“He says he won't,” replied Dixie. “Say--that's tough! I didn't think Tex would overlook a thing like that. What's the matter?” Dixie now considered this curiously useless man. Or useless he had always seemed to her. Now she was not so sure. “He makes it a condition that I tell him where the stuff is.” “Well--Dix, you'd tell him that, wouldn't you?” The Kid was whining. “If you really knew yourself.” “Of course I won't tell him, Jim. Not yet.” His eyes sank before hers. He fumbled in a pocket; produced a tiny wrist watch of platinum. “Look here. Dix,” he remarked clumsily, “things ain't always been's pleasant as they might be between you and I, but I was wondering if you wouldn't put this on, for old times' sake, like.” She took the gift, weighed in in her hand. “Thank you, Jim,” she replied. “That's awfully nice of you. Though perhaps I'd better not wear it here on the boat.” “I suppose young Kane might ask questions, eh?” “Nothing like that. I'll wear it. Here--you snap the catch, Jim.” “I--I might wish it on, Dix, like the kids do.” “All right. Have you wished?” “Sure, Say, Dix, you won't mind the little place where the initials got scratched off inside the back cover. Nobody'll see that.” “Surely not,” said Dixie. At a little after midnight Griggsby Doane mounted to the boat deck and walked quietly aft past the funnels and the engine room ventilators. A half moon threw shadows along the bund and among the landing hulks and the moored silent sampans, lorchas, junks. The mile-wide river shimmered in a million ripples. A slight figure rose from a skylight. Hui Fei wore the black jacket and trousers of the lower class Chinese women below decks. Her head was uncovered, and her hair waved prettily down across the wide forehead. She should have oiled it flat, of course, to complete her disguise; this careless arrangement was charming in the moonlight but was neither Manchu nor Chinese. Doane found himself holding her small hand and looking gravely down at her. He even slowly shook his head. “You must tell me quickly what you have to say, Miss Hui. As soon as possible you must go back. This is very unsafe.” “Oh, yes,” she said. “It will not be long. It is ver' har' to say. But I am so alone. There is no one to tell me what I mus' do.”