Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/267

Rh with premonition, a prickly sort of statics that got at the very soul of him. The quiet and the silence were ominous. He could not reason that the Chinese would wait until the defenders were too weak to repulse them. That might take a day or two, depending upon the air. The cactus plug was effective in more ways than one. But Hsu Fu could not know how soon they might be missed, or the idea come to their friends that something had gone wrong. To blast them in and come back later would be too big a risk for a rescue in the meantime. Everything pointed to a speedy clean-up and he was certain that the crafty minds outside were planning a coup. And the helpless waiting was demoralizing. Was Quong playing double?

He looked across at the mandarin, and envied him his capacity for absolute relaxation and withdrawal into a placidity that reserved all forces. Yet he felt that the will of the man was like a tightly coiled spring, encased for the time, but able to fling off its cover and lash out into action the second it was necessary. If he had nerves he had some way of temporarily disconnecting the circuit. The dripping of the water, by now growing to an exquisite agony with Sheridan, failed to even annoy Quong. With Red it was different. Sheridan saw him carefully shifting, so as not to disturb the uneasy rest of the wounded rider, with every sign of restlessness, blinking eyes and twitching muscles; folded arms with hands that plucked continually at the flannel of his shirt. Red met his glance.

"If ennyone said Boo to me I'd jump clean