“By the way, we’ve got a Kanaka that we’re taking along with us,” Tempest said, nodding his head in Jim’s direction. “If you wouldn’t mind giving him a shake-down too――” “Sure! Bring him right along. This reminds me of old times. Why, my house was Liberty Hall when I lived in Dogtooth City. I remember once――” Mr. Flagg talked on as his skinny pony walked in leisurely fashion over the brow of a hill, along a lane between the waving trees of the plantation, and finally to a rambling house with a wide veranda running all round it. “Here we are,” said Mr. Flagg. “And when I tell you you’re the first people I have had staying under my roof for nearly eighteen months, perhaps you’ll understand how glad I am to have you. It’s no hotel, mind you. We have to put up with a lot of things besides heat on Washington Island, but I’ve drilled my boy into cooking till he is one splendid artist with the pots and pans, though he didn’t even know how to open a can of beans when I first took him in hand. Yessir, Joe Flagg knows how to cook, though I do say it. When I was in Dogtooth City――” “He’s a decent sort of chap, isn’t he?” said Tempest to Dave a little later, when they were alone for a few minutes. “He’s great, so far as his hospitality goes,” the boy replied. “This suits us down to the ground, but I fancy we shall get a bit tired of Dogtooth City before we say good-by, sha’n’t we?” “That’s easy,” said Tempest. “All you have to do when you see it coming is to butt in with some other subject, and he switches off all right.” Mr. Flagg certainly went out of his way to be agreeable to his guests, and both Dave and his companion found it a particularly pleasant change to live in a comparatively comfortable house and be waited on. Joe Flagg was as amusing as he was fat, and he often sat by the hour puffing at his pipe, telling remarkable stories of his early life in the West, when men really carried six-shooters just as they do to-day in the movies. In spite of his rotundity Joe Flagg was a very active man. He was always wiping perspiration from his brow with the great handkerchief, but the way he got round on foot put his scraggy pony to shame. Also he was an amateur sailor of no mean ability, and often went for a long cruise, accompanied by a couple of Kanakas, in a three-ton sailing craft in which he seemed to take more interest than he did in his plantation or anything else. He appeared to be devoid of fear. His boat certainly rode well in a heavy sea, but the rougher the weather the more Flagg liked it. “I’d run the three of you over to Christmas Island myself,” he said one day, “only I don’t want to lose you.” “You’ve never been as far as there, have you?” Tempest asked. “Not quite, but pretty nearly.” “You must know these waters well, then.” “I ought to,” said Flagg. “I’ve been pottering around in ’em for years.” Tempest was thoughtful for a few moments. He caught Dave’s eye. The same idea had occurred to both of them at that instant.