ll grit and endurance, and withal,
pleasing to look upon.

The Samoset had been a trading schooner, when Duncan bought her in San
Francisco and made alterations. Her interior was wholly rebuilt, so that
the hold became main-cabin and staterooms, while abaft amidships were
installed engines, a dynamo, an ice machine, storage batteries, and,
far in the stern, gasoline tanks. Necessarily, she carried a small crew.
Boyd, Minnie, and Captain Dettmar were the only whites on board, though
Lorenzo, the small and greasy engineer, laid a part claim to white,
being a Portuguese half-caste. A Japanese served as cook, and a Chinese
as cabin boy. Four white sailors had constituted the original crew
for'ard, but one by one they had yielded to the charms of palm-waving
South Sea isles and been replaced by islanders. Thus, one of the dusky
sailors hailed from Easter Island, a second from the Carolines, a third
from the Paumotus, while the fourth was a gigantic Samoan. At sea, Boyd
Duncan, himself a navigator, stood a mate's watch with Captain Dettmar,
and both of them took a wheel or lookout occasionally. On a pinch,
Minnie herself could take a wheel, and it was on pinches that she proved
herself more dependable at steering than did the native sailors.

At eight bells, all hands assembled at the wheel, and Boyd Duncan
appeared with a black bottle and a mug. The rum he served out himself,
half a mug of it to each man. They gulped the stuff down with many
facial expressions of delight, followed by loud lip-smackings of
approval, though the liquor was raw enough and corrosive enough to burn
their mucous membranes. All drank except Lee Goom, the abstemious
cabin boy. This rite accomplished, they waited for the next, the
present-giving. Generously molded on Polynesian lines, huge-bodied and
heavy-muscled, they were nevertheless like so many children, laughing
merrily at little things, their eager black eyes flashing in the lantern
light as their big bodies swayed to the heave and roll of the ship.

Calling each by name, Minnie gave the presents out, accompanying each
presentation with some happy remark that added to the glee. There
were trade watches, clasp knives, amazing assortments of fish-hooks
in packages, plug tobacco, matches, and gorgeous strips of cotton for
loincloths all around. That Boyd Duncan was liked by them was evidenced
by the roars of laughter with which they greeted his slightest joking
allusion.

Captain Dettmar, whi