l."

From Porto Cabello, Venezuela, Roddy wrote:

"I have saved lives of fifty Jamaica coolies daily by not
carrying an axe. If you want to save my life from suicide,
sunstroke and sleeping-sickness--which attacks me with
special virulence immediately after lunch--come by next
steamer."

A week later, Peter de Peyster took the Red D boat south, and after
touching at Porto Rico and at the Island of Curacao, swept into Porto
Cabello and into the arms of his friend.

On the wharf, after the shouts of welcome had died away, Roddy
inquired anxiously: "As you made the harbor, Peter, did you notice
any red and black buoys? Those are _my_ buoys. _I_ put them
there--_myself_. And I laid out that entire channel you came in
by, all by myself, too!"

Much time had passed since the two friends had been able to insult
each other face to face.

"Roddy," coldly declared Peter, "if I thought _you_ had charted that
channel I'd go home on foot, by land."

"Do you mean you think I can't plant deep-sea buoys?" demanded Roddy.

"You can't plant potatoes!" said Peter. "If you had to set up
lamp-posts, with the street names on them, along Broadway, you would
put the ones marked Union Square in Columbus Circle."

"I want you to know," shouted Roddy, "that my buoys are the talk of
this port. These people are just crazy about my buoys--especially the
red buoys. If you didn't come to Venezuela to see my buoys, why did
you come? I will plant a buoy for you to-morrow!" challenged Roddy. "I
will show you!"

"You will _have_ to show me," said Peter.

* * * * *

Peter had been a week in Porto Cabello, and, in keeping Roddy at work,
had immensely enjoyed himself. Each morning, in the company's gasoline
launch, the two friends went put-put-putting outside the harbor, where
Roddy made soundings for his buoys, and Peter lolled in the stern and
fished. His special pleasure was in trying to haul man-eating sharks
into the launch at the moment Roddy was leaning over the gunwale,
taking a sounding.

One evening at sunset, on their return trip, as they were under the
shadow of the fortress, the engine of the launch broke down. While the
black man from Trinidad was diagnosing the trouble, Peter was
endeavoring to interest Roddy in the quaint little Dutch Island of
Curacao that lay one hundred miles to the east of them. He chose to
talk of Curacao because the ship that carried him from the