CHAPTER X
THE HEAD-HUNTERS
NATURE so far, had been kind to Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones. No high winds or heavy seas had assailed him, and he had been upon the water for three days now. The wind had held steadily out of the south, varying but a few points during this time but even so Waldo Emerson was commencing to doubt and to worry. His supply of water was running dangerously low, his food supply would last but a few days longer; and as yet he had sighted no sail, nor seen any land. Furthermore, he had not the remotest conception of how he might retrace his way to the island he had just quitted. He could only sail before the wind. Should the wind veer around into the north he might, by chance, be blown back to the island. Otherwise he never could reach it. And he was beginning to wonder if he had not been a trifle to precipitate in his abandonment of land.
In common with most other landsmen, Waldo Emerson had little conception of the vastness of the broad reaches of unbroken water wildernesses that roll in desolate immensity over three quarters of the globe. His recollection of maps pictured the
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