o, had been forgotten. A sailor
had been despatched for the missing cargo. Meanwhile the captain paced
the sands, chewing profanely at his pocket store.

A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water's edge.
His face was boyish but with a premature severity that hinted at a man's
experience. His complexion was naturally dark; and the sun and wind of
an outdoor life had burned it to a coffee brown. His hair was as black
and straight as an Indian's; his face had not yet been upturned to the
humiliation of a razor; his eyes were a cold and steady blue. He carried
his left arm somewhat away from his body, for pearl-handled .45s are
frowned upon by town marshals, and are a little bulky when packed in the
left armhole of one's vest. He looked beyond Captain Boone at the gulf
with the impersonal and expressionless dignity of a Chinese emperor.

"Thinkin' of buyin' that 'ar gulf, buddy?" asked the captain, made
sarcastic by his narrow escape from a tobaccoless voyage.

"Why, no," said the Kid gently, "I reckon not. I never saw it before. I
was just looking at it. Not thinking of selling it, are you?"

"Not this trip," said the captain. "I'll send it to you C. O. D. when I
get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstan-footed lubber with
the chewin'. I ought to've weighed anchor an hour ago."

"Is that your ship out there?" asked the Kid.

"Why, yes," answered the captain, "if you want to call a schooner a
ship, and I don't mind lyin'. But you better say Miller and Gonzales,
owners, and ordinary, plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K. Boone,
skipper."

"Where are you going to?" asked the refugee.

"Buenas Tierras, coast of South America--I forget what they called the
country the last time I was there. Cargo--lumber, corrugated iron, and
machetes."

"What kind of a country is it?" asked the Kid--"hot or cold?"

"Warmish, buddy," said the captain. "But a regular Paradise Lost for
elegance of scenery and be-yooty of geography. Ye're wakened every
morning by the sweet singin' of red birds with seven purple tails, and
the sighin' of breezes in the posies and roses. And the inhabitants
never work, for they can reach out and pick steamer baskets of the
choicest hothouse fruit without gettin' out of bed. And there's no
Sunday and no ice and no rent and no troubles and no use and no nothin'.
It's a great country for a man to go to sleep with, and wait for
somethin' to turn up. The bananys and oranges and hu