He carried a cook and an oil-stove galley, and at last even bought two tin plates and a knife and fork to assist his meals. He felt it was pandering to luxury, but he did it all the same. When he made that purchase he wondered how he would behave in a woman's society after so long living as a savage. As an after-thought he told himself that Laura was the woman he had in his mind, and hoped he would not shock her with his crudities. By way of carrying out good intentions to the full, he sat down there and then and wrote to her, and marvelled to find how little he had to say. Then one day he came across Slade. A canoe drew in alongside as he was towing down river with his tenth cargo, and brought off a note which said that there was a white man ashore who had run out of everything and would be eternally grateful for any European food that could be spared, and would gladly give him I.O.U. for same, as he was out of hard cash at the moment of writing, and had mislaid his check-book. Carter had his misgivings, but sent off a goodly parcel of food and tobacco, and continued his way down stream. But the channel was new to him--he had a suspicion of being watched on his ordinary route--and he ran on a sandbar on an ebbing tide, and the heavily laden dugouts were soon perched high and dry. So White-Man's-Trouble switched off his magneto and stopped the engines, and Carter put a hand under the gauze net to greet his prospective father-in-law. Slade looked curiously at both the launch and her tow. "You've been getting hold of a gold mine of sorts, I hear. By the way, as you've arranged to start work as my son-in-law, I suppose I ought to get more familiar and call you Henry, or whatever it is." "George, as a matter of fact." "I believe you're right. George is what Laura did say. My mistake. Where is your gold mine?" "It's tin. And it's up the rivers." "Oh, keep it dark, my dear fellow, if you like. Not that it makes the smallest odds as far as I am concerned. You'd never catch me sweating after a mine. Besides, as a point of fact, I'm doing pretty well at my present job. Getting rubber properties, you know, for the mysterious Kate." "Miss O'Neill." "Oh, certainly, Miss O'Neill, if you prefer it, though I don't see why you need be a prig with me." "My late employer, you know." "Ah, of course. And you admired her more than a little, so I gathered from Laura's letters, though she carefully refrained from saying so." Carter pulled himself through the mosquito bar and hit the edge of the bunk. "Now, look here, Slade, I've known you ever since I've been on the Coast, but this is the first time we've met on the new footing. I don't want to quarrel with my prospective father-in-law, but, by Christopher, if you don't leave Miss O'Neill out of the tale as far as I'm concerned, there's going to be a row. Kindly remember I'm engaged to Laura, and intend to marry her whether you like it or whether you don't."