The Kid, nerving himself, suddenly burst into a storm of wild oaths and shot three times into the body above him. At the first shot the man slipped down a little way. “Push him away!” Dixie cried sharply. “I don't want him falling into the boat!” He was shooting again; and then with an effort diverted the falling body. Dixie got up, and stood steadying herself in the gently rocking boat; and the Kid--quit; out of breath now, and muttering, as he fondled the hot pistol, “Well, I did it, didn't I? I did what you said!”--found in her eyes, shining through the dusk of early dawn, a bright white light that was, to him, disconcerting and yet profoundly thrilling. He shivered again as he felt the spell of her strange genius. What a woman, he was thinking again, but wildly, madly, now, to conquer. And she was saying, “I guess your nerve's all right.” Other shining yellow bodies were tumbling over the side and floating away. “Help me up there, Jim!” she commanded. “Never mind tying the boat--let it go! It's only a giveaway. Quick--give me a hand!” She was beside him on the sponson. He clasped her in his arms; but before he could kiss her she slapped him sharply. “Keep your head!” she commanded. “Put me up there!” He lifted her high; until she could kneel, then stand, on his shoulder. She went over the rail as lightly as a boy. She found the soldiers in small groups cornering one or another of the crew, torturing and hacking at them with bayonets and knives, and during a brief moment looked on with a curious keen interest. The master, or _laopan_, crouched, whimpering, on the poop.... She saw Connor standing by the mast, just above the well, amidships and forward, where were huddled the survivors among the crew (their number surprisingly large); Connor was panting, revolver in hand, and scowling about him. Dixie stepped to his side. “You've got to save enough of this crew to work the boat up the river, Tex,” she remarked. “I'm saving enough of 'em,” he replied gruffly. “We've only killed a dozen or so. There was more'n a hundred.” The heavily evil-looking Tom Sung reluctantly detached himself from one of the groups and came over, wiping his bayonet casually on his sleeve. Mr. Connor roughly ordered to gather his men together and make ready to get under way. To the Kid, who came awkwardly over the rail just then, Connor gave merely a glance. Then to Dixie, he said: “Come up here!” He led the way up the steps with the carven hand rail to the poop; gave the _laopan_ a careless kick; stepped around the steersman's covered pit and out astern on the high projecting gallery. “Now,” he said, fixing his one eye on Her, “where's this place?”