CHAPTER VII.

THE TALL CHINAMAN.

For an hour or more they kept steadily on. The Chinaman in the lead had nothing to say except to turn his head with an occasional caution to avoid some obstacle in the path. As for the boys, after the first mile, they, too, relapsed into silence. It was rough going, and, although they had been through some pretty hard ground at times, this trail through the Washington forest was more rugged than anything they had hitherto encountered.

“How far did Mr. Chillingworth say it was to the ranch?” asked Jack, after a while.

“About fifteen miles this way,” rejoined Tom. “You see, this trail goes fairly parallel with the coast, but it doesn’t follow all its in and outs. In that way we cut off a good deal of distance.”

“Say that Chinaman is a talkative young party, isn’t he?” laughed Jack, after another interval of silence.

“I guess his sort don’t do much talking as a rule,” rejoined Tom, “but it seems to me that his moodiness dates from the time he saw that funeral last night out there in the cove. According to my way of thinking, he has something on his conscience.”

“Well, if he honestly believes that the ghosts of all those fellows he saw buried are going to haunt him, no wonder he has something on his mind,” chuckled Jack. “I’m going to try to get something out of him, anyhow.”

Suddenly he hailed the Chinaman.

“Hey Fu, what make trail so crooked?”

“Injun makee him longee time ago,” responded the Mongolian. “Him come lock he no movee, him go lound. Allee same Chinee,” he added, “too muchee tlouble getee him out of way. Heap more easty walk lound him.”

“There’s something in that, too, when you come to think of it,” mused Tom. “Anyway, it goes to show the difference between Indians and Chinese and white men.”

“I guess that’s the reason neither the Chinese nor the Indians have ever ‘arrived,’” commented Jack. “It takes a lot longer to go round than to keep bang on a straight course.”

“That’s right,” assented the other lad. “I really believe you are becoming a philosopher, Jack.”

“Like Professor Dingle,” was the laughing answer.

Once more the conversation languished and they plodded steadily on. But it was warmer now—almost unbearably so, down in the windless floor of the forest. From the pine needles a thick pollen-like dust rose that filled mouth and nostrils with an irritating dust. The boys’ mouths grew parched and dry. They would have given a good deal for a drink of clear, sparkling water.

“Say, Fu,” hailed Jack presently, “we find some water pretty soon?”

“Pletty soon,” grunted the Chinaman, who, despite his fragile frame, seemed tireless and entirely devoid of hunger or thirst. However, shortly after noon, when they had reached a spot where a great rock impended above the trail, while below their feet the chasm sloped down to unknown depths, the blue-bloused figure stopped short in its tireless walk and waited for the boys to come up.

“Pletty good spling here,” he said, diving off into the brush with the canteen. “Me catchum watel.”

“All right, catch all you want of it,” cried Jack, flinging himself exhaustedly on a bed of fern at the side of the rough path. The Chinaman was soon back with the water. He lit a fire and skillfully made tea. With a tin cup each of the refreshing stuff, the boys soon felt better. From the bag they lunched on salt beef, crackers and cheese, and dried apricots. As might be expected, by mid-afternoon their thirst was once more raging.

“How far is it to the ranch?” inquired Tom, for the dozenth time, as they pluckily plodded along. Not for worlds would they have let that silent, fatigueless Chinaman have perceived that they were almost worn out.

“Plitty soon we cross canyon. Ranchee him not far then,” was the response.

“Nothing for it but to stick,” muttered Tom grittily. “But, oh, what wouldn’t I give for a drink of water. I’m as dry—as dry—as those dried apricots.”

“Pooh!” retorted Jack. “They were fairly dripping with moisture compared to the way I feel.”

All at once, a few rods farther, a distant rumbling sound down in the canyon, and off to the right, was borne to their ears. Both lads listened a minute and then gave a joyous whoop.

It was water,—a considerable river, apparently. Anyhow, it was real water, no doubt of that. As they listened, they could hear it gurgling and splashing as it dashed along.

“Hi there, Fu!” hailed Jack, adopting the Chinaman’s own lingo. “We go catchum water way down in canyon.”

But for some reason or other the Chinaman did not seem anxious for the lads to do this. He shook his pig-tailed head.

“You waitee,” he advised. “By um bye find plentee welly nicee watel.”

“Well, this water right here is plentee nicee for me,” rejoined Jack. “So here goes.”

Followed by Tom, he plunged off the trail down the steep declivity, clinging to brush and small saplings as he went. Grumbling to himself in a low tone, the Chinaman followed. It was clear that he thought the proceedings foolish in the extreme.

The descent was longer as well as steeper than they had imagined it would be, but every minute the roaring voice of the concealed river or stream grew louder.

All at once, they emerged from a clump of brush, not unlike our eastern alders—almost upon the bank of a fine river. It was a lot bigger than they had expected, and was rushing along with the turbulent velocity characteristic of mountain water. Here and there were black, deep eddies dotted with circling flecks of white, yeasty foam. But the main stream dashed between its steep, rocky banks like a racehorse, flinging spray and spindrift high in the air when it encountered a check. The water was greenish—almost a glassy tint. The boys learned later that this was because it was snow water and came from the high Olympians.

Flinging themselves flat by the side of one of the eddies, they drank greedily.

“Reminds me of what that kid said when he showed his mother a fine spring he had discovered, and the good lady wished to know how to drink out of it,” chuckled Jack, as they paused for breath.

“What was that?” inquired Tom, wiping his wet mouth with the back of a sun-burned hand.

“‘Why, maw,’ said the kid, ‘you just lie on your tummy and drink uphill.’”

“That does pretty nearly describe it for a fact,” agreed Tom. As he spoke, both boys straightened up from their recumbent position. Hardly had they done so and were scrambling to their feet when there came a sudden, sharp crackling of the brush higher up the stream. Before they had time to recover from their surprise, or to even hazard a guess at what the noise might mean, the brush parted and a figure stepped forth.

Both boys uttered a cry of amazement as their eyes fell on the newcomer. He was a Chinaman—tall, grave, and with a face like a parchment mask.

As Fu saw him, he fell on his face and began muttering incoherent noises like those he had given vent to when he cast himself on the deck of the sloop the night before.

The newcomer was the first to speak. He did so in a deep, sonorous voice very unlike the squeaky, jerky mode of utterance of Fu.

“White boys come with me,” he said, in a tone that indicated that he did not expect to be disobeyed.

“Well, of all the nerve,” breathed the astonished Jack to himself. But before he could speak a word aloud, Tom spoke up:

“We are on our way to a ranch,” he said, “and must reach there by sundown. We’ll have to hurry on.”

No change of expression crossed that yellow mask, but the tall Chinaman’s hand slipped into his blouse sleeve, which was loose and flowing. It was done so rapidly that before the boys had fairly noticed the movement a revolver was pointing at them; the sunlight that struck down through the dark-topped pines glinted ominously on its blued barrel.

The Chinaman, in the same level, monotonous voice, repeated his command:

“White boys come with me.”

“Why, confound it all——” burst out Tom, but somehow the sight of that tall, motionless figure, with the expressionless face staring unblinkingly at them, and the revolver pointed menacingly in their direction, made him break off short.

“Oh, all right, then,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to. You’ve got the drop on us. But if there were any authorities near, you’d hear of this.”

The ghost of a smile flitted across the tall Chinaman’s hitherto fixed visage. But he made no comment. Instead, he turned to the recumbent Fu, and spoke sharply to him in Chinese. As he was addressed, Fu rose with alacrity and bowed low three times. He seemed to be terrified out of his wits, and fairly whimpered as the stern gaze of his majestic countryman fell upon him.

“White boys walk in front,” ordered the tall Chinaman, motioning toward the clump of brush from which he had so suddenly materialized.

They now saw that there was a narrow trail leading through it. And so, down this narrow path the odd procession started—the two lads in front, and behind the oddly assorted pair of Mongolians.

It would be wrong to say the boys were frightened. To be frightened, a certain amount of previous apprehension is necessary. This thing had happened so suddenly and was so utterly inexplicable that they were fairly stunned. Their sensations, as they walked among the thick-growing bushes, were not unlike those of persons in a dream. Somehow, at every turn of the path, they expected to wake up.

And wake up they did presently. The wakening came as, after traversing the narrow trail for a half mile, they suddenly emerged on a camp under a clump of big pines. At one side of the open space in which three tents were pitched, the stream boiled and roared. On the other, the precipice shot up. But the camp was screened from view from above by the brush which grew out of cracks in the cliff-face. Beyond the river another wooded precipice arose. This was a frowning rampart of bare, scarred rock. All this uneasily impressed the boys. They could perceive that they were in a sort of natural man-trap.

This sense of uneasiness increased as, their first rapid glance over, they observed details. In front of one of the tents was seated a tall, lanky figure, dressed in rough mackinack trousers, calf skin boots, a blue shirt open to expose a sinewy throat, and, to crown all, a battered sombrero. This man was seated on an old soap box and strumming on a banjo as they entered the glade.

At the sound of footsteps he looked up and showed a dark, high-cheek-boned face with a thin, hawk-like nose, and a pair of piercing, steely-gray eyes. The man was clean shaven and his lips were thin, close-pressed, and cruel. This countenance was framed in a mass of lank, black hair, so long that it hung down to the shoulders of his faded shirt.

The figure, its occupation, and the previous incidents of the adventure all combined to form an intuition which suddenly flashed with convincing force into Tom’s mind:

This place was the hidden camp of the Chinese runners, and the figure on the soap box was Bully Banjo—the feared and admired Simon Lake himself.

“Right smart work, by Chowder!” he exclaimed, setting aside his banjo and rising on his long, thin limbs as the boys and Fu were marched into his presence. His voice was as thin, sharp, and penetrating as his eyes, and was unmistakably that of a downeaster. In fact, Simon Lake was a native of Nantucket. From whaling he had drifted to sealing. From sealing to seal poaching in the Aleutian, and from that it was but a step to his present employment. A shudder that they could not suppress ran through the boys as they realized that they were in the presence of this notorious sea wolf.