Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/229

Rh home to mother and sister," he began, "but I didn't have a chance to get much while the lootin' was busy. Wouldn't have done me any good if I had, when the captain had the tents searched and collared most of the company stuff. I ain't sorry I missed it on the loot, for the old lady 'ud throw out o' the window all the stuff I sent her, if she thought it wasn't paid for. She's fierce in backin' foreign missions, an' the Chinamen is her purticuler pets."

Shorty broke in with an oath: "Yes, I know all about P Company's captain and his hair-trigger conscience. He swiped all our loot, but he sent home forty-seven mail packages, duty free. I got that from the postal clerk. What you got left, Saunders?"

The invalid spread an embroidered panel of crimson satin and a roll of blue silk on the edge of his cot, and threw a handful of silver ornaments and a cloisonné snuff-box on the blankets.

"I didn't loot even this stuff," he said, with an apologetic air, "but bought it along the Chien-men Road, so it could go