er the island, obviously dividing out the territory and doing it
simultaneous. That night they set a watch on my house and Tom's, the
news coming in from Iosefo, who had spies out watching them. It was
regular wheels within wheels, and I couldn't but wonder how poor Old
Dibs was faring up his tree, waiting and waiting for us to come!

The next day they prowled harder than ever, this time the crew joining
in, mate, cook, cabin boy, and four hands. Like was natural, they made
me and Tom's first--the crew, I mean--and we both had the same happy
thought, square-face. The mate went off with only three drinks in him,
taking the cabin boy with two, but the rest of them sucked it in by the
bucket, and the fartherest any of them got away was a hundred yards, and
him with a bottle in his hand. They were a pretty ugly crowd by
nightfall, refusing to go back to the ship when ordered, and roaring and
yelling about the settlement to all hours. The afterguard still kept tab
on me and Tom, however, and so yet another night passed without our
daring to make our date with Old Dibs. But in the morning they lost all
patience, rounding up the crew with handspikes, and all going off to the
schooner with half of them in irons. Phelps and Nettleship helped to get
up anchor themselves, and toward nine o'clock we had the blessed sight
of their heels, beating out of the lagoon against a stiff trade.

It was hard to have to wait the balance of the day doing nothing, for we
might need the tree idea again, and it would have been a mug's game to
have given away the secret to the Kanakas. Tom and me both felt
considerable rocky, besides, from having drunk so much gin with the
schooner's people; for though we had held back all we could, and had
tipped our glasses on the sly, we couldn't seem too behindhand in
whooping it up with them. But we were dead dogs now all right, and the
main part of breakfast and dinner was the buckets of water we poured
over each other's heads. It was what you might call a very long day, and
it seemed like the sun would never set, for we were both of us in a
sweat about Old Dibs, and more than anxious how he had made out.

Then sundown came, and dusk, and night itself, and still another long
spell for the Kanakas to go to sleep, which it seemed as though they
never would. Yes, a long day, and a long, long evening, and it was like
a whole week had passed before we stood under the tree and owly-owled to
Old Dibs.

It was a m