Part 7

Thus while the robber band was climbing the steep mountain and leading their tired prisoner farther and farther away, two little girls knelt down to pray.

For nearly three weeks no message came.

"If we could only know if Father is still living and if he is well!" said Mrs. Shelton.

"Yes," said Doris. "Or if we could get a message to him so he could know we are praying for him!"

One day Shen-si, the Chinese cook who had lived with them many years, said:

"I will carry your message to my master and bring his message to you."

"How can you find him, Shen-si?" asked Dorothy. "How will you get past the chief of the bandits?"

"I will face Yang Tien-fu and carry your message to my master and bring his message to you," said Shen-si quietly.

Mrs. Shelton and the girls wrote letters and Shen-si started out to find his master. All along the way he followed the robbers, asking questions until he reached the place where he was told his master was. He went boldly up to the guards.

"I come on important business," he announced. "I must speak to your chief."

The guards led him to Yang Tien-fu. Behind the chief he saw his master, so changed that he scarcely knew him. A long beard had grown over his smooth face, and he was so weak he could scarcely walk. Tears came into Shen-si's eyes.

Dr. Shelton was allowed to send a message back, and he handed Shen-si a copy of _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_ to take to Mrs. Shelton. This he had had in his saddle-bags when the robbers captured him. On the margins he had written daily messages to his wife. One of the last was:

"I am tired to death; all I can say in my desolation is, 'Make Thy grace sufficient for me, O God.'"

With the precious book Shen-si started back.

Shen-si was not the only one who had determined to reach Dr. Shelton. One day Yang Tien-fu said to his prisoner:

"The government has sent a messenger to me to say that my family is at the priest's house and that if I will send you there in exchange, my family will be given to me. I am almost afraid to trust them, for they do not keep their word as you do, but I am going to send you to the priest's house with a strong guard."

Twenty of the robbers took Dr. Shelton to the priest's house. There Yang Tien-fu found only his wife and mother.

"What do two women amount to?" he said angrily. "I can buy another wife as good as that one for a hundred dollars any time. Have them bring me my son."

A contract was prepared promising Yang Tien-fu that if he would release Dr. Shelton, the Chinese government would give him pardon for himself and his men, make him an officer in the army, return all his family to him and give him the arms and ammunition for which he had asked. On the next day the contract was to be signed by him and by the Chinese governor.

Late at night some of the men, who had been out watching, hurried to the chief.

"The government has you in a trap," they said, "many troops of soldiers are stealing in quietly to surround you and capture you."

Quickly Yang Tien-fu took both his family and Dr. Shelton, and at midnight they slipped out between the circles of soldiers, back to the mountains. Again began the long, hard journeys. Soon Yang Tien-fu saw that his prisoner was too weak to walk or even to sit on his mule, so he had a rough chair made for him. For thirty-seven hours they carried him, running as fast as they could, for the soldiers were following. One day the chief said:

"The doctor is so sick and weak he can go no farther. Take him to the loft of that barn and hide him in the straw. Place four guards with him. If he dies, hide his body where no one will find it; if he gets well, send a messenger to me, and I will come for him."

The men made a tunnel through the rice-straw to the back of the loft, digging out a space large enough for a bed for the doctor at the end. They took a brick out of the wall to make a small hole for a window. As they dragged their sick prisoner into his straw house, one of them said:

"The 'big doctor' is the same as a dead man."

The newspapers all over the world had printed the story of Dr. Shelton's capture by the robbers, and day by day people in many lands waited to hear that the governor and his soldiers had caught Yang Tien-fu and released Dr. Shelton. One day the American Minister at Peking started a rescue party of several English and Americans with troops. They sent a message to Yang Tien-fu demanding the release of Dr. Shelton; then they started into the mountains to find him. When they left, Doris and Dorothy went with them to the gate of the city.

Meanwhile the "big doctor," almost too weak to move, was lying on his bed of straw, with his head by the little window.

"Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,"—he counted the days as they went by.

An old Chinese man brought him rice, and the rest and food made him feel so much better that the men who were guarding him slipped off to tell the chief he was not dead, leaving the Chinese to guard him. Late one afternoon the old man cried out in terror, "The soldiers are coming!" and ran as fast as he could.

Dr. Shelton crawled to the street and called to the Chinese runner who had so frightened his guard. The villagers had heard the cries, "The soldiers are coming!" and had run to the hills. When the messenger found out that the man who stood before him was the "big doctor," he was almost as frightened as the villagers.

As soon as he could get his breath, he helped the doctor to escape. Leaning on his deliverer's arm, Dr. Shelton crept along for a quarter of a mile to the next village. There was no horse on which he could ride and no chair on which he could be carried, but eight men of the village were persuaded to help. They twisted ropes of wild grass and tied them about the doctor's waist. Some men lifted, some pushed, and some pulled on the ropes until they reached the next village, which was fortunately a Christian village. The people met them with joy. They were afraid to stop long for fear the robbers would overtake them, so they slept for only an hour and then started on.

They found two small ponies, and at half-past four in the morning they offered a prayer that God would take care of the "big doctor," and lifted him to a pony's back. He was so weak that two men had to hold him on. When one pony was tired, they lifted him to the other.

Presently Dr. Shelton looked up and saw two hundred soldiers approaching, and soon recognized his friends. He heard English spoken for the first time in sixty-six days, and he could not speak for joy. One of the rescue party had a box of crackers. He ate them at once, because since he was captured, he had had nothing but rice. His friends had to lend him clothes, for his were worn out.

At the gate of Yunnanfu five hundred people came to welcome Dr. Shelton home. First and foremost were two little girls who ran to put their arms round his neck and whisper, "We prayed for you! We prayed for you! The Lord does answer prayers, doesn't he?"

Dr. Shelton patted the two heads.

"Of course he does," he said. "That is why I am here."

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_.

Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been standardized.