nterest of fair play for
Jack, they declared that they were innocent of all evil intent. They
only went in for a little fun with the soldiers. It was that San
Francisco fellow who called himself Spence when he was sober and Sackett
when he got drunk who brought on the row, and then abandoned them to
their fate. He had owned that he "had it in" for soldiers in
general,--hated the whole gang of them and wanted to see them well
licked. He had plenty of money and would pay their fines if the police
"ran them in," and now he had left them in the lurch.

They had no money and were confronted with the probability of a
month's labor with the "chain-gang" on the public roads if the
consul-general couldn't get them off. So that amiable official had
gone out to the flotilla and had a talk with the Colorado officers and
the three brawny heroes of the billiard-room battle, with the result
that everybody agreed to heap all the blame on the vanished culprit in
the check suit, and the sailors got off with a nominal fine and went
home to nurse their bruises and their wrath against Spence, _alias_
Sackett. That fellow shouldn't get away on the Miowera if they could
help it.

All this Stuyvesant was pondering over as, after stopping to leave his
P. P. C. at the Pacific Club, he strolled down Fort Street on his way to
the boat-landing. The big whistle of an incoming steamer had attracted
his attention as he left the consul-general's to make one more call, and
at the club he heard someone say the Miowera had reached her dock and
would sail for Australia in the morning.

The sky, that had been so cloudless early in the evening, became
somewhat overcast by eleven, and the moonlight was dim and vague as he
reached the landing.

In his several trips to and from the transport it happened that he had
fallen frequently into the hands of a bright Kanaka boatboy whose
admirable rowing and handling of the boat had pleased and interested
him.

"Be ready to take me out about 11.30," he had told him, and now where
was he?

Several officers and soldiers were there bargaining with the boatmen,
and three or four of these amphibious Hawaiians precipitated themselves
on Stuyvesant with appeals for a job, but he asked for Joe.

"Him gone," was the answer of an eager rival. "Him other job;" but even
as they would have persuaded Stuyvesant that Joe was not to be had and
his selection must be one of their number, Joe himself came running from
the direc