When the little money he had was exhausted, he visited a relative--visited him secretly, toward dawn of a morning thick with fog. For anyone who helped him, if it were known, would suffer swift and certain punishment. Here he replenished his pocket. Then, off again. He ate seldom and sparingly, he slept only in snatches, hidden away under steps or in a big, empty dry-goods box down in the wholesale section. The end of that week saw him rattling through Burlingame and Palo Alto on his way to San José. There, in the “Garden City,” three days were spent in walking and watching. Then, on to Sacramento, where, half-starved, he stumbled out of the great, roofed station, and made toward the Chinese quarter. Finally, he proceeded north to Portland. One cold night, a fortnight after Yee Chu’s disappearance, he reached San Francisco once more. It had rained in the north, and his cloth sandals were pulpy, his wadded, cotton coat was soaked. His head was unshaven, too, his queue unkempt from long neglect. He was sallow and green-hued. But there was no surrender in the blood-shot eyes. He began again to haunt the streets of Chinatown. And, late one night, in Waverly Place, under a blowing street-lamp, he met one of the two he sought; he came face to face with the Collector of Monies. Yee Wing’s right hand was tucked in his left sleeve, his left hand in the right one. The Collector of Monies had reached to a hind pocket of the blue broadcloth trousers. But across the grimy court, in the light of a second lamp, a uniformed figure was idling and swinging a heavy club to and fro on a thong. His eye was upon them. They stopped short, each alert. The face of the Collector of Monies was placid, though he marked the bulging sleeves of the Powder-man. Yee Wing was, outwardly, calm too. But his thin upper lip, upon which grew a few straggling hairs, twitched uncontrollably. “Where is she hidden?” he demanded. The other snorted. “She is worth little,” he said by way of answer. “She weeps too much.” The bulge within the sleeves moved. Yee Wing would have slain then,--but what help could he give her from a cell of the city prison? He kept himself in control. “The Supreme Lord of Heaven,” he said, “pities even the mothers of thieves and harlots. He will pity her, though she be defiled. But you--you--vile scurf of lepers--shall die by a thousand cuts.” The uniformed figure stepped toward them. At this, the Collector of Monies took his leave, backing away from Yee Wing with such ceremony that his face was still presented when a corner was passed. Blind with rage and grief, the Powder-man all unconsciously made his way to Commercial street. There, in front of a poultry store, he dropped down to a seat on the curb’s edge. She was in San Francisco! And he was so contemptibly weak that the slave society--the despised _hoey_--did not even take the pains to deny it to him; even mocked him with her weeping! His Jasmine Blossom!