stole, and the range of ritual from a lofty intoning to the eastward
position, he managed to live and himself be none the worse, while those
who knew him were certainly the better.

When Roscoe had finished his tale, Mrs. Falchion said: "Mr. Boldrick must
be a very interesting man;" and her eyes wandered up to the great hole in
the mountain-side, and lingered there. "As I said, I must meet him," she
added; "men of individuality are rare." Then: "That great 'hole in the
wall' is, of course, a natural formation."

"Yes," said Roscoe. "Nature seems to have made it for Boldrick. He uses
it as a storehouse."

"Who watches it while he is away?" she said. "There is no door to the
place, of course."

Roscoe smiled enigmatically. "Men do not steal up here: that is the
unpardonable crime; any other may occur and go unpunished; not it."

The thought seemed to strike Mrs. Falchion. "I might have known!" she
said. "It is the same in the South Seas among the natives--Samoans,
Tongans, Fijians, and others. You can--as you know, Mr. Roscoe,"--her
voice had a subterranean meaning,--" travel from end to end of those
places, and, until the white man corrupts them, never meet with a case of
stealing; you will find them moral too in other ways until the white man
corrupts them. But sometimes the white man pays for it in the end."

Her last words were said with a kind of dreaminess, as though they had no
purpose; but though she sat now idly looking into the valley beneath, I
could see that her eyes had a peculiar glance, which was presently turned