Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/177

Rh the sand, tripped the man, and he slipped it over You Han and pulled it tight before he fell back in the tossing sand. The mule stumbled a step or two with its burden, found that it was free and in a moment tottered beyond the vision of the deserter.

Not more than a hundred yards away a camel-trail lay encamped against the storm, and to the Mongolian drivers, huddled in furs close to their beasts, came a little dun mule half dragging an unconscious Chinese youth, whom they took for dead as they wonderingly cut him loose from his lashing. Daylight and the tail of the sand-storm had come before he was able to speak, and the camels were jostling into the line of march. The swarthy drivers scoffed at the story told by the raving stranger, until the bell-camel shied at something nearly buried in the sand. You Han fought the greedy northerners off until he had disclosed a figure in army blue and a clean-cut Irish face whose expression was vastly peaceful.

The last silver coin was gone from the