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96 art of helping poor Chinamen evade the exclusion laws."

With a wry smile, he continued: "I came to just in time to witness the landing of your amiable sister, her gang, and Alan, in company with as choice a crew of scoundrels as you'd care to see. I gathered from a few words that leaked out of the back door of the barroom that Judith had stolen a boat from the ship that picked her up, and then piled it up on Norton's Reef; and shortly after she had gathered Alan in, the schooner of these smugglers happened along, and she hailed it and struck a bargain with them. Anyway, her lot and the islanders were soon as thick as thieves, and tanking up so sociably that I got a chance to whisper a word to Alan and tell him you were all right, and that he'd find us both down here on the beach, if he escaped. He's locked up now in a little stone hut on the edge of the cliff, with the door guarded and the window overlooking a sheer drop of thirty feet or so to the beach. When I'd seen that much, I calculated it was about time for me to go before Mam'selle Judith nicked me with the evil eye." "You don't think she saw you?" the girl cried.

"I don't think so," Barcus allowed gravely; and then, lifting his gaze, he added as he rose in a bound, "I just know she did—that's all!"

In another instant he was battling with three