Munsey's Magazine, June 1923

"The Butterfly of Leepoohu," a complete novel by Eleanor Gates, opens on the South Sea island of Leepoohu, where two rival white traders—the scarred, dapper Arnold Britto and the corpulent Steve Trupp—contend for commercial dominance. A beautiful island woman named Gata, who works for Trupp, flirts with Britto while his wife Eleenay waits at home. Tension escalates when Britto accuses Trupp of illegally importing Dutch gin to sell to natives, though Trupp counters that Britto has smuggled spirits hidden in cotton shipments. A visiting missionary, John Langdon, arrives with a young stranger named Warren Phelps, expressing concern that the traders' rivalry threatens white settlement stability. The narrative depicts colonial trading rivalries and island dynamics as the community teeters between "civilization" and what the text describes as reversion toward savagery.