Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/283

 "That was the magnetic way of him. He was like a physician in a sick-room, radiating confidence.

"‘Mrs. Danby,' he said, bowing over her hand in his graceful way, 'your husband tells me some of the Shan people threaten to be rude, but I don't think you need feel a bit worried.'

"‘I'm not very much afraid,' she asserted, 'but the coolies are. They have taken to the woods, and I should be nervous here alone with Sydney. But now you and Mr. Campbell have come, I shall feel perfectly safe.' And she smiled in a most delightful manner.

"Her mention of the coolies caused her husband to frown a bit, for the servants were an excellent barometer as to any trouble that might leak down from the hills behind us. When he called for a boy to remove the box of dynamite, only Mike, an interpreter appeared.

"Mike said he regretted to announce that all of the sahib's dogs had run away to the jungles. As for himself, bah—and he spat in the direction of the hills. Might the graves of his ancestors be defiled if ever he turned his back to the half-caste hill robbers.

"And yet Michael's eyes shifted uneasily as the warm breeze caught the jungle leaves two hundred yards away and rustled them softly.

"While waiting for a bite to eat, Danby, his feet