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342 "All light," agreed Sing Toy, placidly. "I ketch 'um." "You'll get it? Thirty thousand dollars? Where can you raise that sum?" cried Corbell, with scornful incredulity.

"Chinatown, I ketch 'um."

"But, Sing Toy, you can't take any such sum from your friends on this sort of a thing. The security is not very good."

"You tell me some day he pay him back?" asked Sing Toy.

"Yes, if we can. But we can't be sure—it's very uncertain"

"All light," interrupted Sing Toy, comfortably. "Cunnel my fliend, you my fliend, all fliends of Chinaman in Chinatown. You say pay him some day. Dat all light. I ketch 'um."

At that moment Kenneth's voice was heard in the barroom enquiring of Barney.

"He's all right," said Corbell, hurriedly. "He's good boy. He's not in this."

"I know. He all light," said Sing Toy; and the men looking on his kind, carved old face confessed to respectful wonder.

In him seemed to be embodied all the mysterious knowledge and wisdom of the Orient.

night drive over the mountains was without especial incident. Boyd disgustedly thought his captors drunk and informed with one of the wild ideas for which they were famous. Another prank for which they would be sorry and very apologetic in the morning. And he would see that they were good and sorry, he thought savagely. It was about time that someone showed this gang of hoodlums that they couldn't break laws and annoy peaceful citizens for their own amusement. There had been too much leniency, too much good-natured tolerance. These were men; not irresponsible boys. It was time they grew up.

With these and similar thoughts did Boyd pass the long, slow journey and keep himself warm in the cool night air of the valley. Nobody uttered a syllable the whole distance. The silence was unbroken except for the creak and rattle of the buckboard, the scrape of the brakes,the strain of the harness, the soft, occasional snorting or blowing of the horses. On either side of Boyd the bulky forms of Bill Hunter and Sheridan were wedged in so