Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/330

318 "Go now?" repeated the cashier. "What for you go? Him 'leven o'clock. You no go now."

"Yes. I go now. My second-uncle he sick."

The cashier was an old Californian, and instantly conceded the point, contenting himself with asking if Sing Gee expected to return or whether his second-uncle's illness was to result in a permanent withdrawal.

"I come back wo'k tomollah," stated Sing Gee, and departed.

From the little room behind the varnished ducks he sharply despatched a youth, who sped so well that within two hours he returned driving with old Sing Toy behind the ancient furry animal that drew Corona del Monte's Chinese vegetable wagon. Sing Toy bowed profoundly from the waist and stood with his hands folded across his stomach, his beady black eyes fixed on Sing Gee's face while the latter apparently indulged in a long cantata. Then Sing Toy clucked twice, bowed again from the waist, and withdrew. The rest of the afternoon he devoted to what might have been a house to house canvass of Chinatown, holding long animated confabulations with many red-button Celestials. At the close of each of these interviews he wrote several characters on a tablet he produced from his sleeve. When he had finished all his visits he seated himself before a teakwood abacus, or counting frame, and referring to the marks on his tablet he rapidly nipped the polished buttons back and forth on their wires. He contemplated the result with a slight frown; sighed; and returned to the back room. Sing Gee listened to what he had to say, nodded, spoke low-toned to an attendant, and went on puffing at his long-stemmed pipe. The attendant disappeared for a moment, but returned carrying a revolver. It was a wicked looking weapon, a Colts 45, but with the barrel sawed off within two inches of the frame. He handed this to Sing Toy, who glanced at the cylinders, tucked it in his sleeve, bowed again, and departed.

Next he drove the vegetable wagon around to Patrick Boyd's residence where he carried on a long conversation with the Chinaman—also a Sing—employed in that household. Thence he returned to the ranch, which he reached about sunset.