Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/235

 can understand our yarn and believe it when they understand it."

"For all you know, we may be making for the Himalaya Mountains," Alan suggested.

"Not we," Mark said. "I believe the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west, and rivers run toward larger rivers or the sea, even in China. We've been sailing steadily in approximately one direction."

"How do you know it's the right direction, though?"

"Well, if this meandering body of water joins a bigger one, there'll be bigger towns on it, and bigger people in them, and— Hi, Miss Ping-Pong, stop flinging rice upon me! If you've done, go and curl up on your mat and go by-by."

But Ping-Pong wished to stay with her friend. When he sought to remove her, she clung to his legs like a small barnacle, so he let her be, and she rolled herself up between his feet with a remark intelligible to herself alone.

"See, she knows I'm her rescuer; she's attached to me," he said, beaming.

"She knows you have the rice-bowl, more