Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/144

120 the trail of the deserter; but the pursuer could find no way through or around. When he entered the street beyond, there was no blue overcoat in the crowded field of vision, and the shuffling sound of felt-soled native shoes gave no clew. He returned to the lieutenant, genuinely weary and speciously disappointed. The officer was leaning over the body of the other prisoner, and there was keen unhappiness in his flushed young face.

"I've found an empty cart," he said to the sentry. "Help me carry this poor fellow to camp. He has no use for a doctor. As for Sweeney, he can't get away. He's hiding in the American section, and I will get the provost-marshal over the field 'phone from headquarters, and have the guard sweep the district from end to end. The man will be captured before morning."

This occurred to the fugitive, also, as certain to happen, when he staggered through a little courtyard, far in the heart of the "Chinese City," and fell into a corner of a smoke-fogged room. It was so nearly nightfall that the one occupant,