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Waller, a gaunt, bony giant of a man, set up as a trader. He had much luck, though some of it was said to be of questionable legality. He was a money-maker, with hard black eyes and a driving aggressiveness that enabled him to do things that were not finely scrupulous. Nobody could impose upon him, and he gave nothing to anybody—yet everything to Combe, who sat about idly, chewing tobacco and dozing in shady places.

Combe married. Some said that Waller picked the girl, a child of teasing sweetness, a native. Waller never married.

Waller built up a big plantation. He saw the increasing demand for copra, and put in groves of cocoanuts—nothing but cocoanuts. He was jealously determined to be the biggest planter on Pulotu, and he built the biggest house on the island—a big barn of a place—where he and the Combes lived together. Everyone with whom he came in contact was a little afraid of him, excepting Combe, who knew him best. But Waller's gaunt frame, his black eyes, the scar in his palm and what it was supposed to denote, together with his aggressive manner, that might easily be taken for menace, caused people to be uneasy about his anger.