Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 39: what you’re looking at

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so. It would take her mind off the yacht and center it on him. It was a good chance to let her know that he was not a store- keeper by choice, but through force of cir- cumstance and as a means to an end. The talk inevitably got around to vanilla. “ What Tm aiming at,” said Jimmy, “is to save up a thousand dollars and lease about ten acres in a valley about half a mile back of the house, It’s warm and sheltered, and I’ve learned what not to do. The main trouble was about fertilizing. You’ve got to do it by hand, with a wooden match or toothpick, transferring the pollen, you know. Like this.” ; He illustrated with the tuberoses. “ Td plant about ten thousand cuttings of _ Mexican vanilla and the rest is duck soup with a little cultivating and weeding. Takes three years for the first yield, but I’d make out with this job until then. Plenty of spare time for the vanilla. Then there’d be a clean up. Ten thousand pounds of dried bean, worth from two dollars and a half to five: dollars a pound.” ck Really? 3 “Yep. The soil and Climate’. s ust right. There’s a couple did as well as that close to where I tried my hand at it on Fiji. She helped with the fertilizing—it takes a light hand, did the scalding and sweating of the beans when they were sundried and he did the rest with a couple of Aanakas. I got most of my dope from them—aiter Id gone broke. They used to work in the early morning when it was cool and he kept store to make out, just as I would.” “You'd use your two natives?” “Tf they’re with me when I’ve saved up my second half of the thousand simoleons. Tf not, there are others. All I lack is the lady with the light hand.” He held his breath after he said that. She was looking down at her plate, but raised demure eyes to him. “You are thinking of getting married?” A quizzical twinkle came into her glance, and Jimmy found himself reddening furi- ously. “IT hope to, some time,” he answered. “Do you think a girl would care to live here?” _ “Why not? It is a beautiful piace.” - TWENTY-STICK ISLAND. _territory. Jimmy had hoped for some indication of personal interest, but he found none. Only the twinkle had gone and she was regard- ing him gravely. “* About yourself, * he said. “I was thinking it over this morning. 1 suppose the best thing for you to do would be to—” She checked him with a look out of the © window. “ There’s a boat coming ashore,” she said. Jimmy got up. _“ Better have Faata clear away. I'll meet ’em at the wharf. I don’t expect to invite ’em up to the house. This is my own You keep out of sight.” “T suppose they'll claim I’m in their charge,” she said. “But I’m not going back.” “A fine crowd to take charge of any- body,” said Jimmy as he went out. He hoped Carter was in the launch. He want- ed a talk with that unworthy. Thorpe had purposely delayed talking over her own pre- dicament with the girl. The matter was a delicate one. He felt that she had told him something of herself as an explanation for accepting his hospitality. His own sketchy biography he had furnished in sim- ilar spirit, to set her more at ease. He could not see that they could make her leave the island, save by force, and he fancied they would hesitate in applying that. There would be money due her and he in- tended to see that she got it. It might not be an easy contract to fulfill. He burned to inflict physical punishment on the cad who had attacked her and he wanted to tell the owner, his wife, the captain and the sneer- ing first mate just what he thought of them. The girl could hardly remain at Trouble Bay and that was the only place on Twenty- Stick where she could put up. Faata would scarcely be recognized as a sufficient chap- éron in the eyes of the world, though he knew that Peggy Dineen was grateful to him for having brought the native woman into the shack overnight. Altogether it was a pretty complicated problem—trebled by the indisputable fact that he was in love with her. There was no doubt of that. she was the first attractive girl he had seen after a long solitude and the repression of oO 509 It was not merely that (E©) EComicbooks