Scenting danger, Captain Peters gave a quick signal for the anchor to be heaved. “Push off those canoes there,” he ordered quietly, at the same time producing a small revolver from his hip pocket. “Hi, you, Johnson,” he added to one of the men who had seized a marline spike and assumed a threatening attitude, “if you hit one of those chaps I’ll put you under arrest. Remember some other boat is coming here some day, and if we have a rumpus now they’ll get ready for regular trouble next time.” The propeller was revolving, and the _Manihiki_ was slowly sliding away from her anchorage. “A bargain is a bargain, you squint-eyed lump of mahogany,” the captain went on, leaning over the side and hurling his words at the chief, who was brandishing his arms, “even if it is between a gentleman in command of a first-class trading steamer and a low-down, sneak-thief Kanaka.” Then, as the canoes dropped behind, he waved his hand to their occupants, afterwards taking his place on the bridge to conduct the delicate operation of navigating his way through a mass of jagged rocks and cross currents. This was almost the only occasion, however, on which the _Manihiki_ encountered trouble with the natives. As a rule they had learned by experience that it paid best to come to some understanding and stick to it. There was probably a good deal of squabbling among themselves, after the steamer had left, on the question of a fair division of the spoil, but that was not Captain Peters’s affair. On the whole, the cruise promised to be a very satisfactory one, and the _Manihiki_ was favored with ideal weather week after week, running under azure skies on an ocean that looked as though it must have been painted. “A penny for your thoughts,” Tempest said early one morning when he came upon Dave leaning over the taffrail, staring out at the beautiful picture. The gray sky in the east was just becoming tinged with red, stained with the promise of the sun, and little wisps of mist floated in vague shapes, like scenes from Fairyland. “It looks like――like a dream,” Dave said. “Doesn’t it!” Tempest agreed. “One of the queer things about these waters is that mist, which looks so dreamy, can become a regular nightmare before you know where you are. One has to navigate with brains instead of charts hereabouts, and the skipper doesn’t take quite the same view of fog as you do. He’s been grumbling for two days about it. It was pretty bad while we were down below in our bunks last night, and he had the engines running at half speed for some hours.” “But there’s plenty of water where we are, isn’t there?” Dave asked. “Cap’n thinks so, evidently, because he’s pounding away at top speed, but it’s mighty tricky work, because the current will carry you a mile off your course in no time.”