d saw once again his full-brother Michael.

"Say nothing," Harley muttered to Villa, as they made out, peering over
the bow of the shore-coming whaleboat, the rough coat, red-wheaten in
colour, of Michael. "We won't know anything about anything, and we won't
even let on we're watching what they do."

Jerry, feigning interest in digging a hole in the sand as if he were on a
fresh scent, was unaware of Michael's nearness. In fact, so well had
Jerry feigned that he had forgotten it was all a game, and his interest
was very real as he sniffed and snorted joyously in the bottom of the
hole he had dug. So deep was it, that all he showed of himself was his
hind-legs, his rump, and an intelligent and stiffly erect stump of a
tail.

Little wonder that he and Michael failed to see each other. And Michael,
spilling over with unused vitality from the cramped space of the
_Eugenie's_ deck, scampered down the beach in a hurly-burly of joy,
scenting a thousand intimate land-scents as he ran, and describing a
jerky and eccentric course as he made short dashes and good-natured snaps
at the coconut crabs that scuttled across his path to the safety of the
water or reared up and menaced him with formidable claws and a
spluttering and foaming of the shell-lids of their mouths.

The beach was only so long. The end of it reached where rose the rugged
wall of a headland, and while the Commissioner introduced Captain Kellar
to Mr. and Mrs. Kennan, Michael came tearing back across the wet-hard
sand. So interested was he in everything that he failed to notice the
small rear-end portion of Jerry that was visible above the level surface
of the beach. Jerry's ears had given him warning, and, the precise
instant that he backed hurriedly up and out of the hole, Michael collided
with him. As Jerry was rolled, and as Michael fell clear over him, both
erupted into ferocious snarls and growls. They regained their legs,
bristled and showed teeth at each other, and stalked stiff-leggedly, in a
stately and dignified sort of way, as they drew intimidating semi-circles
about each other.

But they were fooling all the while, and were more than a trifle
embarrassed. For in each of their brains were bright identification
pictures of the plantation house and compound and beach of Meringe. They
knew, but they were reticent of recognition. No longer puppies, vaguely
proud of the sedateness of maturity, they strove to be proud and sedate
while all th