_!" She grasped her
brother-in-law's arm as she pointed to the door of the cabin.

It was true. The door was opening slowly, jerkily, in a way that
hinted of fearsome, because unknown things. The next instant there
stepped out of the opening a tall, shock-haired young man, naked,
except for some tatters of an undershirt and a piece of old canvas
wound about his hips after the fashion of a South Sea _pareu_.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CASTAWAY

Kayak Bill was the first to find voice.

"By the roarin' Jasus,"--his tones trembled with enormous
astonishment--"if it ain't young Harlan!"

"My God, Gregg, has anything happened to the schooner?" shouted
Boreland, his long stride covering the distance to the porch.

"Not a thing that I know of, Skipper." The young man, with a weary
gesture, brushed the hair back from his forehead upon which blood from
a slight wound had dried. "But you see I left her before she started
back to Katleean." In answer to the quick questioning in the five
pairs of eyes raised to his he stammered: "I--I--wanted to
come--ashore--for a few minutes, and--I--I--the current carried me onto
the reefs at the south end, and--I wandered in here a little while ago."

Bruises and deep scratches marred the whiteness of his slim body, and
bore evidence of a desperate struggle with the sea and rocks. He was
the last person in the world that Ellen would have chosen to be thus
romantically cast up on the shores of Kon Klayu with them, but woman is
potentially a mother and even her heart was touched by his plight. For
Harlan, trying--and failing--to appear nonchalant and at ease in his
embarrassing situation was boyishly appealing.

"Why, Shane, then the poor fellow hasn't had a bite to eat since
yesterday," she exclaimed practically, while preparing to divest
herself of her pack. "Everybody get busy here and we'll get him some
lunch. Shane, you and Kayak see what you can spare in the way of
clothes, and in the meantime, Mr. Harlan--" her conventionally polite
tone as she turned to that young man caused Boreland and Kayak Bill to
exchange an amused wink--"you may take this blanket that Jean has
wrapped about her violin, and put it around you."

A few minutes later Kayak Bill filled the coffee pot from a small
crystal spring that trickled from the hillside into a sunken,
moss-grown barrel, and placed it over a bonfire Boreland had made.
Ellen left the old man to prepare lunch for their unexpected gue