Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/157

Rh the area laid waste by the Christian allies, and the villages were populous and busy. You Han had glimpsed a shadow of the shame that smoldered in his master's mind, and he was for making little overtures, simple yet crafty, to win him back to himself. As the first step in reconstruction, he called "Look-see, master!" and pulled from beneath the body of the cart a "Krag" rifle, bayonet, and cartridge-belt. The deserter threw back his shoulders at sight of them, and in an outburst of gratitude smote his benefactor so that his head ached for several hours.

"Last night, when get cart, go back camp," twittered You Han; "find one piecee master's gun in tent. Plenty dark. Sently shoot, no can hit. Good, by golly!"

"Good! you twenty-four carat jewel of Asia! You're the goodest imitation of a white man that was ever bound in yeller leather by mistake. Now I feel as if I wanst looked like a man meself . Give me a rag an' a bit o' that stinkin' cookin'-grease, an' make room on the carrt till I do up me house-cleanin'." You Han grinned and began to wail an