im sleep on the
floor, no harm in that. But if he was a leper he'd got to go to the
settlement, so I told him so.

"He made such a fuss, cryin' around--By God, I had to boot him out
of the place. I said: 'Get out. I don't want you snivelin' around me.'
So he went.

"It's a rotten, God-forsaken place, I guess. I don't know. The
government takes care of 'em. It ain't my affair. I guess for a
leper colony it ain't so bad.

"Anyway, I was goin' to sell out an' leave Penryn. The diving season
was over. One night I had the door locked an' was goin' over my
accounts to see if I couldn't collect some more dough from the
natives. I heard a noise, and By God! there comin' through the
window was My Dog. He come up to me, and I said: 'Stand away, there!'
I ain't afraid of leprosy, but there's no use takin' chances. You
never know.

"Well sir, that kid threw himself down on the floor, and he said,
'McHenry, I knowed you was goin' away and I had to come to see you.'
That's what he said in his Kanaka lingo.

"He was cryin', and he looked pretty bad. He said he couldn't stand
the settlement. He said, 'I don't never see you there. Can't I live
here an' be Your Dog again?'

"I said, 'You got to go to the settlement.' I wasn't goin' to get
into trouble on account of no Kanaka kid.

"Now, that kid had swum about five miles in the night, with sharks
all around him--the very place where his father had gone into a shark.
That kid thought a lot of me. Well, I made him go back. 'If you don't
go, the doctor will come, an' then you got to go,' I said. 'You
better get out. I'm goin' away, anyhow,' I said. I was figuring on
my accounts, an' I didn't want to be bothered with no fool kid.

"Well, he hung around awhile, makin' a fuss, till I opened the door
an' told him to git. Then he went quiet enough. He went right down
the beach into the water an' swum away, back to the settlement. Now
look here, that kid liked me. He knowed me well, too--he was around
my store pretty near all the time I was in Penryn. He was a fool kid.
My Dog, that was the name he give himself. An' while I was in T'yti,
here, I get a letter from the trader that took over my store, and he
sent me a letter from that kid. It was wrote in Kanaka. He couldn't
write much, but a little. Here, I'll show you the letter. You'll see
what that kid thought of me."

In the light from the open cabin window I read the letter, painfully
written on cheap, blue-lined paper.

"Greeti