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How should I know, who was asleep when she was brought, and only heard the

womenfolk this morning whispering that Oda Yorimoto had brought home a new

woman the night before."

"Could you not see her with your own eyes?" asked Theriere.

"My eyes cannot pass through the door of the little room behind, in which they

still were when I left to gather firewood a half hour since," retorted the youth.

"Wot's de Chink sayin'?" asked Billy Byrne, impatient of the conversation, no

word of which was intelligible to him.

He says, in substance," replied Theriere, with a grin, "that Miss Harding is still

alive, and in the back room of that largest hut in the center of the village street;

but," and his face clouded, "Oda Yorimoto, the chief of the tribe, is with her."

The mucker sprang to his feet with an oath, and would have bolted for the village

had not Theriere laid a detaining hand upon his shoulder.

"It is too late, my friend," he said sadly, "to make haste now. We may, if we are

cautious, be able to save her life, and later, possibly, avenge her wrong. Let us act

coolly, and after some manner of plan, so that we may work together, and not

throw our lives away uselessly. The chance is that neither of us will come out of

that village alive, but we must minimize that chance to the utmost if we are to

serve Miss Harding."

"Well, wot's de word?" asked the mucker, for he saw that Theriere was right.

The jungle approaches the village most closely on the opposite side--the side in

rear of the chief's hut," pointed out Theriere. "We must circle about until we can

reach that point undetected, then we may formulate further plans from what our

observations there develop."

An' dis?" Byrne shoved a thumb at Oda Iseka.

We'll take him with us--it wouldn't be safe to let him go now."

Why not croak him?" suggested Byrne.

Not unless we have to," replied Theriere; "he's just a boy--we'll doubtless have all

the killing we want among the men before we get out of this."

"I never did have no use fer Chinks," said the mucker, as though in extenuation

of his suggestion that they murder the youth. For some unaccountable reason he

had felt a sudden compunction because of his thoughtless remark. What in the

world was coming over him, he wondered. He'd be wearing white pants and

The Mucker