254 MYSTIC ISLES 



a word with Baillon, for he spoke only Enghsh. The 

 whiter girl wore a delicate satin gown, a red ribbon, and 

 fine pearls in her hair. The cow-boy lay quietly, while 

 she sat with her bare feet curled under her on the coun- 

 terpane, looking actually unutterable passion. 



"Shucks!" said he to me, safe in their ignorance of his 

 tongue, "this is getting serious. They mean business, 

 and I was foolin'. I got a little girl in the good oF 

 United States that would skin her alive if she saw her 

 sittin' like that on my sheets. A man 's takin' chances 

 here that bats his eye at one o' these T'itian fairies. Do 

 you know, their mother came here with them this morn- 



ing? 



"They mean to have you in their family," I said. 

 "That mother may have had a white husband or lover, 

 and aids in the pursuit of you for auld lang syne." 



Wilfrid Baillon was out of the hospital in just ten 

 days. His release, as cured by the doctor, coincided 

 curiously with his payment in advance. I saw him off 

 for New Zealand by the steamship leaving the next day. 



"Those people were awful good to me," he said in 

 farewell. "It hurts me to treat those girls this way, but 

 I 'm scairt o' them. They 're too strong in their feel- 

 ings." 



He ran away from a mess of love pottage that many 

 men would have gone across seas to gain. 



Ormsby, an Englishman in his early twenties, good- 

 looking and courteous, with an air of accustomedness 

 to luxury, but of being roughened by his environment, 

 was sitting on a bench one morning with a girl. He 

 called me over to meet her. 



