Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/77

Rh a bank. They are a bit of a nuisance, I admit, though."

"Give them to me, and I'll wear them tied round my neck," Joan suggested.

"And if the string breaks and you lose 'em, you'll be unhappy ever after. No, sis. But I'll tell you what we can do. Come with me."

Joan and Keith followed the planter into his bedroom, where he pointed to a tiny hole in a beam.

"Plugged up in there, they'd be safe as long as the bungalow stood," he said. "Here goes." And a few minutes later the precious little objects were safely hidden from view.

The rest of the day Chester Trent spent with Keith, showing him a hundred and one things about the plantation, and giving him a clear idea what work the gangs of blacks should be kept at to put the place in order. Taleile, the "boss boy," was, moreover, informed that Keith was the new "big white marster," whose orders must be obeyed.

"You'll find him a jewel," Chester observed, "and that's more than you can say for some of the black scum."

The two men were alone, some distance from the bungalow, where Joan was busy superintending household matters.

"There's one of them I still have an account to settle with," Keith said. "I haven't really had a