“Here, pup!  Here, pup!  Nice, nice doggums!” I said in soothing accents.

The dog gave a low whine and stood shivering, eager but afraid.  I continued my blandishments.  Little by little the forlorn creature drew nearer, until I put out a cautious hand and stroked his ears.  He dodged affrightedly, but presently crept back again.  Soon his head was against my knee, and he was devouring my hand with avid caresses.  Some time, before his abandonment on the island, he had been a well-brought-up and petted animal.  Months or years of wild life had estranged him from humanity, yet at the human touch the old devotion woke again.

The thing now was to lure him back to camp and restore him to the happy service of his gods.  I rose and picked up my pistol, which had regained my confidence by not going off when I dropped it.  With another alluring, “Here, doggums!” I started on my way.  He shrank, trembled, hesitated, then was after me with a bound.  So we went on through the forest.  As we neared the camp the four-footed castaway’s diffidence increased.  I had to pet and coax.  But at last I brought him triumphantly across the Rubicon of the little stream, and marched him into camp under the astounded eyes of Cookie.

At sight of the negro the dog growled softly and crouched against my skirt.  Cookie stood like an effigy of amazement done in black and white.

“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, Miss Jinny,” he burst out at last, “am dat de ghos’-pig?”

“It was, Cookie, but I changed him into a live dog by crossing my fingers.  Mind your rabbit’s foot.  He might eat it, and then very likely we’d have a ghost on our hands again.  But I think he’ll stay a dog for the present.”

“Yo’ go ‘long, Miss Jinny,” said Cookie valiantly.  “Yo’ think I scared of any ghos’ what lower hissel to be a live white mong’ol dog?  Yere, yo’ ki-yi, yo’ bettah mek friends with ol’ Cookie, ‘cause he got charge o’ de grub.  Yere’s a li’le fat ma’ow bone what mebbe come off’n yo’ own grandchile, but yo’ ain’ goin’ to mind dat now yo’ is trans formulated dis yere way.”  And evidently the reincarnated ghost-pig did not.

With the midday reunion my hour of distinction arrived.  The tale of the ghost-pig was told from the beginning by Cookie, with high tributes to my courage in sallying forth in pursuit of the phantom.  Even those holding other views of the genesis of the white dog were amazed at his presence on the island.  In spite of Cookie’s aspersions, the creature was no mongrel, but a thoroughbred of points.  Not by any means a dog which some little South American coaster might have abandoned here when it put in for water.  The most reasonable hypothesis seemed to be that he had belonged to the copra gatherer, and was for some reason left behind on his master’s departure.  But who that had loved a dog enough to make it the companion of his solitude would go away and leave it?  The thing seemed to me incredible.  Yet here, otherwise unaccounted for, was the corporeal presence of the dog.