Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/277

Rh up their ears—the sound of an automobile, two as it turned out. They were not sounding their horns and they were coming at high speed, but they slowed up for the bridge. It is none too firm and Pedro must have warned them about it. For Pedro was in the front seat of the first machine. They were not looking for us, knew nothing about us, and they would not have discovered any one unless they had slowed up still more and looked very carefully through the green boughs of the willows.

"But we could see them. It was sunset and they were traveling straight west as the road runs there. The driver of the first car was goggled and wore a cap with a low visor, but he was a Chinaman. Both cars had their tops up and curtains too, but it was still warm and they were in a lonely country with nothing in sight, so they had unbuttoned some of the curtains and those who could were getting the breeze. They were all Chinamen, not the type of the man I had seen talking with Pedro—the man Quong killed—but cruel faces with high cheekbones and slitty, tilted eyes. The second driver was goggled and visored too. If it had not been for the rest I might not have known either of the drivers as Chinese, but I was thinking fast.

"There was deviltry on all of those yellow faces peering out from the car curtains. They passed out of our sight fast enough, but they left a sinister trail behind in my mind. They picked up speed and went sweeping on towards Pioche Gap. I thought of them arriving at the Circle S. Then I thought that Chinamen would hardly dare to attack an