tion
for integrity of conduct and his skill as a fisherman and carpenter.

* Francis Island, or Peru, is one of the largest atolls of
the Gilbert Group in the South Pacific, about one hundred
and twenty miles south of the Equator

The White Man and he were firm friends, and that day they had been down
to the north end of the lagoon to collect a canoe load of the eggs of
a small species of tern which frequented the uninhabited portion of the
island in myriad swarms.

Presently, as they sat and smoked, and lazily watched a swarm of the
silvery mullet called _kanae_ disporting themselves on the glassy
surface of the lagoon, the White Man said--

"Who were these white men, Tavita, who fought in the battle?"

"Hast never heard the story?" inquired the teacher in Samoan.

The trader shook his head. "Only some of it--a little from one, a little
from another."

"Then listen," said Tavita, re-filling his pipe and leaning his broad
back against the bole of a cocoa-palm.

*****

"It was nineteen years ago, and I had been living on the island but a
year. In those days there were many white men in these islands. Some
were traders, some were but _papalagi tafea_{*} who spent their days
in idleness, drunkenness, and debauchery, casting aside all pride and
living like these savage people, with but a girdle of grass around their
naked waists, their hands ever imbued in the blood of their fellow white
men or that of the men of the land.

* Beachcombers.

"Here, on this island, were two traders and many beachcombers. One of
the traders was a man named Carter, the other was named West Carter
the people called 'Karta,' the other by his fore name, which was 'Simi'
(Jim). They came here together in a whaleship from the Bonin Islands
with their wives--two sisters, who were Portuguese half-castes, and both
very beautiful women. Carter's wife had no children; West, who was
the younger man, and who had married the younger sister, had two.
Both brought many thousands of dollars worth of trade with them to buy
cocoanut oil, for in those days these natives here did not make copra as
they do now--they made oil from the nuts.

"Karta built a house on the north end of the island, where there is the
best anchorage for ships, West chose to remain on the lee side where
he had landed, and bought a house near to mine. In quite a few days we
became friends, and almost every night we would meet and talk, and his
children an