The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 136: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

606 articles aside in a frenzied way, and presently Hemingway came creeping back, his face white and his lips angry. ‘Fool that I am,” he said bitterly. “T put that box in the pocket of my coat when you gave it to me on board ship, and now the thing has gone. I suppose it is at the bottom of the sea. I must have either dropped it in the water when we left the ship or else it is somewhere on the beach. Anyhow, it’s gone. We can’t buy ’em off now.” “Maybe you dropped it somewhere up here,” said Oakes hopefully. So they searched every foot of the Ittle rock-pile, but with no success; and all the time Kow Lung argued and squab- bled with the giant Chinaman at the foot of the wall of rocks. He was shrieking loudly now to Oakes for an answer to their proposition. “You tell him, Kow Lung,” shout- ed Oakes finally, “that we will give him nothing but bullets and blows, and that if he tries to attack us here in this place he’ll lose all of his men in doing it. “You can add, too, that speaking personaHy I will fill him individually so full of holes that he’ll look Itke a Philadelphia transfer street-car ticket. I think that’ll. bother him some to translate,” he grinned to Hemingway, who grinned in answer as he tested follower and bolt and ranged a half- dozen filled clips beside him among the rocks, | It did bother Kow Lung. They jab- bered away for ten minutes in a series of grunts and squeels that would have made the Tower of Babel sound like a pigsty; and when it was all over Kow Lung crawled back up the rocks to say: “More better lung lady stay more closee. Alleady claptain say no lettee her go. Him say more better kill Yung-gwaizat, then take her and makee sell mandarin up river. Time White Flag war him buy Flench womans. Mebbee so him bling plitty girl him get many taels—gold taels. Can sell Melli- can woman to mandarin—” THE ARGOSY. “That,” said Hemingway, white to the lips, “is cold truth. You ‘have no idea, Oakes, what these devils are. Why, rather than have Marjorie fall into their hands alive I would kill her myself. “While I am on the subject I want to caution you that if it comes to a close-quarters fight -with them, keep your last two shots for your fiancée and for yourself. | “Tf they get her they will sell her as a slave to some up-country official after torturing us. Make no mistake about that. When More and I hit the headwaters of the Hwang-ho we got the story of the Chee Wan Mission. “Tt had been attacked about three weeks before we came through the country, by the White Flaggers, of course—the Boxers, you know. The men were all killed and the women were carried off. | “We never heard what had become of them till about six months later. After the Pau-ting-foo fight a Russian officer, who had been raiding the coun- try with a sotnia of Cossacks, found that three women had been exposed for a week in a bamboo cage, until a man- darin who had never seen a white woman bought them. They disap- peared in his harem, of course. Yamen, you know.” Oakes’s brown face whitened under the tan. He thanked God that Mar- jorie was too far away to hear this talk, and he quietly scaled down his sights to three hundred yards. “Can you shoot, Kow Lung?” he asked quietly. “My no can do. Can use knife plitty good. One time me _ carvee Chinaman eye out by hatchet. Time my tong flight in Cantgn-side. My come Canton-side. All Chinamans b’long tongs can use hatchet,’ and the boy grinned cheerfully at Oakes. “All right. If you can’t shoot there’s no use my givin’ you a revolv- er. What’s he want now, Kow Lung?” } For the captain or leader of the Chi- COMicdoo S CO@