Page:Off For Hawaii.djvu/154

140 "I was wondering the same thing," came from Dan.

"We can't tell a thing about it until we catch the pair," said Oliver, and here the talk came to an end as there seemed to be no further ideas worth advancing.

The rest of the day passed impatiently enough. There was but little to see in Wailuku, although it is the center of the sugar industry of the island of Maui. There was a single small railroad running ten miles into the sugar plantations, and on this we took a ride and visited one of the big sugar mills. The process of making this sweet article of commerce was not new to me, I having seen the whole thing done in Cuba, and I spent most of my time talking with the natives. At one plantation we met a crowd of girls, out for a picnic, and when we left them they presented us with some leis, garlands made of the sweet-smelling flowers of the country, some of which I still preserve in a scrap-book at home. It is a common custom to decorate a friend who is going away with leis, and down on the steamboat dock the fallen flowers lay scattered in all directions.

Nightfall found us back at the hotel and willing to turn in at an early hour. It is perhaps needless to state that all of us slept like "logs," to use an old-fashioned way of expressing it.