ping 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.

Sheldon, who had gone to the head of the steps, introduced them to Joan.
The bewhiskered individual, who looked like a Scotsman, had the Teutonic
name of Von Blix, and spoke with a strong American accent. The tall man
in the well-fitting ducks, who gave the English name of Tudor--John
Tudor--talked purely-enunciated English such as any cultured American
would talk, save for the fact that it was most delicately and subtly
touched by a faint German accent. Joan decided that she had been helped
to identify the accent by the short German-looking moustache that did not
conceal the mouth and its full red lips, which would have formed a
Cupid's bow but for some harshness or severity of spirit that had moulded
them masculinely.

Von Blix was rough and boorish, but Tudor was gracefully easy in
everything he did, or looked, or said. His blue eyes sparkled and
flashed, his clean-cut mobile features were an index to his slightest
shades of feeling and expression. He bubbled with enthusiasms, and his
faintest smile or lightest laugh seemed spontaneous and genuine. But it
was only occasionally at first that he spoke, for Von Blix told their
story and stated their errand.

They were on a gold-hunting expedition. He was the leader, and Tudor was
his lieutenant. All hands--and there were twenty-eight--were
shareholders, in varying proportions, in the adventure. Several were
sailors, but the large majority were miners, culled from all the camps
from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. It was the old and ever-untiring
pursuit of gold, and they had come to the Solomons to get it. Part of
them, under the leadership of Tudor, were to go up the Balesuna and
penetrate the mountainous heart of Guadalcanar, while the _Martha_, under
Von Blix, sailed away for Malaita to put throug