blindfolded, could find the inlet to a hermetically sealed atoll. When
there wasn't any inlet he would wait for a seventh wave--which is
always extra large--and take her over on the crest, disregarding the
ragged coral below. The Kawa was a tight little craft, built
for rough work. She stood up nobly under the punishment her skipper
gave her.

Triplett's assistant was an individual named William Henry Thomas, a
retired Connecticut farmer who had chosen to end his days at sea. This,
it should be remarked, is the reverse of the usual order. The back-lots
of Connecticut are peopled by retired sea-captains who have gone back
to the land, which accounts in large measure for the condition of
agriculture in these communities. William Henry Thomas had appeared
as Triplett's selection. Once aboard ship his land habits stood him
in good stead in his various duties as cook, foremost-hand, butler and
valet, for it must not be supposed that the Kawa, tight though
she might be, was without a jaunty style of her own.

Our first-class cabin passengers were three, Reginald K. Whinney,
scientific man, world wanderer, data-demon and a devil when roused;
Herman Swank, bohemian, artist, and vagabond, forever in search of new
sensations, and myself, Walter E. Traprock, of Derby, Connecticut,
editor, war correspondent, and author, jack-of-all-trades, mostly
literary and none lucrative.

Our object? What, indeed, but life itself!

I had known my companions for years. We had been class-mates at New
Haven when our fathers were working our way through college. How far
away it all seemed on that torrid Fourth of July as we sat on the