great white leader gladly. They were like father and son.

The reef, covered at mid-tide with curling waters mottled with the
foam of the broken waves, was alive with men; while the beach beyond
was black with crowds of the wild islanders who had come down to see
the strange visitors from the ship. The four men sculled the boat
on to the edge of the reef and then rested on their oars as Patteson
swung himself over the side into the cool water. He waded across the
reef between the hosts of savages, and in every hand was a club or
spear or a six-foot wooden bow with an arrow ready to notch in its
bamboo string.

Patteson had come to make friends with them. So he entered a dark
wattled house and sat down to talk. The doorway was filled with
the faces of wondering men. As he looked on them a strange gleam of
longing came into his eyes and a smile of great tenderness softened
the strength of his brown face--the longing and the tenderness of
a shepherd looking for wandering sheep who are lost on the wild
mountains of the world.

Then he rose, left the house, and went back to the boat. The water was
now one seething cauldron of men--walking, splashing, swimming. Some,
as Patteson climbed into his boat, caught hold of the gunwale and
could hardly be made to loosen their hold. The four young fellows in
the boat swung their oars and got her under way, but they had made
barely half a dozen strokes when, without warning, an arrow whizzed
through the air into the boat. A cloud of arrows followed.

Six canoes were now filled with savage Santa Cruzans, who surrounded
the boat and joined in the shooting. Patteson, who was in the stern