uests of the savages,
going where we pleased, and having everything that the place produced.
The captain moored his vessel in a snug anchorage, and drove a roaring
trade bartering the stores he had brought for shells, feathers,
bird-skins, and other productions of the island.

Gyp was brought on shore, and went suspiciously about the place with his
head close up to his master's long thin legs, for though he had
tolerated and was very good friends with Jimmy, he would not have any
dealings with the New Guinea folk. It did not seem to be the black
skins or their general habits; but Jack Penny declared that it was their
gummed-out moppy heads, these seeming to irritate the dog, so that,
being a particularly well-taught animal, he seemed to find it necessary
to control his feelings and keep away from the savages, lest he should
find himself constrained to bite. The consequence was that, as I have
said, he used to go about with his head close to his master's legs,
often turning his back on the people about him; while I have known him
sometimes take refuge with me, and thrust his nose right into my hand,
as if he wished to make it a muzzle to keep him from dashing at some
chief.

"I hope he won't grab hold of any of 'em," Jack Penny said to me one day
in his deliberate fashion; "because if he does take hold it's such a
hard job to make him let go again. And I say, Joe Carstairs, if ever
he's by you and these niggers begin to jump about, you lay hold of him
and get him away."

"Why?" I said.

"Well, you see," drawled Jack, "Gyp ain't a human being."

"I know that," I replied.

"Yes, I s'pose so," said Jack. "Gyp's wonderfully clever, and he thinks
a deal; but just now, I know as well as can be, he's in a sort of doubt.
He thinks these blacks are a kind of kangaroos, but he isn't sure. If
they begin to jump about, that will settle it, and he'll go at 'em and
get speared; and if any one sticks a spear into Gyp, there's going to be
about the biggest row there ever was. That one the other day won't be
anything to it."

"Then I shall do all I can to keep Gyp quiet," I said, smiling at Jack's
serious way of speaking what he must have known was nonsense. After
that I went out of the hut, where Jack Penny was doing what the captain
called straightening his back--that is to say, lying down gazing up at
the palm-thatched rafters, a very favourite position of his--and joined
some of the blacks, employing my time in tryin