"Got your papers?" barked the reedy, wire-brush of a man named Pelly, stooping at the desk in the Hudson's Bay recruiting office, a small wooden shack the company had opened on the Honolulu harbour front a year ago. The haole's white hair jutted out in thin airy tufts and his round English eyes were the coldest blue Kimo had ever seen. He pulled out his birth certificate and laid it on the table. "Kimo Maka Kanui. You speak pidgin?" "And English. I attended the Mission." The man's bushy eyebrows lifted curiously above steel blue eyes, assessing him carefully. Kimo wished he'd worn shoes, and stretched himself full height. "You're a carpenter by trade?" He nodded, waiting for the man to ask where he'd been trained. He didn't, releasing Kimo from the lie he'd had to fabricate en route. The man dragged a soiled handkerchief from the pocket of his jacket and wiped off the sweat gathering in rivulets across his brow. Kimo held his breath while the recruiter plucked at the front of his damp shirt. Once white, the stained cotton was now gray and clung to his chest as he wafted it back and forth in a futile effort to create a tiny breeze to cool his overheated skin. Suddenly Kimo found himself signing a conract, grinning like a split melon, shaking the haole's hand vigorously, mentally congratulating himself. I've done it! I"ve done it! Just like that it was settled. He would sail on the next Hudson's Bay Company ship, work in their service in forts on the Pacific Northwest Coast of America, and receive room, board and wages of eighteen pounds a year. The company would return him, passage paid, to Honolulu at the end of his three-year contract."