Chapter 17

CHAPTER XVII--"YOUR" MISS LACKLAND

The next morning Sheldon came in from the plantation to breakfast,
to find the mission ketch, Apostle, at anchor, her crew swimming
two mares and a filly ashore. Sheldon recognized the animals as
belonging to the Resident Commissioner, and he immediately wondered
if Joan had bought them. She was certainly living up to her threat
of rattling the dry bones of the Solomons, and he was prepared for
anything.

"Miss Lackland sent them," said Welshmere, the missionary doctor,
stepping ashore and shaking hands with him. "There's also a box of
saddles on board. And this letter from her. And the skipper of
the Flibberty-Gibbet."

The next moment, and before he could greet him, Oleson stepped from
the boat and began.

"She's stolen the Flibberty, Mr. Sheldon. Run clean away with her.
She's a wild one. She gave me the fever. Brought it on by shock.
And got me drunk, as well--rotten drunk."

Dr. Welshmere laughed heartily.

"Nevertheless, she is not an unmitigated evil, your Miss Lackland.
She's sworn three men off their drink, or, to the same purpose,
shut off their whisky. You know them--Brahms, Curtis, and Fowler.
She shipped them on the Flibberty-Gibbet along with her."

"She's the skipper of the Flibberty now," Oleson broke in. "And
she'll wreck her as sure as God didn't make the Solomons."

Dr. Welshmere tried to look shocked, but laughed again.

"She has quite a way with her," he said. "I tried to back out of
bringing the horses over. Said I couldn't charge freight, that the
Apostle was under a yacht license, that I was going around by Savo
and the upper end of Guadalcanar. But it was no use. 'Bother the
charge,' said she. 'You take the horses like a good man, and when
I float the Martha I'll return the service some day.'"

"And 'bother your orders,' said she to me," Oleson cried. "'I'm
your boss now,' said she, 'and you take your orders from me.'
'Look at that load of ivory nuts,' I said. 'Bother them,' said
she; 'I'm playin' for something bigger than ivory nuts. We'll dump
them overside as soon as we get under way.'"

Sheldon put his hands to his ears.

"I don't know what has happened, and you are trying to tell me the
tale backwards. Come up to the house and get in the shade and
begin at the beginning."

"What I want to know," Oleson began, when they were seated, "is IS
she your partner or ain't she? That's what I want to know."

"She is," Sheldon assured him.

"Well, who'd have believed it!" Oleson glanced appealingly at Dr.
Welshmere, and back again at Sheldon. "I've seen a few unlikely
things in these Solomons--rats two feet long, butterflies the
Commissioner hunts with a