Johnny looked about for the Russian. He had disappeared.

"Now what did you do that for?" he asked his companion.

"Can't tell now," Iyok-ok answered slowly. "Sometime, mebbe. Not now. Azeezruk nucky, that's all."

He paused and looked away at the hills; then turning, extended his hand. "Anyway, I thank you very, very much I thank you."

With that they made their way toward the village and the sea, which, packed and glistening with ice, reflected all the glories of the gorgeous Arctic sunset.

Three hours later Iyok-ok put his head in at Johnny's igloo and said:

"One hour go."

"North?" asked Johnny.

"North."

"You go?"

"Eh-eh."

"Jap girl go?"

"Eh-eh."

"East Cape? Behring Strait?"

"Mebbe." With a smile, the boy was gone.

"Evidently the Russian is on the move again," Johnny observed to himself. "Wonder what he intends to do about his diamonds? Well, anyway, that proves that the gold mines are not his goal."

As Johnny dug into his pack for a dry pair of deer skin stocks, he discovered that his belongings had been tampered with.

"The Russian," he decided, "evidently hasn't forgotten his diamonds."



CHAPTER VIII

WHEN AN ESKIMO BECOMES A JAP

Johnny Thompson smiled as he drew on a pair of rabbit skin trousers, then a parka made of striped ground squirrel skin, finished with a hood of wolf skin. It was not his own suit; it had been borrowed from his host, a husky young hunter of East Cape. But that was not his reason for smiling. He was amused at the thought of the preposterous misunderstanding which his traveling companions had concerning him.

Only the day before he had exclaimed:

"Iyok-ok, I believe I have guessed why the Russian wants to kill me."

"Why?"

"He thinks I am a member of the United States Secret Service."

"Well? Canak-ti-ma-na" (I don't know).

The boy had looked him squarely in the eye as much as to say, "Who could doubt that?"

At first Johnny had been inclined to assure Iyok-ok that there was no truth in the assumption, but the more he thought of it, the better he was satisfied with things as they were. His companions carried with them a great air of mystery; why should he not share this a little with them? He had let the matter drop.

But now, since he was considered to be a member of a secret service organization, he prepared to act the part for one night at least. With the wolf skin parka hood drawn well around his face, he would hardly be recognized, garbed as he was in borrowed clothes.

The mysterious Russian had adopted a plan of sending his dogs to some outpost to be cared for by natives. This made the locating of the igloo he occupied extremely difficult. It had been by the merest chance that Johnny had caught a glimpse of him as he disappeared through the flaps of a dwelling near the center of the village. The American had resolved to watch that place and discover, if possible, some additional clues to the purpose of the Russian.

Skulking from igloo to igloo, Johnny came at last to the one he sought. Making his way to the back of it, he studied it carefully. There were no windows and but one entrance. There was an opening at the top but to climb up there was to be detected. He crept round to the other corner. There a glad sigh escaped his lips. A spot of light shone through the semi-transparent outer covering of walrus skin. That meant that there was a hole in the inner lining of deer skin. He had only to cut a hole through the walrus skin to get a clear view of the interior. This he did quickly and silently.

He swung his arm in disgust as he peered inside. Only an old Chukche woman sat in the corner, chewing and sewing at a skin boot sole.

Johnny hesitated. Had he mistaken the igloo? Had the Russian purposely misled him? He was beginning to think so, when his eye caught the end of a sleeping bag protruding from a pile of deer skins. This he instantly recognized as belonging to the Russian.

"Evidently our friend is out. Then I'll wait," he whispered to himself.

He had been there but a few moments, when the native woman, putting away her work, went out. She had scarcely disappeared through the flap than a dark brown streak shot into the room. As Johnny watched it, he realized that it was a small woman, and, though her clothing was unfamiliar, he knew by certain quick and peculiar movements that this was the Jap girl.

Ah ha! Now, perhaps, he should learn some things. Perhaps after all these three were in league; perhaps they were all Radicals with a common purpose, the destruction of all organized society; Japanese Radicals are not at all uncommon.

But what was this the Jap girl was doing? She had overturned the pile of deer skins and was attempting to reach to the bottom of the Russian's sleeping bag. Failing in this, she gave it a number of punches. With a keen glance toward the entrance she at last darted head foremost into the bag, much as a mouse would have gone into a boot.

She came out almost at once. Her hands were empty. Evidently the thing she sought was not there. Next she attacked a bundle, which Johnny recognized as part of the Russian's equipment. She had examined this and was about to put it in shape again when there came the faint shuffle of feet at the entrance. With one wild look about her, she darted to the pile of deer skins and disappeared beneath it.

She was not a moment too soon, for instantly the sharp chin and the sullen brow of the Russian appeared at the entrance.

When he saw the bundle in disorder, he sprang to the center of the room. His hand on his belt, he stared about the place for a second, then much as a cat springs at a tuft of grass where a mole is concealed, he sprang at the pile of deer skins.

Johnny's lips parted, but he uttered not a sound. His hand gripped the blue automatic. If the Russian found her, there would be no more Russian, that was all.

But to his intense surprise, he saw that as the man tore angrily at the pile, he uncovered nothing but skins.

Johnny smothered a sigh of relief which was mixed with a gasp of admiration. The girl was clever, he was obliged to admit that. In a period only of seconds, she had cut away the rope which bound the skin wall to the floor and had crept under the wall to freedom.

As Johnny settled back to watch, his brain was puzzled by one question; what was it that the Jap girl sought? Was it certain papers which the Russian carried, or was it—was it something which Johnny himself carried in his pocket at this very moment—the diamonds?

This last thought caused him a twinge of discomfort. If she was searching for the diamonds, could it be that they rightfully belonged to her or to her family, and had they been taken by the Russian? Or had the girl merely learned that the Russian had the jewels and had she followed him all this way with the purpose of robbing him? If the first supposition was correct, ought Johnny not to go to her and tell her that he had the diamonds? If, on the other hand, she was seeking possession of that which did not rightfully belong to her, would she not take them from him anyway and leave him to face dire results? For, though no law existed which would hold him responsible for the jewels, obtained as they had been under such unusual conditions, still Johnny knew all too well that the world organization of Radicals to which this Russian belonged had a system of laws and modes of punishment all its own, and, if the Russian succeeded in making his way to America and if he, Johnny, did not give proper account of these diamonds, sooner or later, punishment would be meted out to him, and that not the least written in the code of the Radical world.

He dismissed the subject from his mind for the time and gave his whole attention to the Russian. But that gentleman, after evincing his exceeding displeasure by kicking his sleeping bag about the room for a time, at last removed his outer garments, crept into the bag and went to sleep.

One other visit Johnny made that night. As the result of it he did not sleep for three hours after he had let down the deer skin curtain to his sleeping compartment.

"Hanada! Hanada?" he kept repeating to himself. "Of all the Japs in all the world! To meet him here! And not to have known him. It's preposterous."

Johnny had gone to the igloo now occupied by Iyok-ok. He had gone, not to spy on his friend, but to talk to him about recent developments and to ascertain, if possible, when they would cross the Strait. He had got as far as the tent flaps, had peered within for a few moments and had come away again walking as a man in his dream.

What he had seen was apparently not so startling either. It was no more than the boy with his parka off. But that was quite enough. Iyok-ok was dressed in a suit of purple pajamas and was turned half about in such a manner that Johnny had seen his right shoulder. On it was a three-cornered, jagged scar.

This scar had told the story. The boy was not an Eskimo but a Jap masquerading as an Eskimo. Furthermore, and this is the part which gave Johnny the start, this Jap was none other than Hanada, his schoolmate of other days; a boy to whom he owed much, perhaps his very life.

"Hanada!" he repeated again, as he turned beneath the furs. How well he remembered that fight. Even then—it was his first year in a military preparatory school—he had shown his tendencies to develop as a featherweight champion. And this tendency had come near to ending his career. The military school was one of those in which the higher classmen treated the beginners rough. Johnny had resented this treatment and had been set upon by four husky lads in the darkness. He had settled two of them, knocked them cold. But the other two had got him down, and were beating the life out of him when this little Jap, Hanada, had appeared on the scene. Being also a first year student, he had come in with his ju'jut'su and between them they had won the battle, but not until the Jap had been hung over a picket fence with a jagged wound in his shoulder. It was the scar of that wound Johnny had seen and it was that scar which had told him that this must be Hanada.

He smiled now, as he thought how he had taken Hanada to his room after that boy's battle and had attempted to sew up the cut with an ordinary needle. He smiled grimly as he thought of the fight and how he had resolved to win or die. Hanada had helped him win.

And here he had been traveling with the Japanese days on end and had not recognized him. And yet it was not so strange. He had not seen him for six years. Had Hanada recognized him? If he had, and Johnny found it hard to doubt it, then he had his own reasons for keeping silent. Johnny decided that he would not be the first to break the silence. But after all there was a strange new comfort in the realization that here was one among all these strangers whom he could trust implicitly. And Hanada would make a capital companion with whom he might cross the thirty-five miles of drifting, piling ice which still lay between him and America. It was the contemplation of these realities which at last led him to the land of dreams.



CHAPTER IX

JOHNNY'S FREE-FOR-ALL

Johnny smiled as he sat before his igloo. Two signs of spring pleased him. Some tiny icicles had formed on the cliff above him, telling of the first thaw. An aged Chukche, toothless, and blind, had unwrapped his long-stemmed pipe to smoke in the sunshine.

Johnny had seen the old man before and liked him. He was cheerful and interesting to talk to.

"See that old man there?" he asked Hanada, whom he still called Iyok-ok when speaking to him. "Communism isn't so bad for him after all."

Hanada squinted at him curiously without speaking.

"Of course, you know," said Johnny, "what these people have here is the communal form of government, or the tribal form. Everything belongs to the tribe. They own it in common. If I kill a white bear, a walrus or a reindeer, it doesn't all go in my storehouse. I pass it round. It goes to the tribe. So does every other form of wealth they have. Nothing belongs to anyone. Everything belongs to everybody. So, when my old friend gets too old to hunt, fish or mend nets, he basks in the sun and needn't worry about anything at all. Pretty soft. Perhaps our friend the Russian is not so far wrong after all if he's a communist."

"Uh-hu," the Jap grunted; then he exclaimed, "That reminds me, Terogloona, the Chukche who lives three doors from here, asked me to tell you to stay out of his igloo this afternoon."

"Why?"

The Jap merely shrugged his shoulders.

"I have a way of doing what I am told not to, you should—" Johnny was about to say, "you should know that," but checked himself in time.

"Better not go," warned Hanada as he turned away.

After an early noon lunch Johnny strolled up the hill top. He wanted to get a view of the Strait. On particularly clear days, Cape Prince of Wales on the American side of Behring Strait can be seen from East Cape in Siberia. This day was clear, and, as Johnny climbed, he saw more and more of the peak as it lay across the Strait, above the white ice floes.

With trembling fingers he drew a one dollar bill from his pocket and spread it on his knee.

"There it is," he whispered. "There's the place where you came from, little old one-spot. And I am going to take you back there. The Wandering Jew once stood here and saw his sweetheart in a mirage on the other side. He was afraid to cross. But he only had a sweetheart to call him. We've got that and a lot more. We've got a country calling us, the brightest, the best country on the map. And we dare try to go back. Once that dark line of water disappears we'll be going."

Then questions began to crowd his brain. Would Hanada attempt the Strait at this time? What was his game anyway? Was he a member of the Japanese secret service detailed to follow the Russian, or was he traveling of his own accord? Except by special arrangement Japanese might not come to America. Was Hanada sneaking back this way? It did not seem like him. Perhaps he would not cross at all.

Johnny's eyes once more swept the broad expanse of drifting ice. Then his gaze became riveted on one spot. The band of black water had narrowed to a ribbon. This meant an onshore wind. Soon they would be able to cross from the solid shore ice to the drifting floe. Surely there could be no better time to cross the Strait. With the air clear and wind light, the crossing might be made in safety.

Even as he looked, Johnny saw a man leap the gap. Curiosity caused him to watch this man, whom he had taken for a Chukche hunter. Now he appeared, now disappeared, only to reappear again round an ice pile. But he behaved strangely for a hunter. Turning neither to right nor left, except to dodge ice piles, he forged straight ahead, as if guided by a compass. Soon it became apparent that he was starting on the trip across the Strait. Chukches did not attempt this journey. They had not sufficient incentive. Could it be the Russian? Johnny decided he must hurry down and tell Hanada. But, even as he rose, he saw a second person leap across the gap in the ice. This one at once started to trail the first man. There could be no mistaking that youthful springing step. It was Hanada in pursuit.

With cold perspiration springing out on his forehead, Johnny sat weakly down. He was being left behind, left behind by his friend, his classmate, the man who above all men he had thought could be depended upon. How could he interpret this?

For a time Johnny sat in gloomy silence, trying to form an answer to the problem; trying also to map out a program of his own.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet. He had remembered that there was some sort of party down in the village, which he had been invited not to attend, and he had meant to go. Perhaps it was not too late if he hurried. He raced down the hill and straight to the igloo he had been warned against entering. A strapping young buck was standing guard at the flaps.

"No go," he said as Johnny approached.

"Go," answered Johnny.

"No go," said the native, his voice rising.

"Go," retorted Johnny quietly.

He moved to pass the native. The latter put his hand out, and the next instant felt himself whirled about and shot spinning down the short steep slope which led from the igloo entrance. Johnny's good right arm had done that.

As the American lad pushed back the flaps of the igloo and entered he stared for one brief second. Then he let out a howl and lunged forward. Before him, in the center of the igloo stood the old man who had been so peacefully smoking his pipe two hours before. He was now standing on a box which raised him some three feet from the floor. About his neck was a skin rope. The rope, a strong one, was fastened securely to the cross poles of the igloo. A younger man had been about to kick the box away.

This same younger man suddenly felt the jar of something hard. It struck his chin. After that he felt nothing.

The fight was on. There were a dozen natives in the room. A brawny buck with a livid scar on his right cheek lunged at Johnny. He speedily joined his friend in oblivion. A third man leaped upon Johnny's back. Johnny went over like a bucking pony. Finally landing feet first upon the other's abdomen, he left him to groan for breath. A little fellow sprang at him. Johnny opened his hand and slapped him nearly through the skin wall. They came; they went; until at last, very much surprised and quite satisfied, they allowed Johnny to cut the skin rope and help his old blind friend down.

A boy poked his head in at the flap. He had been a whaler and could speak English. He surveyed the room in silence for a moment, taking in each prostrate native.

"Now you have spoiled it," he told Johnny with a smile.

"I should say myself that I'd messed things up a bit," Johnny admitted, "but tell me what it's all about. What did the poor old cuss do?"

"Do?" the boy looked puzzled. "That one do?"

"Sure. What did they want to hang him for? He was too old and feeble to do anything very terrible; besides he's blind."

"Oh," said the boy smiling again. "He done not anything. Too old, that why. No work. All time eat. Better dead. That way think all my people. All time that way."

Johnny looked at him in astonishment, then he said slowly:

"I guess I get you. In this commune, this tribe of yours, everyone does the best he can for the gang. When he is too old to work, fish or hunt, the best thing he can do is die, so you hang him. Am I right?"

"Sure a thing," replied the boy. "That's just it."

Johnny shot back:

"No enjoying a ripe old age in this commune business?"

"No. Oh, no."

"Then I'm off this commune stuff forever," exclaimed Johnny. "The old order of things like we got back in the States is good enough for me. And, I guess it's not so old after all. It's about the newest thing there is. This commune business belongs back in the stone age when primitive tribes were all the organizations there were."

He had addressed this speech to no one in particular. He now turned to the boy, a black frown on his brow.

"See here," he said sharply, "this man, no die, See? Live. See? All time live, see? No kill. You tell those guys that. Tell them I mebby come back one winter, one summer. Come back. Old man dead. I kill three of them. See?"

Johnny took out his automatic and played with it longingly.

"Tell them if they don't act as if they mean to do what I say, I'll shoot them now, three of them."

The boy interpreted this speech. Some of the men turned pale beneath their brown skins; some shifted uneasily. They all answered quickly.

"They say, all right," the boy explained solemnly. "Say that one, if had known you so very much like old man, no want-a hang that one."

"All right." Johnny smiled as he bowed himself out.

It was the first near-hanging he had ever attended and he hoped it would be the last. But as he came out into the clear afternoon air he drank in three full breaths, then said, slowly:

"Communism! Bah!"

Hardly had he said this than he began to realize that he had a move coming and a speedy one. He was in the real, the original, the only genuine No Man's Land in the world. He was under the protection of no flag. The only law in force here was the law of the tribe. He had violated that law, defied it. He actually, for the moment, had set himself up as a dictator.

"Gee!" he muttered. "Wish I had time to be their king!"

But he didn't have time, for in the first place, all the pangs of past homesick days were returning to urge him across the Strait. In the second place the mystery of the Russian and Hanada's relation to him was calling for that action. And, in the third place, much as he might enjoy being king of the Chukches, he was quite sure he would never be offered that job. There would be reactions from this day's business. The council of headmen would be called. Johnny would be discussed. He had committed an act of diplomatic indiscretion. He might be asked to leave these shores; and then again an executioner might be appointed for him, and a walrus lance thrust through his back.

Yes, he would move. But first he must see the Jap girl and ask about her plans. It would not do to desert her. Hurrying down the snow path, he came upon her at the entrance to her igloo.

Together they entered, and, sitting cross-legged on the deer skins by the seal oil lamp, they discussed their futures.

The girl made a rather pitiful figure as she sat there in the glow of the yellow light. Much of her splendid "pep" seemed to have oozed away.

As Johnny questioned her, she answered quite frankly. No, she would not attempt to cross the Strait on the ice. It would be quite dangerous, and, beside, she had promised to stay. She did not say the promise had been made to Hanada but Johnny guessed that. Evidently they had thought the Russian might return. She told her American friend that she was afraid that her mission in the far north had met with failure. She would not tell what that mission was, but admitted this much: she had once been very rich, or her family had. Her father had been a merchant living in one of the inland cities of Russia. The war had come and then the revolution. The revolutionists had taken all that her father owned. He had died from worry and exposure, and she had been left alone. Her occupation at present was, well, just what he saw. She shrugged her shoulders and said no more.

Johnny with his natural generosity tried to press his roll of American money upon her. She refused to accept it, but gave him a rare smile. She had money enough for her immediate need and a diamond or two. Perhaps when the Strait opened up she would come by gasoline schooner to America.

Her mention of diamonds made Johnny jump. He instantly thought of the diamonds in his pocket. Could it be that her father had converted his wealth into diamonds and then had been robbed by the Radical revolutionist? He was on the point of showing the diamonds to her when discretion won the upper hand. He thought once more of the cruel revenges meted out by these Radicals. Should he give the diamonds to one to whom they did not belong, the penalty would be swift and sure.

Johnny did, however, press into her hand a card with his name and a certain address in Chicago written upon it and he did urge her to come there should she visit America.

He had hardly left the igloo when a startling question came to his mind. Why had the Russian gone away without further attempt to recover the treasure now in Johnny's possession? He had indeed twice searched the American's igloo in his absence and once had made an unsuccessful attack upon his person. He had gained nothing. The diamonds were still safe in Johnny's pocket. What could cause the man to abandon them? Here, indeed, must be one of the big men of the cult, perhaps the master of them all.

With this thought came another, which left Johnny cold. The cult had spies and avengers everywhere. They were numerous in the United States. They could afford to wait. Johnny could be trusted to cross the Strait soon. There would be time enough then. His every move would be watched, and when the time was ripe there would be a battle for the treasure.

That night, by the light of the glorious Arctic moon Johnny found his way across the solid shore ice and climbed upon the drifting floes, which were even now shifting and slowly piling. He was on his way to America. Perhaps he was the first American to walk from the old world to his native land. Certainly, he had never attempted thirty-five miles of travel which was fraught with so many perils.



CHAPTER X

THE JAP GIRL IN PERIL

Hardly had Johnny made his way across the shore ice and begun his dangerous journey when things of a startling nature began to happen to the Jap girl.

She was seated in her igloo sewing a garment of eider duck skins, when three rough-looking Chukches entered and, without ceremony, told her by signs that she must accompany them.

She was conducted to the largest igloo in the village. This she found crowded with natives, mostly men. She was led to the center of the floor, which was vacant, the natives being ranged round the sides of the place.

Instantly her eyes searched the frowning faces about her for a clue to this move. She soon found it. In the throng, she recognized five of the reindeer Chukches, members of that band which had attempted to murder Johnny Thompson and herself.

Their presence startled her. That they would make their way this far north, when their reindeer had been sent back by paid messengers some days before, had certainly seemed very improbable both to Johnny and to the girl.

Evidently the Chukches were very revengeful in spirit or very faithful in the performance of murders they had covenanted to commit. At any rate, here they were. And the girl did not deceive herself, this was a council chamber. She did not doubt for a moment that her sentence would be death. Her only question was, could there be a way of escape? The wall was lined with dusky forms this time. The entrance was closely guarded. Only one possibility offered; above her head, some five feet, a strong rawhide rope crossed from pole to pole of the igloo. Directly above this was the smoke hole. She had once entered one of these when an igloo was drifted over with snow.

The solemn parley of the council soon began. Like a lawyer presenting his case, the headman of the reindeer tribe stood before them all and with many gestures told his story. At intervals in his speech two men stepped forward for examination. The jaw of one of them was very stiff and three of his teeth were gone. As to the other, his face was still tied up in bandages of tanned deer skin. His jaw was said to be broken. The Jap girl, in spite of her peril, smiled. Johnny had done his work well.

There followed long harangues by other members of the reindeer tribe. The last speech was made by the headman of East Cape. It was the longest of all.

At length a native boy turned to the Jap girl and spoke to her in English.

"They say, that one; they say all; you die. What you say?"

"I say want—a—die," she replied smiling.

This answer, when interpreted, brought forth many a grunt of surprise.

"They say, that one! they say all," the boy went on, "how you want—a die? Shoot? Stab?"

"Shoot." She smiled again, then, "But first I do two thing. I sing. I dance. My people alletime so."

"Ki-ke" (go ahead) came in a chorus when her words had been interpreted.

No people are fonder of rhythmic motion and dreamy chanting than are the natives of the far north. The keen-witted Japanese girl had learned this by watching their native dancing. She had once visited an island in the Pacific and had learned while there a weird song and a wild, whirling dance.

Now, as she stood up she kicked from her feet the clumsy deer skin boots and, from beneath her parka extracted grass slippers light as silk. Then, standing on tip toe with arms outspread, like a bird about to fly, she bent her supple body forward, backward and to one side. Waving her arms up and down she chanted in a low, monotonous and dreamy tone.

All eyes were upon her. All ears were alert to every note of the chant. Great was the Chukche who learned some new chant, introduced some unfamiliar dance. Great would he be who remembered this song and dance when this woman was dead.

The tones of the singer became more distinct, her voice rose and fell. Her feet began to move, slowly at first, then rapidly and yet more rapidly. Now she became an animated voice of stirring chant, a whirling personification of rhythm.

And now, again, the song died away; the motion grew slower and slower, until at last she stood before them motionless and panting.

"Ke-ke! Ke-ke!" (More! More!) they shouted, in their excitement, forgetting that this was a dance of death.

Tearing the deer skin parka from her shoulders and standing before them in her purple pajamas, she began again the motion and the song. Slow, dreamy, fantastic was the dance and with it a chant as weird as the song of the north wind. "Woo-woo-woo." It grew in volume. The motion quickened. Her feet touched the floor as lightly as feathers. Her swaying arms made a circle of purple about her. Then, as she spun round and round, her whole body seemed a purple pillar of fire.

At that instant a strange thing happened. As the natives, their minds completely absorbed by the spell of the dance, watched and listened, they saw the purple pillar rise suddenly toward the ceiling. Nor did it pause, but mounting straight up, with a vaulting whirl disappeared from sight.

Overcome by the hypnotic spell of the dance, the natives sat motionless for a moment. Then the bark of a dog outside broke the spell. With a mad shout: "Pee-le-uk-tuk Pee-le-uk-tuk!" (Gone! Gone!) they rushed to the entrance, trampling upon and hindering one another in their haste.

* * * * *

When Johnny reached the piling ice, on his way across the Strait, he at first gave his entire attention to picking a pathway. Indeed this was quite necessary, for here a great pan of ice, thirty yards square and eight feet thick, glided upon another of the same tremendous proportions to rear into the air and crumble down, a ponderous avalanche of ice cakes and snow. He must leap nimbly from cake to cake. He must take advantage of every rise and fall of the heaving swells which disturbed the great blanket winter had cast upon the bosom of the deep.

All this Johnny knew well. Guided only by the direction taken by the moving cakes, he made his way across this danger zone, and out upon the great floe, which though still drifting slowly northward, did not pile and seemed as motionless as the shore ice itself.

While at the village at East Cape Johnny had made good use of his time. He had located accurately the position of the Diomede Islands, half way station in the Strait. He had studied the rate of the ice's drift northward. He now was in a position to know, approximately, how far he might go due east and how much he must veer to the south to counteract the drift of the ice. He soon reckoned that he would make three miles an hour over the uneven surface of the floe. He also reckoned that the floe was making one mile per hour due north. He must then, for every mile he traveled going east, do one mile to the south. He did this by going a full hour's travel east, then one-third of an hour south.

So sure was he of his directions that he did not look up until the rocky cliffs of Big Diomede Island loomed almost directly above him.

There was a native village on this island where he hoped to find food and rest and, perhaps, some news of the Russian and Hanada. He located the village at last on a southern slope. This village, as he knew, consisted of igloos of rock. Only poles protruding from the rocks told him of its location.

As he climbed the path to the slope he was surprised to be greeted only by women and children. They seemed particularly unkempt and dirty. At last, at the crest of the hill, he came upon a strange picture. A young native woman tastily dressed was standing before her house, puffing a turkish cigaret. She was a half-breed of the Spanish type, and Johnny could imagine that some Spanish buccaneer, pausing at this desolate island to hide his gold, had become her father.

She asked him into an igloo and made tea for him, talking all the while in broken English. She had learned the language, she told him, from the whalers. She spoke cheerfully and answered his questions frankly. Yes, his two friends had been here. They had gone, perhaps; she did not know. Yes, he might cross to Cape Prince of Wales in safety she thought. But Johnny had the feeling that her mind was filled with the dread of some impending catastrophe which perhaps he might help avert.

And at last the revelation came. Lighting a fresh cigaret, she leaned back among the deer skins and spoke. "The men of the village," she said, "you have not asked me about them."

"Thought they were hunting," replied Johnny.

"Hunting, no!" she exclaimed. "Boiling hooch."

Johnny knew in a moment what she meant. "Hooch" was whisky, moonshine. Many times he had heard of this vicious liquor which the Eskimos and Chukches concocted by boiling sourdough, made of molasses, flour and yeast.

The girl told him frankly of the many carouses that had taken place during the winter, of the deaths that had resulted from it, of the shooting of her only brother by a drink-crazed native.

Johnny listened in silence. That she told it all without apparent emotion did not deceive him. Hooch was being brewed now. She wished it destroyed. This was the last brew, for no more molasses and flour remained in the village. This last drunken madness would be the most terrible of all. She told him finally of the igloo where all the men had gathered.

Johnny pondered a while in silence. He was forever taking over the troubles of others. How could he help this girl, and save himself from harm? What could he do anyway? One could not steal four gallons of liquor before thirty or forty pairs of eyes.

Suddenly, an idea came to him. Begging a cigaret from the native beauty, he lighted it and gave it three puffs. No, Johnny did not smoke. He was merely experimenting. He wanted to see if it would make him sick. Three puffs didn't, so having begged another "pill" and two matches he left the room saying:

"I'll take a look."

* * * * *

When the Jap girl leaped through the smoke hole of the igloo at East Cape she rolled like a purple ball off the roof. Jumping to her feet she darted down the row of igloos. Pausing for a dash into an igloo, she emerged a moment later bearing under one arm a pile of fur garments and under the other some native hunting implements. Then she made a dash for the shore ice.

It was at this juncture that the first Chukche emerged from the large igloo. At his heels roared the whole gang. Like a pack of bloodthirsty hounds, they strove each one to keep first place in the race. Their grimy hands itched for a touch of that flying girlish figure.

Though she was a good quarter mile in the lead she was hampered by the articles she carried. Certain young Chukches, too, were noted for their speed. Could she make it? There was a full mile of level, sandy beach and quite as level shore ice to be crossed before she could reach the protection of the up-turned and tumbled ice farther out to sea.

On they came. Now their cries sounded more distinctly; they were gaining. Now she heard the hoarse gasps of the foremost runner; now imagining that she felt his hot breath on her cheek she redoubled her energy. A grass slipper flew into the air. She ran on barefooted over the stinging ice.

Now an ice pile loomed very near. With a final dash she gained its shelter. With a whirl she darted from it to the next, then to the right, straight ahead, again to the right, then to the left. But even then she did not pause. She must lose herself completely in this labyrinth of up-ended ice cakes.

Five minutes more of dodging found her far from the shouting mob, that by this time was as hopelessly lost as dogs in a bramble patch.

The Jap girl smiled and shook her fist at the shore. She was safe. Compared to this tangled wilderness of ice, the Catacombs of Rome were an open street.

Throwing a fur garment on a cake of ice, she sat down upon it, at the same time hastily drawing a parka over her perspiring shoulders. She then proceeded to examine her collection of clothing. The examination revealed one fawn skin parka, one under suit of eider duck skin, one pair of seal skin trousers, two pairs of seal skin boots, with deer skin socks to match, and one pair of deer skin mittens. Besides these there was an undressed deer skin, a harpoon and a seal lance.

Not such a bad selection, this, for a moment's choosing. The principal difficulty was that the whole outfit had formerly belonged to a boy of fourteen. The Jap girl shrugged her shoulders at this and donned the clothing without compunctions.

When that task was complete she surveyed herself in an up-ended cake of blue ice and laughed. In this rig, with her hair closely plaited to her head, her own mother would have taken her for a young Chukche boy out for a hunt.

Other problems now claimed her attention. She was alone in the world without food or shelter. She dared not return to the village. Where should she go?

Again she shrugged her shoulders. She was warmly clad, but she was tired and sleepy. Seeking out a cubby hole made by tumbled cakes of ice, she plastered up the cracks between the cakes with snow until only one opening remained. Then, dragging her deer skin after her, she crept inside. She half closed the opening with a cake of snow, spread the deer skin on the ice and curled up to sleep as peacefully as if she were in her own home.

One little thing she had not reckoned with; she was now on the drifting ice of the ocean, and was moving steadily northward at the rate of one mile an hour.



CHAPTER XI

A FACE IN THE NIGHT

When Johnny left the igloo of the native girl he made his way directly up the hill for a distance of a hundred yards. Then, turning, he took three steps to the right and found himself facing the entrance to a second stone igloo. That it was an old one and somewhat out of repair was testified to by the fact that light came streaming through many a crevice between the stones.

Keeping well away from the entrance, Johnny took his place near one of these crevices. What he saw as he peered within would have made John Barleycorn turn green with envy. A moonshine still was in full operation. Beneath a great sheet iron vat a slow fire of driftwood burned. Extending from the vat was the barrel of a discarded rifle. This rifle barrel passed through a keg of ice. Beneath the outer end of the rifle barrel was a large copper-hooped keg which was nearly full of some transparent liquid. The liquid was still slowly dripping from the end of the rifle barrel.

That the liquid was at least seventy-five per cent alcohol Johnny knew right well. That it would soon cease to drip, he also knew; the fire was burning low and no more driftwood was to be seen.

Johnny sized up the situation carefully. Aside from some crude benches running round its walls and a cruder table which held the moonshine still, the room was devoid of furnishings. Ranged round the wall, with the benches for seats, were some thirty men and perhaps half as many hard-faced native women. On every face was an expression of gloating expectancy.

Now and again, a hand holding a small wooden cup would steal out toward the keg to be instantly knocked aside by a husky young fellow whose duty it appeared to be to guard the hooch.

Johnny tried to imagine what the result would be were he suddenly to enter the place. He would not risk that. He would wait. He counted the moments as the sound of the dripping liquid grew fainter and fainter. At last there came a loud:

"Dez-ra" (enough), from an old man in the corner.

Instantly the tank was lifted to one side, the fire beaten out, the keg of ice flung outside and the keg of hooch set on the table in the center of the room.

Everybody now bent eagerly forward as if for a spring. Every hand held a cup. But at this instant there came the shuffle of footsteps outside. Instantly every cup disappeared. The kettle was lifted to a dark corner. The room was silent when Johnny stepped inside.

"Hello," he shouted.

"Hello! Hello!" came from every corner.

"Where you come from?" asked the former tender of the still.

"East Cape."

"Where you go?"

"Cape Prince of Wales."

"Puck-mum-ie?" (Now?) The man betrayed his anxiety.

"Canak-ti-ma-na" (I don't know), said Johnny seating himself on the table and allowing his glance to sweep the place from corner to corner. "I don't know," he repeated, slowly. "How are you all anyway?"

"Ti-ma-na" (Not so bad), answered the spokesman.

Johnny was enjoying himself. He was exactly in the position of some good motherly soul who held a pumpkin pie before the eyes of several hungry boys. The only difference was that the pie Johnny was thinking of was raw, so exceeding raw that it would turn these natives into wild men. So Johnny decided that, like as not, he wouldn't let them have it at all.

Johnny enjoyed the situation nevertheless. He was mighty unpopular at that moment, he knew, but his unpopularity now was nothing to what it would be in a very short time. Thinking of this, he measured the distance to the door very carefully with his eye.

At last, when it became evident that if he didn't move someone else would, he turned to the still manager and said:

"Well, guess I'll be going. Got a match?"

He produced the borrowed cigaret. A sigh of hope escaped from the group of natives and a match was thrust upon him.

"Thanks."

The match was of the sulphur kind, the sort that never blow out.

Nonchalantly Johnny lighted the cigaret, then, all too carelessly, he flipped the match. Though it seemed a careless act, it was deftly done.

There came a sudden cry of alarm. But too late; the match dropped squarely into the keg of alcohol. The next instant the place was all alight with the blaze of the liquor, which flamed up like oil.

"This way out," exclaimed Johnny leading the procession for the door. Lightly he bounded down the hill. He caught one glimpse of the young woman as he passed, but this was no time for lingering farewells. The owner of the still was on his trail.

Dodging this way and that, sliding over a wide expanse of ice, Johnny at last eluded his pursuers in the wildly tumbled ice piles of the sea. As he paused to catch his breath he heard the soft pat-pat of a footstep and glancing up, caught a face peering at him round an ice pile.

"The Russian," he exclaimed.

* * * * *

When the Jap girl awoke after several hours of delicious sleep in her ice palace bedroom, she looked upon a world unknown. The sun was shining brightly. The air was clear. In a general way she knew the outline of East Cape and the Diomede Islands. She knew, too, where they should be located. It took her some time to discover them and when she did it was with a gasp of astonishment. They were behind her.

Realizing at once what had happened, she stood up and held her face to the air. The wind was off shore. There was not the least bit of use in trying to make the land. A stretch of black waters yawned between shore and ice floe by now.

Shrugging her shoulders, she climbed a pile of ice for a better view, then hurrying down again, she picked up the harpoon and began puzzling over it. She coiled and uncoiled the skin rope attached to it. She worked the rope up and down through the many buttons which held it to the shaft. She examined the sharp steel point of the shaft which was fastened to the skin rope.

After that she sat down to think. Over to the left of her she had seen something that lay near a pool of water. She had never hunted anything, did not fancy she'd like it, but she was hungry.

There was a level pan of ice by the pool. The creature lay on the ice pan. Suddenly she sprang up and made her way across the ice piles to the edge of that broad pan. The brown creature, a seal, still some distance away, did not move.

Searching the ice piles she at last found a regularly formed cake some eight inches thick and two feet square. With some difficulty she pried this out and stood it on edge. The edge was uneven, the cake tippy. Rolling it on its side she chipped it smooth with the point of the harpoon.

The second trial found the cake standing erect and solid. Gripping her harpoon, she threw herself flat on her stomach and pushing the cake before her, began to wriggle her way toward the sleeping seal.

Once she paused long enough to bore a peep hole through the cake with her dagger. From time to time the seal wakened, and raised his head to look about. Then he sank down again. Now she was but three rods away, now two, now one. Now she was within ten feet of the still motionless quarry.

Stretching every muscle for a spring like a cat, she suddenly darted forward. At the next instant she hurled the harpoon deep into the seal's side. She had him! Through her body pulsated thrills of wild triumph which harkened back to the days of her primitive ancestry. Then for a second she wavered. She was a woman. But she was hungry. Tomorrow she might be starving.

Her knife flashed. A stream of red began dyeing the ice. A moment later, the creature's muscles relaxed.

The Japanese girl, Cio-Cio-San, sat up and began to think. Here was food, but how was it to be prepared? To think of eating raw seal meat was revolting, yet here on the floe there was neither stove nor fuel.

Slowly and carefully she stripped the skin from the carcass. Beneath this she found a two-inch layer of blubber, which must be more than ninety per cent oil. Under this was a compact mass of dark meat. This would be good if it was cooked. She sat down to think again. The fat seemed to offer a solution. It would burn if she had matches. She felt over the parka for pockets, and, with a little cry of joy, she found in one several matches wrapped in a bit of oiled seal skin. Every native carried them.

Hastily she stripped off a bit of fat and having lighted it, watched it flare up and burn rapidly. She laughed and clapped her hands.

But before she could cut off a bit of meat to roast over its flames, the soft ice began melting beneath it and the flames flickered out with a snapping flutter.

This would not do. There must be some other way found. Rising, she drove her harpoon into the snow at the crest of an ice pile. To this she fastened her deer skin, that it might act as a beacon to guide her back to her food supply. Then she turned about the ice pile and began wandering in search of she hardly knew what.

She at last came upon some old ice, with cakes ground round and discolored with age and then with a little cry of joy she started forward. The thing she saw had been discarded as worthless long ago; some gasoline schooner's crew had thrown it overboard. It was an empty five-gallon can which had once held gasoline. It was red with rust, but she pounced upon it and hurried away.

Once safely back at her lodge she used the harpoon to cut out a door in the upper end of the can. After cutting several holes in one side, she placed it on the ice with the perforated side up and put a strip of blubber within. This she lighted. It gave forth a smoky fire, with little heat, but much oil collected in the can. Seeing this, she began fraying out the silk ribbon of her pajamas. When she had secured a sufficient amount of fine fuzz she dropped it along the edge of the oil which saturated it at once. She lighted this, which had formed itself into a sort of wick, and at once she had a clear and steady flame.

She had solved the problem. In her seal oil oven, meat toasted beautifully. In half an hour she was enjoying a bountiful repast. After the feast, she sat down to think. She was fed for the moment and apparently safe enough, but where was she and whither was she being carried by this drifting ice floe?

* * * * *

For a second, after seeing the face of the Russian on the ice, Johnny Thompson stood motionless. Then he turned and ran, ran madly out among the ice piles. Heedless of direction he ran until he was out of breath and exhausted, until he had lost himself and the Russian completely.

No, Johnny was not running from the Russian. He was running from himself. When he saw the Russian's face, lit up as it was by the flare of the flames that had burst forth from that abandoned igloo, there had been something so crafty, so cruel, so remorselessly terrible about it that he had been seized with a mad desire to kill the man where he stood.

But Johnny felt, rather than knew, that there were very special reasons why the Russian must not be killed, at least not at that particular moment. Perhaps some dark secret was locked in his crafty brain, a secret which the world should know and which would die if he died. Johnny could only guess this, but whatever might be the reason he must not at this moment kill the man whom he suspected of twice attempting his life. So he fled.

By the last flickering flames of the grand spree that had burned, Johnny figured out his approximate location and began once more his three miles east, one mile south journey to Cape Prince of Wales. Some hours later, having landed safely at the Cape, and having displayed the postmarked one dollar bill to the post mistress and given it to her in exchange for a sumptuous meal of reindeer meat, hot biscuits and doughnuts, he started sleeping the clock round in a room that had been arranged for the benefit of weary travelers.



CHAPTER XII

"GET THAT MAN"

The trip from Cape Prince of Wales to Nome was fraught with many dangers. Already the spring thaw had begun. Had not the Eskimo whom Johnny employed to take him to the Arctic metropolis with his dog team been a marvel at skirting rotten ice and water holes in Port Clarence Bay, at swimming the floods on Tissure River, and at canoeing across the flooded Sinrock, Johnny might never have reached his journey's end.

As it was, two weeks from the time he left East Cape in Siberia, he stood on the sand spit at Nome, Alaska. By his side stood Hanada, who was still acting the part of an Eskimo and who had come down a few days ahead of him.

They were viewing a rare sight, the passing out to sea of the two miles of shore ice. The spring thaw had been followed by an off-shore wind which was carrying the loosened ice away. Johnny's interest was evenly divided between this rare spectacle and the recollection of the events that had recently transpired.

"Look!" said Hanada. "I believe the ice will carry the farther end of the cable tramway out to sea."

Johnny looked. It did seem that what the boy said was true. Already the cable appeared to be as tight as a fiddle string.

The tramway was a cable which stretched from a wooden tower set upon a stone pillar jutting from the sea to a similar tower built upon the land. This tramway, during the busy summer months of open sea, is used in lieu of a harbor and docks to bring freight and passengers ashore. This is done by drawing a swinging platform over the cable from tower to tower and back again. The platform at the present moment swung idly at the shore end of the cable. The beach had been fast locked in ice for eight months and more.

"Looks like it might go," said Johnny absentmindedly.

Neither he nor the Jap had seen or heard anything of the Russian. Two things would seem to indicate that that mysterious fugitive was in town; three times Johnny had found himself being closely watched by certain rough-looking Russian laborers, and once he had narrowly averted being attacked in a dark street at night by a gang of the same general character.

Hanada had not yet chosen to reveal his identity, and Johnny had not questioned him.

Only the day before a placard in the post office had given him a start. It was an advertisement offering a thousand dollars reward for knowledge which would lead to the arrest of a certain Russian Radical of much importance. This man was reported to have made his way through the Allied front near Vladivostok, and to have started north, apparently with the intention of crossing to America. To capture him, the placard declared, would be an act of practical patriotism.

Johnny had stared in wonder at the photograph attached. It was the likeness of a man much younger than the Russian they had followed so far, but there could be no mistaking that sharp chin and frowning brow. They had doubtless followed that very man for hundreds of miles only to lose him at this critical moment.

What had surprised him most of all had been the Jap's remark, as he read the notice:

"The blunderer! Wooden-headed blunderer!" Hanada had muttered as he read the printed words.

"Would you take him if you saw him?" Johnny had asked.

The Jap had turned a strangely inquiring glance at him, then answered:

"No!"

But they had not found him. And now the ice was going out. Soon ships would be coming and going. Little gasoline schooners would dash away to catch the cream of the coast-wise trading; great steamers would bring in coal, food, and men. In all this busy traffic, how easy it would be for the Russian to depart unseen.

Johnny sighed. He had grown exceedingly fond of dogging the track of that man. And besides, that thousand dollars would come in handy. He would dearly love to see the man behind prison bars. There would be no holding him for crimes he had attempted in Siberia, but probably the United States Government had something on him.

"Look!" exclaimed the Jap. "The tower has tipped a full five feet!" It was true. The ice crowding from the shore had blocked behind the tower, which stood several hundred feet from land. A dark line of water had opened between the two towers. Evidently the harbor committee would have some work on its hands.

"They're running down there," said Johnny, pointing to three men racing as if for their lives toward the shore tower. "Wonder what they think they can do?"

"Looks like the two behind were chasing the fellow in the lead," said Hanada.

"They are!" exclaimed Johnny. "Poor place for safety, I'd say, but he's got quite a lead."

At that instant the man in front disappeared behind the shore tower. As they watched, they saw a strange thing: the swinging platform began to move slowly along the rusty cable, and, just as it got under way, a man leaped out upon it.

"He's started the electric motor and is giving himself a ride," explained Johnny, "but if it's as bad as that, it must be pretty bad. He's desperate, that's all. The outer tower's likely to go over at any moment and dash him to death. Even if he makes it, where'll he be? Going out to sea on the floe, that's all."

Slowly the platform crept across the space over the black waters, then over the tumbling ice. The outer tower could be seen to dip in toward the shore. The cable sagged. The two other runners were nearing the inner tower.

"C'mon!" exclaimed Johnny, "The Golden West. A telescope!"

Closely followed by Hanada, he leaped away toward the hotel where, in a room especially prepared for it, was a huge brass telescope mounted on a tripod. Johnny, glancing out to sea, knew that the tower would be over in another thirty seconds. The platform was not twenty feet from its goal. His eye was now at the telescope. One second and he swung the instrument about. Then a gasp escaped his lips:

"The Russian!"

"The Russian?" Hanada snatched the telescope from him.

As Johnny watched he saw the man leap just as the platform lurched backward. The two men at the other tower had reversed the motor, but they were too late.

The next moment the outer tower toppled into the sea; the cable cut the water with a resounding swish. Johnny saw the Russian leap from ice cake to ice cake until at last he disappeared behind a giant pile, safe on a broad field of solid ice.

Hanada sat down. His face was white.

"Gone!" he muttered hoarsely.

"A boat?" suggested Johnny.

"No good. The ice floe's two miles wide, forty miles long and all piled up. Couldn't find him. He'd never give himself up. But he'll come back."

"How?"

"I don't know, but he'll come. You'll see. He's a devil, that one. But we'll get him yet."

"And the thousand," suggested Johnny.

Hanada looked at him in disgust. "A thousand dollars! What is that?"

"Is it as bad as that?" Johnny smiled in spite of himself.

"Yes, and worse, many times worse. I tell you, we must get that man! When the time comes, we must get him, or it will be worse for your country and mine."

"Ours is the same country," suggested Johnny.

"Huh!" Hanada shrugged his shoulders. "I am Hanada, your old schoolmate, now a member of the Japanese Secret Police, and you are Johnny Thompson. Whatever else you are, I don't know. The Russian has left us for a time. Let's talk about those old school days, and forget."

And they did.



CHAPTER XIII

BACK TO OLD CHICAGO

In the spring all the ice from upper Behring Sea passes through Behring Strait. One by one, like squadrons of great ships, floes from the shores of Cape York, Cape Nome and the Yukon flats drift majestically through that narrow channel to the broad Arctic Ocean.

So it happened that in due time the ice floe on which the Russian had sought refuge drifted past the Diomede Islands and farther out, well into the Arctic Ocean, met the floe on which the Jap girl had been lost as it circled to the east.

All ignorant of the passenger it carried, the girl welcomed this addition to her broad domain of ice. She had lived on the floe for days, killing seal for her food and melting snow to quench her thirst. But of late the cakes had begun to drift apart. There was danger that the great pan on which she had established herself would drift away from the others, and, in that case, if no seals came, she would starve. This new floe crowded upon hers and made the one on which she camped a solid mass again.

Spying some strange, dark spots on the newly arrived floe, she hurried over to the place and was surprised to find that it was a great heap of rubbish carted from some city. Though she did not know it, she guessed that city was Nome.

With the keen pleasure of a child she explored the heaps, selecting here a broken knife, there a discarded kettle, and again some other utensil which would help her in setting up a convenient kitchen.

But it was as she made her way back to her camp that she received the greatest shock. Suddenly, as she rounded a cake of ice, she came upon a man sprawled upon the ice, as if dead. The girl took no chances. In the land whence she came, it was not considered possible that this man should die. She sprang between two up-ended cakes, and from this shelter studied him cautiously. Yes, there was no mistaking him; it was the Russian. A slight movement of one arm told her he was not dead. Whether he was unconscious or was sleeping she could not tell.

Presently, after tying her dagger to her waist by a rawhide cord, she crept silently forward. An ear inclined toward his face told her that he was breathing regularly; he was sleeping the torpid sleep of one worn by exhaustion, exposure and starvation.

Ever so gently she touched him. He did not move. Then, with one hand on her dagger, she felt his clothing, as if searching for some object hidden in his fur garments. Her touch was light as a feather, yet she appeared to have a wonderful sense of location in the tips of those small, slender fingers.

Once the man moved and groaned. Light as a leaf she sprang away, the dagger gleaming in her hand. There were reasons why she did not wish to kill that man; other reasons than the fact that she was a woman and shrank from slaying, and yet she was in a perilous position. Should it come to a choice between killing him or suffering herself, she would kill him.

Again the man's body relaxed in slumber. Again she glided to his side and continued her search. When at last she straightened up, it was with a look of despair. The thing she sought was not there.

When the Russian awoke some time later it was with the feeling that he had been prodded in the side. The first sensation to greet him after that was the savory smell of cooked meat. Unable to believe his senses, he opened his eyes and sat up. Before him was a tin pan partly filled with strips of reddish-brown meat and squares of fried fat. The dish was still hot.

Like a dog that fears to have his food snatched from him, he glared about him and a sort of snarl escaped his lips. Then he fell upon the food and ate it ravenously. With the last morsel in his hand, he looked about him for signs of the human being who had befriended him. But in his eye was no sign of gratitude, rather the reverse—a burning fire of suspicion and hate lurked in their sullen depths. His gaze finally rested for a moment on the meat in his hand. Then his face blanched. The meat had been neatly cut by an instrument keen as a razor.

* * * * *

The steam-whaler, Karluke, a whole year overdue, pushing her way south through the ice-infested Strait, her crew half mutinous, and her food supply low, was subjected to two vexatious delays. Once she halted to pick up a man who signaled her from the top of a shattered tower of wood which topped an ice pile. The man was a Russian. Again, the boat paused to take on board a youth, whom they supposed to be a Chukche hunter who had been carried by the floes from his native shores.

The Russian paid them well for his passage to Seattle. The supposed Chukche was sent to the galley to become cook's helper.

This Chukche boy was no other than the Jap girl. She realized at once the position she was in; a perilous enough one, once her identity was disclosed, and she did all in her power to play the part of a Chukche boy. She drew maps on the deck to show the seamen that she was a member of the reindeer Chukche tribes, who spoke a different language from the hunting tribes, thus explaining why she could not converse freely with the veteran Arctic sailors who had learned Chukche on their many voyages. She was fortunate in immediately securing a cook's linen cap. This she wore tightly drawn down to her ears, covering her hair completely.

One thing she discovered the first night on board: The Russian had in his stateroom a bundle. This had been hidden when she searched him on the ice. To have a look into that bundle became her absorbing purpose. Three times she attempted to enter his stateroom. On the third attempt she did actually enter the room, but so narrowly escaped having her linen mask torn from her head and her identity revealed by the irate Russian, that she at last gave it up.

Upon docking at Seattle both the Russian and the girl mingled with the crowd on the dock and quickly disappeared.

The clerks in Roman & Lanford's department store were more than mildly curious regarding an Eskimo boy, who, entering their store that day and displaying a large roll of bills, demanded the best in women's wearing apparel. They had in stock a complete outfit, just the size that would fit the strange customer, who was no other than the Jap girl.

* * * * *

Johnny Thompson and Hanada, after two weeks of fruitless watching and waiting in Nome, took a steamer for Seattle. Johnny had not been in that city a day when, while walking toward the Washington Hotel, he felt a light touch on his arm, and turned to look into the beaming face of the Jap girl.

"You—you here?" he gasped in amazement.

"Yes."

"Why! You look grand," he assured her. "Regular American girl."

She blushed through her brown skin. Then her face took on a serious look:

"The Russian—" she began.

"Yes, the Russian!" exclaimed Johnny eagerly.

"He is here—no, not here. This morning he takes train for Chicago. To-night we will follow. We will get that man, you and I, and—Iyok-ok." Her lips tripped over the last word.

"Hanada," Johnny corrected.

"He has told you?"

"Yes, he is an old friend."

"And mine too. Good! To-night we will go. We will get that man. Three of us. That bad one!"

"All right," said Johnny. "See you at the depot to-night."

"Wait," said the girl. Her hand still on his arm, she stood on her tiptoe and whispered in his ear:

"My name Cio-Cio-San; your friend, Hanada friend. Good-by." Then she was gone.

Johnny walked to his hotel as in a dream. He had hoped to return to his den, his job and to Mazie in Chicago, and in a quiet way, all mysteries dissolved, to live his old happy life. But here were all the mysteries carrying him right to his own city and promising to end—in what? Perhaps in some tremendous sensation. Who could tell? And the diamonds; what of them? He put his hand to his inner pocket; they were still there. Was he watched? Would he be followed? Even as he asked himself the question, he fancied that a dark form moved stealthily across the street.

"Well, anyway," he said to himself, "I can't desert my Jap friends. Besides, I don't want to."

* * * * *

"Chicago," said Hanada some time later, as Johnny related his conversation with Cio-Cio-San. "That means the end is near."

The end was not so near as he thought. When it came it was not, alas! to be for him the kind of end he fancied.

"All right," he said. "To-night we go to Chicago."

On the trip eastward from Seattle, Johnny slept much and talked little. The Jap girl and Hanada occupied compartments in different cars and appeared to wish to avoid being seen together or with Johnny. This, he concluded, was because there might be Russian Radicals on this very train. Johnny slept with the diamonds pressed against his chest and it was with a distinct sense of relief that he at last heard the hollow roar of the train as it passed over the street subways, for he knew this meant he was back in dear old Chicago, where he might have bitter enemies, but where also were many warm friends.



CHAPTER XIV

THE MYSTERY OF THE CHICAGO RIVER

Johnny Thompson dodged around a corner on West Ohio street, then walked hurriedly down Wells street. At a corner of the building which shadowed the river from the north he paused and listened; then with a quick wrench, he tore a door open, closed it hastily and silently, and was up the dusty stairs like a flash. At the top he waited and listened, then turning, made his way up two other flights, walked down a dark corridor, turned a key in a lock, threw the door open, closed it after him, scratched a match, lighted a gas lamp, then uttered a low "Whew!" at the dust that had accumulated everywhere.

Brushing off a chair, he sat down. For a few moments he sat there in silent reflection. Then rising, he extinguished the light, threw up the sash, unhooked some outer iron shutters, sent them jangling against the brick wall, and drawing his chair to the window, stared reflectively down into the sullen, murky waters of the river. At last he was back in Chicago!

The time had been when the fact that Johnny Thompson occupied this room was no secret to anyone who really wanted to know. Johnny had roomed here when he first came to Chicago as a boy, working for six dollars a week. When, in the years that followed, it had been discovered that Johnny was quick as a bobcat and packed a wallop; when Johnny began making easy money, and plenty of it, he had stuck to the old room that overlooked the river. When he had heard his country's call to go to war, he had paid three years' rent on the room and had locked the door. If he never came back, all good and well. If he did return, the old room would be waiting for him, the room and the river. Now here he was once more.

The river! The stream had always held a great fascination for him. Johnny had seen other rivers but to him none of them quite came up to the old Chicago. In its silent, sullen depths lay power and mystery. The Charles River of Boston Johnny had seen, and called it a place of play for college boys. The Seine of Paris was a thing of beauty, not of power. The Spokane was a noisy blusterer. But the old Chicago was a grim and silent toiler. It bore on its waters great scows, lake boats, snorting, smoking tugs, screaming fire boats and police boats. Then, too, it was a river of mysteries. Down into its murky depths no eye could peer to discover the hidden and mysterious burdens which it carried away toward the Father of Waters.

Yes, give Johnny the room by the old Chicago! It was dusty and grim; but tomorrow he would clean it thoroughly. Just now he wished merely to sit here and think for an hour.

The time had been when Johnny had not cared who saw him enter this haven; but to-day things were different. Since he had got into this affair with the Russian and his band he had had a feeling that he was being constantly watched.

There was little wonder at this, for did he not carry on his person forty thousand dollars' worth of rare gems? And did they not belong to someone else?

"To whom?" Johnny said the words aloud as he thought of it.

His mind turned to his Japanese comrades, the girl and the man. He had told neither of them about the diamonds. Perhaps he should have done so, and yet he felt a strange reticence in the matter.

He was to meet Hanada at eight o'clock. Hanada had never told him why they were pursuing the Russian; why he could not be killed in Siberia; why he must not be killed or arrested if seen now, until he, Hanada, said the word. He had not told why he thought that the Secret Service men had committed a blunder in offering a reward for the Russian's capture.

As Johnny thought of it he wondered if he were a fool for sticking to this affair into which he had been so blindly led. He had not shown himself to his old boss or to Mazie. To them he was dead. He had looked up the official record that very morning and had seen that he was reported "Missing in Vladivostok; probably dead."

Should he stick to the Russian's trail, a course which might lead to his death, or should he take the diamonds to a customs office and turn them in as smuggled goods, then tell Hanada he was off the hunt, was going back to his old job and Mazie? That would be a very easy thing to do; and to stick was fearfully hard. Yet the words of his long time friend, "Get that man, or it will be worse for your country and mine," still rang in his ears. Was it his patriotic duty to stick?

And if he decided to go on with it, should he go to Hanada and ask for a showdown, all cards on the table; or should he trust him to reveal the facts in the case little by little or all at once, as seemed wise to him? Well, he should see.

Then, for a half hour, Johnny gave himself over to the wild, boyish reveries which the city air and the lights flickering on the water awakened. At the end of that half hour he put on his hat and went out. He was to meet Hanada on the Wells street bridge. Where the Japanese was staying he did not know, but that it was with some fellow countrymen he did not doubt. Cio-Cio-San was staying with friends, students at the University. It had been arranged that the three of them should meet at odd times and various places to discuss matters relating to their dangerous mission. In this way they hoped to throw members of the band of Radicals off their tracks.

Their conversation that night came to little. Hanada had found no trace of the Russian, nor had he come into contact with any other important Radicals since reaching Chicago. Johnny's report was quite as brief. Hanada showed no inclination to reveal more regarding the matter, and Johnny did not question him. He had fully determined to see the thing through, cost what it might.

It was after a roundabout walk through the deserted streets of the business section of the city that they came to South Water street. This street, the noisiest and most crowded of all Chicago at certain hours, was now as silent and deserted as a village green at midnight. Here a late pedestrian hurried down its narrow walk: there some boatman loitered toward his craft in the river. But for these the street was deserted.

And it was here, of all places, that they experienced the first thrill of the night. A heavy step sounded on the pavement around the corner. The next instant a man appeared walking toward them. His face was obscured by shadows, but there was no mistaking that stride.

"That's our man," whispered Johnny.

"The Russian?" questioned Hanada in equally guarded tones.

There was not time for another word, for the man, having quickened his pace was abreast of them, past them and gone.

"I don't know. Couldn't see his face," whispered the Jap.

"Quick!" urged Johnny; "there's a short cut, an alley. We can meet him again under the arc light."

Down a dark alley they dashed. Crashing into a broken chicken crate, then sprinting through an open court, they came out on another alley, and then onto a street.

They had raced madly, but now as they came up short, panting, they saw no one. The man had disappeared.

Suddenly they heard steps on the cross street.

"Turned the corner," panted Johnny. "C'mon!"

Again they dashed ahead, slowing only as they reached the other street.

Sure enough, halfway down the block they saw their man. He was walking rapidly toward the bridge. Quickening their pace they followed.

Distinctly they saw the man go upon the bridge. Very plainly they heard every footstep on the echoing planks. Then, just as they were about to step upon the bridge, the footsteps ceased.

"Sh!" whispered Johnny, bringing his friend to a halt. "He's stopped; maybe laying for us."

For a minute they stood there. The lapping of the water was the only sound till, somewhere in the distance an elevated train rattled its way north.

"C'mon," said Johnny. "We've met that bird in worse places than this; we can meet him again."

But they did not meet him, although they walked the full length of the bridge. There was not a place on the whole structure where a man could hide, but they searched it thoroughly. Then Johnny searched the sides, the abutments. He sent the gleam of his powerful flashlight into the dark depths beneath, but all to no purpose. The man was gone.

"Humph!" said Johnny.

"Hisch!" breathed Hanada.

"Well, all I have to say," observed Johnny presently, "is that if the old Chicago River has that fellow, he'll be cast ashore. The good old Chicago doesn't associate with any such."

They stood there leaning on the wooden railing debating their next move, when a shot rang out. Instantly they dropped to the floor of the bridge. A bullet whizzed over their heads, then another and another. After that silence.

"Get you?" whispered Johnny.

"No. You?"

"Nope."

Then a long finger of light came feeling its way along the murky waters to rest on the bridge.

With a sigh of relief, Johnny saw that it came from a police-boat down stream. The light felt its way back and forth, back and forth across the river, then up to the bridge and across that. It came to rest as it glared into their eyes. It blinked one, two, three times, then went out.

"I'm glad they didn't hold it on us," breathed Johnny. "In that light anybody that wanted to could get a bead on us."

Hearing heavy, hurrying footsteps approaching, they stood up well back against the iron braces.

"Police!" whispered Johnny.

"You fellows shoot?" demanded one of the policemen as they came up and halted before the two boys.

"Nope," Johnny answered.

"No stallin' now."

"Search us," Johnny suggested. "The shots were fired at us, though where from, blessed if I know. Came right out of space. We'd just searched the bridge from end to end. Not a soul on it."

"What'd y' search it fer?"

"A man."

"W'at man?"

"That's it," Johnny evaded. "We wanted to know who he was."

The policemen conversed with one another in low tones for a moment.

"One of the bullets struck a cross-arm; I heard it," suggested Johnny. "You can look at that if it'll be any comfort to you."

The policeman grunted, then following Johnny's flashlight, examined the spot where the bullet had flaked the paint from the bridge iron.

"Hurum!" he grumbled. "That's queer. Bullet slid straight up the iron when it struck. Ordinarily that'd mean she was shot square against it from below and straight ahead, but that can't be, fer that brings her comin' direct out of the river, which ain't human, nor possible. There wasn't a boat nor a barge nor even a plank on the river when the searchlight flashed from the gray prowler; was there, Mike?"

"Not even a cork," said Mike.

"Well, anyway, that clears youse guys," grunted the leader. "Now you better beat it."

Bidding Hanada good night, Johnny walked across the bridge, around four blocks, then made a dash for his room. There was dust on his blankets, but he could shake it off. Anyway, he probably would not sleep much that night. Probably he would spend most of the night sitting by the window, listening to the lap of the waters of the old river and trying to solve the strange problem of the bullets fired apparently from the depths of the stream.



CHAPTER XV

THE CAT CRY OF THE UNDERWORLD

Dodging in front of a street car, Johnny turned abruptly to the right and trailed a taxi for half a block; then he shot across the sidewalk to the end of a dark alley. Then he flattened himself against the wall and listened. Yes, it came at last, the faint thud of cautious footsteps. He had not thrown the man off the scent.

"Well then, I will," he muttered, gritting his teeth. Johnny was a trifle out of sorts to-night. The chase annoyed him.

He dodged down the alley, then up a narrow court. Prying open the window of an empty building, he crept in and silently slid the sash back in its place. Tiptoeing across the hall with the lightness of a cat, he crept up the dusty stairs. One, two, three flights he ascended, then feeling for the rounds of a short ladder, he climbed still higher, to lift a trapdoor at last and creep out upon the roof.

Once there he skulked from chimney to chimney until he had crossed the flat roofs of three buildings. The third had a trapdoor close to a chimney. This he lifted, then dropped behind him. He was now in his own building. Panting a little from the exertion, he tiptoed down the hall, turned the key and entered his room.

Having made sure that the iron blinds were closed, he snapped on a light. His eyes, roving around the room, fell presently upon something white on the floor. Johnny could see his own name scrawled upon it. There were but a few people in all the world who knew that Johnny Thompson had ever lived here. Probably all of those who did know thought him dead and buried in Russia. Who had written this note? Friend or foe?

He tore open the envelope and glanced at the note. It came to the point with brutal frankness.

"Johnny Thompson: You are known to have in your possession rare gems which do not belong to you. You will please leave them on the doorstep of 316 North Bird place, and rap three times before you leave.

"If not—"

That was all, save that in place of a signature there was a splotch of red sealing wax. The wax had been stamped with an iron seal. The mark of the seal was that of the Radical Clan—the same as that on the envelope which contained the diamonds.

"And that, I suppose," whispered Johnny to himself, "means that if I do not leave the diamonds where I am told to I shall be flattened out like that drop of wax."

Switching out the light, he opened the blinds and took his old seat by the window. He was at once absorbed in thought. So all his dodging and twisting had not served to throw them off his track. They had discovered his den. And he must give up the diamonds and—

"If not—"

Those two words stood out as plainly before him as if they were flashed forth from an electric sign on the roof across the river.

He was half minded to give the diamonds up, but not to those rascals. No, he would allow one of their spies to trail him to the Custom House, and there, before the man's very eyes, Johnny would take out the envelope with the seal plainly showing, and hand the diamonds in as smuggled goods.

There was but one objection to this plan; he still had a strange fancy that someway Cio-Cio-San had a rightful interest in those gems. At least, he was not sure she did not have. Until he had determined the truth in this matter, he was loath to part with them.

But in keeping them he was taking a risk. He might be attacked and killed by that ruthless gang at any time.

For a long time he sat, staring down at the river. He was not in a happy mood. He was tired of all this trouble, fighting and mystery. On crowded State street that afternoon, he had seen Mazie. That made it worse. He had never seen her look so well. She had changed; grown older, and he thought a little sadder. Was the sadness caused by the fact that she believed him dead? He dared to hope so. All this filled him with a mad desire to touch her hand once more, to speak to her, to assure her in a score of ways that he was not dead.

Then Hanada had disappointed him. He had hoped they would meet again and have another conference that night; had hoped that the wise little Jap would have some solution of the mystery of the shots from the river, and the strange disappearance of the man they had taken to be the Russian. But Hanada had said "No." He had given no reason; had merely left things that way. Hanada had been like that always; he never explained. Perhaps he did have some other important engagement; then why could he not tell Johnny of it? Why all this constant enshrouding of affairs in mystery? What did he, Johnny, know about the whole business anyway? Not a thing. He was only assured by the Jap that it was his duty to stick on the trail of the Russian until it led somewhere in particular. He was not, in any circumstances, to have him arrested or killed without first consulting Hanada.

"What rot!"

Johnny got up and paced the floor. Then, suddenly realizing that there was no longer cause for secrecy as to his whereabouts, he threw on the light and swung a punching bag down from the wall.

This ancient bit of leather, which had hung unused for many months, gave forth a volley of dust at first. But soon it was sending resounding thwacks echoing down the hall from Johnny's right and left punch.

Johnny even smiled as he sat down after a fifteen minutes round with this old friend. He was greatly pleased at one thing; his left arm was now quite as good as his right.

As he sat there, still smiling, his eyes fell on that note which had been thrust under his door. A strange, wild impulse seized him.

"So they know where I stay," he muttered. "I'll see how near I can come to finding out where they are hiding."

Taking the envelope containing the diamonds from his pocket, he crowded it down into the depths of his clothing; then, snapping off the light, he went out.

Hastening down the street and across the bridge, he was soon threading deserted streets and dark alleys. In time he came out upon Bird place, a half street, ending in a wall. The passage was narrow, hardly more than an alley.

The night was exceptionally dark and the place cheerless—just the setting for a crime. Lights behind drawn shutters were few. Only the very wretched or very wicked haunted such habitations.

Hugging the wall, Johnny sidled along toward 316. He knew the spot exactly, for though Johnny had never been of the underworld, he had spent many a restless night prowling about in all parts of the city. Suddenly he flattened out in a doorway and stood motionless, breathing quietly.

Had he heard the faint pat-pat of footsteps? Had he caught the dark blue of a shadow on yonder wall? For a full three minutes he stood there; then hearing, seeing nothing more, he glided out and resumed his snake-like journey toward the door of 316.

This time he did not go far, for suddenly looming from dark doorways four huge forms sprang at him. Johnny understood it all in a moment. The note was but a trick. They had not intended to trust him to leave the diamonds. They did not live at 316 at all. They merely had meant to draw him to this dark alley, then to "get" him. Well, they would find him a tough nut to crack!

His right shot out, and a heavy bulk crashed to the pavement. His left swung and missed. A wild creature sprang at his throat. Johnny's mind worked like lightning. Four were too many. They would get him. He must have help. The cat cry of the underworld! He had known that cry two years before. He had many friends who would answer it. They had introduced themselves at his boxing bouts. They had liked him because he played a fair game and "packed a winning wallop." If any of them were near they would come to his aid.

Drawing a long breath, he let forth a piercing scream that rose and fell like the wail of a fire siren. At the same time he jabbed fiercely with his right. The man collapsed, but at that instant a third man struck Johnny on the head and, all but unconscious, he reeled and fell to the ground.

Faintly as in a dream, he heard guttural murmurs. He felt the buttons give as his coat was torn open. Then there came the ringing report of a shot from the distance.

"Da bolice!" came in a guttural mutter.

* * * * *

The reason Hanada would not meet Johnny on this particular night was that he had a pressing engagement with other persons. Just at seven o'clock he might have been seen emerging from an obscure street. He hailed a taxi-cab and getting in, drove due north across the river and straight on until, with a sharp turn to the right, he drove two blocks toward the lake, only to turn again to the right and cross the river again. He had gone south several blocks when suddenly signaling the driver to stop, he handed him a five-dollar bill and darted into the welcoming portals of a vast hotel.

The next moment he was crossing marble floors to enter a heavily carpeted parlor. This, too, he crossed. Then the walls of the room seemed to swallow him up.

In a small, dimly lighted anteroom his coat and hat were taken by a servant. He then stepped into a room where a round table was spread with spotless linen and rare silver. There were five chairs ranged around the table. Hanada frowned as he counted them.

"It seems," he murmured, "that the man who attends to the serving does not know that Hanada dines with the Big Five to-night. Ah well! There is time enough and room enough. We shall dine together; never fear."

He stepped back in the shadow of the heavy curtains and waited expectantly.

"The Big Five," he murmured. "Some of America's richest, surely Chicago's greatest millionaires. And Hanada dines with them. They will listen to him, too. They will hang on his word. The Big Five will listen. And if they say 'Yes,' if they do—" He drew in his breath sharply. "If they do we will set the world afire with a great, new thing. They have the money, which is power, and I have the knowledge, which is greater power."

There was a sound outside the door. A servant entered and, bowing deferentially, moved toward the table. He deftly rearranged the chairs and the silver. When he left, there were six places set. Hanada smiled.

Had one been permitted to look in upon the diners in this simply appointed room of one of America's great hotels that night, he might have wondered at the manner in which five of Chicago's great men hung upon the words of one little Japanese, who, now and then as he spoke, as if to indicate the vastness and grandeur of his theme, spread his hands forth in a broad gesture.

The meal ended, his speech concluded, all questions answered, he at last rose, and with a low bow said:

"And now, gentlemen, I leave the proposition with you. Please do not forget that it is a great and glorious venture; a new and glorious empire! An honor to your country and mine."

He was gone.

For some time the five men sat in silence. Then one of them spoke:

"Is he mad?"

"Are we all mad?" questioned a second. His voice was husky.

"Well," said a third, "it sounds like a dream, a dream of great possibilities. We must sleep over it."

Without another word they moved out of the room. The meeting, one of the most momentous in the history of the century, perhaps, was ended.

* * * * *

When Johnny Thompson heard the shot and the guttural mutter, "Da bolice!" he made a final effort to rally his senses and to put up a fight.

He did succeed in struggling to his knees, but to fight was unnecessary. Just as another shot sent echoes down the alley and a bullet sang over their heads, his assailants took to their heels.

A slight, slouching figure came gliding toward Johnny.

"Jerry the Rat!" he murmured; then to the man himself:

"So, it's you, Jerry. Haven't seen you for two years."

Through blear-eyes the little fellow surveyed Johnny for a second.

"Johnny Thompson, de clean guy wot packs a wallop!" he exclaimed. "Dere dey go! We can get 'em!" He pointed down the alley.

"Got a gun?" asked Johnny, standing a bit unsteadily.

"Two of 'em. C'mon. We ken git de yeggs yit."

Johnny grasped the gun held out to him and the next instant was following the strangely swift rat of the waterfront.

"Dere dey go!" exclaimed the little fellow.

Down an alley they rushed, then out on a broad, but dimly lighted street. They were gaining on the gang. They would overhaul them. There would be a battle. Johnny figured this out as he ran, and tried to discover the mechanism of his weapon.

But at that juncture the pursued ones dashed through an open window of a deserted building which flanked the river.

"Dere dey go! De cheap sluggers!" exclaimed Jerry.

Leaping across the street, he reached the window only a moment after the last of the four had slammed it down.

But the men had paused long enough to throw the catch. It took Jerry a full minute to break its grip.

When, at last, they vaulted cautiously over the sill and flashed their light about the interior, they found the place empty.

"Dey's flew de coop!" whispered Jerry. "Now wot's de chanst of dem makin' a clean git away?"

They made a hurried examination of all possible exits. All the window ledges and doorsills were so encrusted with dust that one passing through them would be sure to leave his mark. That is, all but one were. One windowsill had apparently been swept clean. But that window faced the river. As they threw it up, and looked down from its ledge, they saw only the murky waters of the river swirling beneath them.

Johnny studied the situation carefully, and the more he studied, the more baffled he became. If a boat had been tied to the windowsill there would have been marks on the casing. There were no such marks; yet, the fugitives had gone that way. He thought of the shots fired from the river the previous night and tried to connect the two. He could not make it out.

"Dey's gone!" said Jerry the Rat. "Did dey fleece y'?"

Johnny smiled. "They were trying to croak me, Jerry, and they nearly did it. Got a bump on my head big as a turkey buzzard's egg."

"Who wuz dey?"

"That's what I don't know altogether. Say, Jerry, are there some tough characters hanging around the river these days that ain't regular crooks?"

"Is dey? Dere's a mess of 'em!"

"Where do they stay?" asked Johnny eagerly.

"Dat's it." The little fellow scratched his head. "I bin skulkin' 'round 'em to find out. Sometimes I follers 'em, like now. Dey always drop out like this. Dey's queer. Dey ain't regular crooks, nor regular guys either. Dey's cookin' soup for sump'n big."

"That's what I think," said Johnny. "What are they like?

"Dey's five Roosians, three Heinies, one Wop, an' one Jap, I seen."

"Say, Jerry," said Johnny suddenly, "do you want to earn some honest money?"

"Not work?"

"No, spyin'."

"Not on me pals? Not on regular crooks?"

"No, on these queer ones."

"I'm on. Wot's de lay?"

"Find where they stay. Hunt them day and night till you do. Here's a twenty. There's more where that came from. There's a century note if you get them. Get me?"

The Rat ducked his head in assent.

"Then good night."

"Night," he mumbled.

They were out of the building now and Johnny made his way cautiously back to his room. He had had quite enough for one night. Once he paused to thrust his hand beneath his vest. Yes, the diamonds were still there. His assailants had not had time to find them. He was not sure whether he was glad or sorry.



CHAPTER XVI

CIO-CIO-SAN BETRAYED

Very alert, Johnny Thompson at the stroke of eight the next night crept from a narrow runway between two buildings and walked briskly down the street. He had reached the runway by a route known only to himself. He was sure that for a time, at least, he would not be followed. At last he reached the bridge which was coming to harbor many mysteries for him. Halfway across the span he paused, and sinking into the shadow of an iron girder, began watching the surface of the water.

He was, in fact, attempting to understand those murky depths. From his room he had detected a strange light. Either reflected on the water or shining up through it, this light appeared a pale yellow glow, such as he had often seen given off by the jelly fish in the Pacific. That there was no such jelly fish to be found in fresh water he knew quite well. And he had never in his life noticed that glow in the river.

Now, as he surveyed the surroundings, he realized that the light could not have been reflected from any illumination in street or building. The glow from the water had appeared close to the wall of the empty building through which his four assailants of the night before had made good their escape.

As he stood there, slouching in the shadows, Johnny gave a great start; the light had appeared again. Beyond question it was beneath the water, not shining upon it. From this vantage point the light seemed stronger. It appeared for a few seconds, then disappeared again. Johnny scratched his head. What could it mean? For some time he stood in a brown study, then he laughed silently to himself.

"Probably phosphorescent substances being sent out from the drainpipe of a factory or chemical laboratory," he decided.

At that instant he was all alert. His hand closed on his automatic. A stealthy footfall had sounded on the bridge.

"Oh! It's you," he whispered a moment later.

Hanada grinned as he gripped Johnny's hand. "Thought I might miss you," he whispered.

The two were soon engaged in animated conversation. Their talk had to do with Johnny's adventure of the night before and the information regarding the Radicals furnished by Jerry the Rat. Hanada appeared unduly excited at the news.

"It seems," said Johnny, "that there must be a national conference of Radicals meeting somewhere near this river. Perhaps our old friend, the Russian of Vladivostok, is a delegate."

Hanada shot him a swift glance, as if to say: "How much do you know about this matter anyway?"

But for some time the Japanese did not speak; then it was concerning an entirely different affair. Cio-Cio-San had been visited by a fellow countryman who, although wholly unknown to her, had appeared to know a great deal about her private business. He had informed her that she had, within the last year, been robbed of some very valuable property and professed to have a knowledge of its whereabouts. If she would accompany him he would see that it was restored to her. The actions of the man had aroused her suspicions and she had refused to go. However, she had asked him to give her a day to think it over. He was to return at nine this night.

"Some nifty little mind reader, that Jap," smiled Johnny. "Tell him to come round and locate my long lost uncle's buried treasure."

However, though he passed the matter off as a jest, he was doing some very serious thinking about this rather strange affair. He had never told Hanada about the diamonds. Neither had he told of the note which had been thrust under the door. Now he remembered that Jerry the Rat had spoken of a Jap as a member of the Radicals, and he wondered if Cio-Cio-San's visitor was the same man. If that were so, then what was his game? Was he planning to lead Cio-Cio-San into a trap? Certainly if the treasure the strange Jap had spoken of as having been stolen from the Japanese girl was the envelope of diamonds, and they had hoped to recover them from Johnny that night, they would have no intention of restoring them to Cio-Cio-San.

"I'd advise her, if I were you," said Johnny slowly, "to find out as much as she can, and not take too many chances. The man may be one of the Radicals, and he may be using the supposed treasure as a decoy. At the same time, if she handles the affair discreetly enough, she may be able to assist you in locating the Russian and his band, which, I take it, is your chief end and aim in life just now."

Hanada sent him another penetrating glance. "You have guessed that much," he admitted. "Well, soon I may be able to tell you all. In the meantime, if you need more money to pay this Jerry—Jerry, what was it you called him?"

"Jerry the Rat."

"Yes, yes, Jerry the Rat. If you need more money for him, I can get you more, plenty more. But," the lines of his face grew tense, "we must find them and soon, or it may be too late. We must act quickly."

Hanada had not said one word of his affairs of the night before, nor did he now as they were about to part.

Dull and heavy, there came the tread of feet on the bridge.

"The police!" whispered Johnny.

Hanada seemed distinctly nervous.

As the two patrolmen came abreast of them one of them flashed his light.

Hanada cringed into the shadows.

"Well," said a deep voice, "here's luck! Youse guys come with us. Youse guys is wanted at the station."

"What for?" Johnny demanded.

"Youse guys know well enough. Treason, they call it."

"Treason?" Johnny gave a happy laugh. "Treason? They'll have hard work to prove that."

* * * * *

Had one been privileged to see Cio-Cio-San at the moment Johnny Thompson and his friend were arrested, he might easily have imagined that she was back in Japan. The room in which she paced anxiously back and forth was Japanese to the final detail. The floor was covered thickly with mattings and the walls, done in a pale blue, were hung everywhere with long scrolls of ancient Japanese origin. Here a silver stork stood in a pool of limpid blue; there a cherry orchard blossomed out with all the extravagant beauty of spring, and in the corner a pagoda, with sloping, red-tile roof and wide doors, proclaimed the fact that the Japanese were a people of art, even down to house building. Silk tapestries of varying tints hung about the room, while in the shadows a small heathen god smiled a perpetual smile.