He lighted a cigarette, inhaled a deep draught, and tossing the scarcely burned weed away, crossed deliberately to the huddled figure of Gregg Harlan. He shook him by the shoulder.
"Wake up!" he ordered, "and go to your bunk."
From Kayak Bill's cabin doorway several men drifted curiously toward the store steps. The natives gathered closer.
The bookkeeper raised his head and passed a slow hand over bewildered eyes.
"Beg—pardon, Chief," he said quickly, as he rose on unsteady legs, "making sleeping porch—of your—steps. . . . Awf-lly tired. . ." Wavering, he clung for support to the flag-pole.
With a peremptory gesture Kilbuck motioned to Naleenah.
"Take this man to his cabin," he snapped, "and—" he paused significantly, "remember what I have told you."
The girl came forward with drooping head and listless arms. She paused dully beside the flag-pole. The trader placed the arm of the stupefied young man across her slim shoulders. Obediently she led her charge away in the direction of the small cabins across the courtyard.
Though the eyes of the spectators had been intent on the drama of the steps, only Kayak Bill, perhaps, knew its real significance. The old man now stood in the doorway of the store, his sombrero pushed to the back of his head, a pair of binoculars held against his eyes.
From around the point beyond the Indian Village and into the bay, a white-sailed schooner had drifted. As it advanced there was wafted across the water a faint and silvery fragment of melody which endured but a moment and was gone.