beach, and as he retreated into the high inaccessible pockets beyond, the
soldiers followed him.

For six weeks they hunted him from pocket to pocket, over the volcanic
peaks and along the goat-trails. When he hid in the lantana jungle, they
formed lines of beaters, and through lantana jungle and guava scrub they
drove him like a rabbit. But ever he turned and doubled and eluded.
There was no cornering him. When pressed too closely, his sure rifle
held them back and they carried their wounded down the goat-trails to the
beach. There were times when they did the shooting as his brown body
showed for a moment through