They ate their rice with poor grace, frequently casting surreptitious glances over his outfit. Yuen led the small burro in from its dry grazing and readjusted the pack-saddle. He faced the burro so that his gun would be on the opposite side of the saddle from the two thugs. He perceived that they were suspicious. An astute reason counseled him that their suspicion of him could arise only from their offensive intentions. A deduction in which he was right. His long, facile fingers were not quite quick enough to release the straps holding the shotgun before the red-eyed one had sprung up on his long legs and had covered him with a mean-looking automatic. Plainly the man was a professional killer. His order to "Get 'em up in a hurry!" was undebatable. Prince Chu neither hesitated nor hastened. He simply accepted his strategic defeat. The malign glint of the red-rimmed eyes behind the black bore of the implacable-looking instrument of death, seemed to project a cold eagerness along their line of vision; as though hungering for the sight of a blood splash at the spot upon which their stare was fixed. The tip of the man's protuberant nose quivered like that of a beast scenting his quarry. The Chinaman dispassionately made note that the drug degenerate would welcome an excuse to murder. "No more stallin', Chink," the voice grated. "Yuv got the stuff somewhere. Come through!" Had the speaker known that he was addressing a man in whose blood flowed the quality of blood which had ruled China for two thousand years; and that governing the unaltered expression of the face he was looking into, there was the kind of mind at work which is dangerous to cross even when deprived of every vestige of defense, he would not have hesitated to release the death which his taut forefinger begged to deliver. But he was not yet aware of his mistake. "Let's have it!" he barked again. "Show us where it is." "No savvy," repeated Prince Yuen Ming Chu. "Hey, Squint," interrupted the scalded-faced Shorty, "maybe the crazy Chink don't savvy!" "He savvies, all right," was the response. "Step around from behind that donkey, there, yuh heathen. Quick!" Yuen obeyed. He knew that the murderer would shoot if he did not. The renegade laughed. "All right, John. Now yer commencin' t' learn English. Where's the stuff?" Prince Chu took his second discomfiture collectedly. "I admit that I can speak your language," he said, "but you have not made it plain what it is that you want of me." "Holy fish!" the gunman exclaimed. "What next? Yuh can talk, can'tcha? Whadda we want, huh? We want the hop, the snowflakes, er whatever kind yuh peddle. An' we want it right now--get me?" "You are mistaken," replied Yuen. "I do not peddle opiates. I have nothing of the kind. If I had, I would gladly let you have it." The Squint made only one response to this. "Hell! He's stallin'. Go through 'im, Shorty. Try his pack first."