place.

“Not bad,” he said, filling his mouth again. “Not half bad. Just need to get ripe, I suppose. Sugar would be an insult to such fruit as this. People in the States don’t know what it is.”

He had spoken to himself, but some one else had heard, for from somewhere above him there had come in a melodious voice:

“So you like forbidden fruit?”

“I—I beg your pardon!” Johnny was on his feet at once. “I—I didn’t mean to steal. See here, I’ll buy a quarter’s worth.”

He had looked up at the girl whose golden hair, golden freckles and dark green dress so completely blended with fruit and foliage that, until now, he had not seen her.

“Have you a donkey?” There was a suggestion of a laugh in the girl’s tone. “I don’t see any.”

“Why must I have a donkey?” Johnny looked his surprise.

“Because we sell them by the barrel. Fifty cents a barrel. Of course, for a quarter you’d only get a half a barrel. But even so, how are you going to carry them?” Shaking out her dress and laughing the girl had dropped to the ground.

Out of his little adventure in the grapefruit orchard had grown a new enterprise. Johnny suddenly decided to become a shipping agent. Madge Kennedy, who had turned out to be a Scotch girl, had insisted upon his accompanying her to the house to meet her grandfather, Donald Kennedy. The grandfather, a great gray-bearded man with a store of knowledge that could come only from long study and many years in the jungle, had proven a find indeed. Johnny did not soon tire of sitting on the broad veranda of the long one-story house, listening to the old man as he rambled on about bananas and grapefruit, strange tropical foods, Carib Indians, and the future of their little Central American Colony.

It had not taken Johnny long to discover, however, that these kindly people were really almost paupers in the midst of their abundance. Many carloads of the finest fruit in the world hung ripe on the trees. Why was it not being shipped?

When he had pressed them for an answer to this puzzling question, Madge Kennedy had told him that the fruit company had refused to accept their fruit. The reason, she supposed, was that her grandfather had two years before sold his crop to the owner of a tramp steamer. The great East Sea Fruit Company, which had a monopoly on the fruit trade of Central America, did not wish competition, and they took this method of punishing her grandfather.

“But say!” Johnny leaped to his feet. “I’ll find you a ship. There’s one anchored off Belize now. Jorgensen is the captain. He’s anxious enough for a cargo. Came all this way for a cargo of mahogany. The half-caste Indian woodcutters are on a strike. There is no mahogany to haul.”

“Oh!” Madge beamed upon him in sudden excitement.

“But then,” her smile vanished, “I know the ship. It’s no use. We have only a third of a cargo for her.”

“Finish up with bananas,” Johnny suggested.

“Whose bananas? Every grower has a contract to sell only to the Fruit Company.”

For a little time Johnny felt himself baffled, defeated. Then of a sudden an inspiration came. Many times he had watched the loading of bananas off the dock at Stann Creek.

“Six hands!” he exclaimed excitedly. “That’s it! Six hands! We’ll have a cargo yet!”

That very night, after telling Madge of his grand plan, he started for Guatemala City to see the man who owned the largest banana plantation in Central America.

For some little time fortune smiled upon him in his new enterprise. Arriving at Stann Creek in the dead of night he found a sailing boat preparing to leave for Porte Barrios. At this port he caught a train for Guatemala. High noon found him walking the streets of that ancient and most beautiful city of Central America.

The city’s beauty was lost upon him. His thoughts were centered about one man, Don del Valle, the richest banana grower in all that land. He at once went about the task of finding the man and securing an interview. Having discovered the dapper, black-eyed Guatemalan sitting in his garden sipping wine, he wasted no time on ceremony but, boy-like, launched at once into his project.

The astonished del Valle, who understood only a part of what was said and who was accustomed to inflict long periods of waiting and numerous delays, stared at him in astonishment for a time. Then he demanded:

“What is it that this mad boy wants?”

“Bananas! I want bananas!” Johnny exclaimed.

“Well then, go and buy them, as many as you like.” del Valle threw a handful of coppers at his feet.

“But I want many. Two-thirds of a ship load, twenty thousand bunches.” Johnny’s face took on an air of unusual seriousness.

“But I have no bananas to sell. They are contracted for, as you should know, by your great American company.”

“But not the six hands.” Johnny exclaimed eagerly. “I only ask for six hands.”

“Six hands!” the Guatemalan exclaimed in a fit of passion. “Six hands! Here, take this crazy youth to jail. I will prefer a charge of annoying a gentleman.”

The two native policemen, who were in reality the official guard of the great gentleman, sprang into action. Ten minutes later Johnny found himself inside looking out, and the window he looked through was heavily barred. So it was that Johnny Thompson came to be in jail.