Now we were in real danger of getting drowned or getting the wheels stuck in the quick-sand. Frank suggested that we take the wheels off our chariot, the way Pharaoh did and float ashore. He was told to kulikuli and suggest some way out of the difficulty which was feasible. All of us knew how to direct the drivers however, and if they had listened to us we would have been there yet. Nui dashed into the water to seaward of the cattle and striking one of the young leaders on the nose it bellowed with pain and turned shorewards and we were saved, probably for a worse fate. We arrived safely at Wailuku and hastened to relieve ourselves of the superfluous real estate gathered on the way, for the winds of Kahului isthmus can carry more red dirt per cubic inch than any simoon in Arabia, and deposit it more evenly on any obstructing surface.
That evening we met Lani and her mother at the village store and postoffice and she soon became the recipient of much in the line of bright colored dress goods. Frank received a remittance from home and nothing would do but he must give her a side saddle, one of those fancy looking horse-killers such as they sold for twenty dollars. Joe bought her a fancy bridle and another member of the party gave her a flaming scarlet felt saddle cloth. All these to a poor girl who did not own a horse. Horses were pretty cheap in those days, from $5 up. Frank bought her a cream colored mare from a bystander for $20 and placing the saddle and accoutrements on he requested her to mount and try the saddle.
Shenandoah had been buying dress goods at the instigation of Lani's mother and when he came out and saw the beautiful girl mounted on the prancing horse he swore she should never ride it home and commanded her to dismount.
This revelation was too much for us. What; this clod of earth dare to talk in this manner to our Lani? And using tones of authority too! This was the last straw. Frank opened up on him with a volubility and a vocabulary which could only have been acquired before the mast on an American whaler.
Shenandoah dropped his armful of bundles and made a rush at him to annihilate him. Frank had played football too much in college to be badly terrified and when the Portuguese struck at him he lowered his head and rushed his black opponent, taking him just in the short ribs with his head, and Shenandoah was hors de combat instanter. It was sometime before he could take a breath, then had to be taken off to a room, which he did not leave until we were ready to return to Hoikaopuiaawalau.
Frank got a nice horse for himself and he and Lani enjoyed the Fourth of July.
At that time there was a fashion among the native women of making their own hats from rooster skins. A fine bird would be selected, no matter what the price ($5 has been paid for a bird for that purpose). The skin was taken off whole and while green put over a mold to dry. Then they would line them and when rightly made one could almost imagine it was a live rooster sitting on a nest. Frank got one of the best of these and gave it to Lani and the next day as he and she rode on either side of the team, for they drove us home, the sight of her was exceedingly galling to Shenandoah who had to ride on the empty wagon, the cock appearing to crow over him at every bounce of her horse.
However the fun was not out of us yet nor out of the bullock. They never seemed to tire giving us our money's worth. When we had arrived at Wailuku we turned them into a corral where there was plenty of food and drink and they ought to have been satisfied. Not so however, for, about midnight a man came to our lodgings and said our cattle had got loose into the cane fields, and, tired as we were we all had to get out and hunt them through the cane, and corral them once more.
We sailed across the plains easily enough but when we came to the region of gulches and night and the rain had set in the anxiety of those on the wagon for their safety was pathetic. We had some marvellous escapes but finally arrived in camp in a half drowned condition.
A couple of days afterwards the charcoal burner came over and told us that Leong Sing had been there during our absence, and says he, "there he comes again." That evening he called on Lani and she flatly told him in some expressive way that she wished no more of his attentions. He retired to the Chinese camp and we saw him no more.