Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/245

 "No coolie."

"No can do!" The captain was decisive. He shook his head.

'My brother is with me. He's gone ashore," Alan supplemented, wondering if his questioner understood statements so complicated as this. He did not seem to. Instead, he pointed at Ping-Pong.

"Where got?" he demanded.

"Found her on the river," Alan explained. "No want. Give her away pretty quick."

"Hgh," said the official, as nearly as Alan could make out. The expression seemed to indicate disbelief.

"Why you go one boy?" he asked. "Coolie cost cheap. Melican no work, Chineeman work for him."

He was evidently suspicious of the Sham-Poo and her ill-assorted crew.

"He probably thinks we're smuggling something," Alan thought, for he had heard tales of illicitly carried salt and devious dealings among the junk-masters.

But before he could frame a simple version of his story two men from the police-boat boarded the Sham-Poo and began diligently