me Yoka with a wounded head, for this daughter of yours is very quick in
her anger."

"Lord," said the flustered Ko-boru, "such things happen even in love."

"All things happen in love," said Sanders, with a little smile, "and, if
it is to be, Yoka will return. Also, if it is to be, he will not go back
to the woman, and she will be free. This palaver is finished."

"Lord," pleaded Ko-boru, "the woman will do no more angry things. Let
him come back from sunrise to moonset----"

"This palaver is finished," repeated Sanders.

On their way back to Bingini the relatives of Ko-boru made a plot. It
was the first plot that had been hatched in the shadow of headquarters
for twenty years.

"Would it be indiscreet to ask what your visitors wanted?" asked the
girl, as the crestfallen deputation was crossing the square to their
canoe.

"It was a marriage palaver," replied Sanders, with a little grimace,
"and I was being requested to restore a husband to a temperamental lady
who has a passion for shying cook-pots at her husband when she is
annoyed."

The girl's laughing eyes were fixed upon his.

"Poor Mr. Sanders!" she said, with mock seriousness.

"Don't be sorry for me," smiled Sanders. "I'm rather domestic, really,
and I'm interested in this case because the man concerned is my
steersman--the best on the river, and a capital all-round man. Besides
that," he went on seriously, "I regard them all as children of mine. It
is right that a man who shirks his individual responsibilities to the
race should find a family to 'father.'"

"Why do you?" she asked, after a little pause.

"Why do I what?"

"Shirk your responsibilities," she said. "This is a healthy and a
delightful spot: a woman might be very happy here."

There was an awkward silence.

"I'm afraid I've been awfully impertinent," said Patricia, hurriedly
rising, "but to a woman there is a note of interrogation behind every
bachelor--especially nice bachelors--and the more 'confirmed' he is, the
bigger the question mark."

Sanders rose to her.

"One of these days I shall do something rash," he threatened, with that
shy laugh of his. "Here is your little family coming."

Bones and Hamilton were discussing something heatedly, and justice was
on the side of Lieutenant Tibbetts, if one could judge by the frequency
with which he stopped and gesticulated.

"It really is too bad," said the annoyed Hamilton, as he mounted the
steps to the stoep, followed by Bone