He smiled now, since she was obviously pleased, but without taking his
sharp little eyes off the object of his interest. Suddenly the scuttling
crab disappeared and he started up with a whine. In a moment he was
scratching in the shingle in eager search, flinging showers of stones
over his companion in the process.

She protested, seizing him by his wiry tail to make him desist.
"Columbus! Don't! You're burying me alive! Do sit down and be sensible,
or I'll never be wrecked on a desert island with you again!"

Columbus subsided, not very willingly, dropping with a grunt into the
hole he had made. His mistress released him, and took out a gold
cigarette case.

"I wonder what I shall do when I've finished these," she mused. "The
simple life doesn't include luxuries of this sort. Only three left,
Columbus! After that, your missis'll starve."

She lighted a cigarette with a faint pucker on her wide brow. Her eyes
looked out over the empty, tumbling sea--grey eyes very level in their
regard under black brows that were absolutely straight and inclined to be
rather heavily accentuated.

"Yes, I wish I'd asked Muff for a few before I came away," was the
outcome of her reflections. "By this time tomorrow I shan't have one
left. Just think of that, my Christopher, and be thankful that you're
just a dog to whom one rat tastes very like another!"

Columbus sneezed protestingly. Whatever his taste in rats,