Chapter XI: The Valor of Simon (3)

Ten minutes, then fifteen passed, while Dillon and Hammond stood waiting. The watch-hands showed that the Continental rider had a twenty-minute lead when the little roan, lathered with perspiration and trembling in every muscle, yet still running, galloped up to the station.

"We done our best," Jones said, stumbling as he climbed from the saddle. "I nosed out their first horse, but that black devil was too fast for us."

"We know that, Laramie," Dillon answered, and leaving Hammond to explain further, he leaped upon Sagamore. His last view of the station, as Sagamore swept round a turn in the street, was of a worn out little horse standing with outspread legs and heaving sides.

Dillon knew that a twenty-minute lead meant miles to the Continental team, and he determined to overcome that handicap as soon as possible. Accordingly, he sent Sagamore forward at a fast lope. At Las Vegas, which he reached just at dusk, the ledger showed that the Continental had registered and changed horses twelve minutes ahead of him.

The gain encouraged Dillon and he left Las Vegas confident of overtaking the rival team before reaching the next change station. But he was doomed to disappointment. At Chappelle, he found that the other team was twenty-five minutes ahead of him, and that a relief rider had gone back on the trail to meet his team-mate.

The unexpected gain puzzled Dillon. He knew that the Continental horses were fast, and he began to wonder if, in his great desire to win, he had overtaxed his own horse. He knew that days of hard, steady running--with sleep broken by the swaying of railway cars--will wear down the endurance of any horse. And yet, strangely, Sagamore seemed to be running easily.

As a test, he spoke to the horse and the speed with which Sagamore responded caused him to tighten the reins a trifle. Fulton was the next change station, and Dillon found encouragement there. He had cut down the Continental lead to thirteen minutes, and once past the change station, he sent Sagamore forward at racing speed.

A few miles out of Glorieta and the sun began tinting the sky, making the road safer, even if it meant no increase in Sagamore's speed. Daylight showed the perspiration lathered about the horse's shoulders and flanks, while the sound of his breathing told Dillon that the strain of the race was showing on the horse.

Except for a little group of men about the change station, the town of Glorieta was wrapped in slumber as the big horse thundered across a plank bridge at the outskirts and came to a halt at the station.

Speedaway was nowhere in sight, and Dillon caught the station man's arm as he asked, "Where's the other Dell-Argo horse?"

"We haven't seen any other horses--except the one belonging to the Continental team, and he left here two minutes ago," was the answer. Another man had brought a bucket of water and was holding it to Sagamore's mouth. With a quick decision, Dillon checked the horse from drinking, then scrawled his name on the ledger and leaped back into the saddle.

"It's up to us, old fellow," he said to the horse as he turned into the highway and rode from the town, followed by the cheers of those at the change station.

Just outside Glorieta the trail swings in a great half-circle to pass a mountain, then zig-zags between hills and gulches almost all the way into Santa Fe. Through narrow passes and around sharp turns the black horse raced, his sureness of foot saving himself and his rider time after time.

The last few miles of the road is straight, stretching like a boulevard to the city limits, and it was on this road that Dillon caught his first glimpse of Imperator. The grand old horse was half a mile ahead, doing his best as he had always done, and Dillon knew that the final test of speed must come in that stretch.

He leaned over Sagamore's glistening neck, talking to him and urging him to the utmost, realizing that the loss of this race would mean the loss of his horse--a horse that he loved like a brother. The white horse had courage, and he made a brilliant try in that last mile, but the youth of Sagamore was too much for him. Up and up crept the black head until it caught and passed the white nose, then Sagamore led the way through Santa Fe's ancient streets to the judges' stand.

Hammond and Jones were both waiting when Dillon leaped from his horse in front of the clicking cameras and the cheering crowd to deliver his package to the judges.

Then, suddenly aware of his own weariness, he placed a hand on the shoulders of Hammond and Jones and asked, "What happened to Speedaway?"

"His car was brought on through to Santa Fe," Hammond replied. "Either the train crew mistook their orders and failed to leave it at Glorieta, or Mortley bribed them to do that."

"Well, we've won anyway," Dillon said, smiling quietly.

"We had already," Hammond stated. "The judges were suspicious of that airplane following the horses at night and had the trail watched last night. They found that Mortley had hired that aviator to take the Continental package from his rider between Las Vegas and Chappelle last night and carry it ahead to his next rider, who rode back to get it. That forfeited the race, and ends Mortley's connection with the Continental, because Bristol discharged him as soon as he heard of it. You'd have won the race if you had walked Sagamore all the way from Las Vegas."

And Dillon, as he stroked Sagamore's glistening mane, understood the mysterious gain that his great horse had striven so hard to overcome during the night.

SOME EASY TESTS FOR DIAMONDS

Here are half a dozen easy tests for diamonds. Real diamonds will stand up under all of them, but no imitation can come through any of them. First, try a file; if it makes a scratch the stone is an imitation. Second, cover the stone with borax, heat it and drop it into cold water; an imitation will burst, but a real diamond will not be harmed. Third, drop a little hydrofluoric acid on it; this will dissolve it if it is not genuine. Fourth, drop it into a tumbler of water; if real it will still shine brilliantly. Fifth, put a drop of water on it; if the water spreads it is not a real diamond, but if the drop retains its globular shape the gem is real. Sixth, make a pencil dot on a piece of white paper, with a lens focus the light upon the dot, hold the stone near the paper; if the dot can be seen clearly through the stone it is a diamond, but if the dot appears foggy or duplicated the stone is false.

DESERT DRIFT

BY JOHN BRIGGS

_Author of "The Last of the Kings," etc._

EAST AND WEST MEET ON THE TREACHEROUS SANDS OF THE PAINTED DESERT;
AND ONLY THE SANDS WHICH SAW THE MEETING CAN TELL OF THE FATE OF
THE BLACK OPAL, WHICH WAS THE HERITAGE OF AN ANCIENT DYNASTY

"One First Class Passage--Prince Yuen Ming Chu."

Thus his American Pacific Liner passport had read, thirty years ago.

The Chinaman halted his time-and-wind-worn outfit in the sickly shadow of a smoke tree. He was clad in blue jumper and overalls. His gray felt hat was peaked after the common fashion of the desert country. With hands long accustomed to the task, he slipped his diamond hitch, removed his bed roll, kiaks and canvas water bags, and after a few final jerks with the cinches, he had uncovered a dust-hued beast so diminutive that the revelation might have startled a casual observer.

After staking the little animal where it could enjoy some very dry galleta grass, Prince Yuen Ming Chu accomplished a feat never duplicated before his time, nor since, on the drifting surface of the Painted Desert. He picked up a long roll of heavy pongee, from one end of which projected a large bamboo stick.

Holding one hand under the end of the innocent-looking roll and pulling down on the bamboo, there suddenly came into being a flowery and dragon-festooned sun-shade of immense size. He gave another pull, and the bamboo stick lengthened out several feet. The end of it he stuck down into the sand, and then from the eaves of the contraption he unfolded four stay rods. With these in position, he gave a pull at a cord, and behold! the big umbrella divided itself at the peak, and curtains dropped to the ground. Yuen Ming Chu parted the curtains at one side and drew them up at the opposite side, allowing for air circulation, whenever the air should decide to circulate.

Laying a grass mat down under his silken shelter and seating himself, he proceeded to undo the rawhide thongs of his laced boots. One might have noticed that the fingers so deftly engaged were very long and delicately tapered. This Celestial son could not deny himself the simple luxury of washing his feet, notwithstanding the scarcity of water. That accomplished, he exhaled with deep satisfaction, slipped his sensitive toes into loose sandals and went about under the smoke tree gathering fallen twigs with which to cook his rice and brew his tea.

For thirty years he had wandered under the far stretches of brilliant skies and over the tinted dunes that had been as home to him for so long. He had pitched his dragon tent under the lee of the purple and vermilion cliffs and at the foot of God's Altar Stones, the needle pinnacles of an old continent which seemed to pierce the riotous sunset heavens. He had communed with eternal quiet and had become the intimate of the stars by night. He had come to America on an Imperial mission, and hopeless as it had seemed for years, he had pursued it long after the fall of Imperial power in China; for his heart was in the task.

His quest was the recovery of the wondrous black opal, talisman of the Ancient Tsins, pillaged by a band of smugglers from the old Palace of the early Manchus at Mukden. Under disguise he had followed the smugglers to their stronghold in Lower California. He had joined them. By assiduous cunning, he had located the great jewel. And then, almost successful, his plans to regain it had been suspected. A furious chase had led him through the wildest regions into Arizona and on up into the Painted Desert. One by one he had accounted for his quarry until one alone remained. And then that one had perished in a sand storm which had buried him and his fabulously precious burden without a trace.

The shifting face of the desert had altered with the long years of Prince Chu's search, he was an old man now. He knew the arid region as a parent knows his wilful offspring. He had witnessed the strange and various vegetation creep slowly over the dunes which he had with his own hands shoveled aside. He had seen old dunes melt and blow away, and new ones rise. Now he was bound southward across the desert to Flagstaff, thence homeward. He had found the ancient talisman of the Tsins, the remarkable black opal, the most precious stone, at least in his understanding, in the world. The silver-haired old Oriental could hardly picture the changes which had taken place in his native land. He could not fit his imagination to what he would find at the other end of his long journey; but here he was leaving peace.

With a gesture almost of reluctance, he stood erect and raised his arms in a simple obeisance before partaking of his last meal there. It was a leave-taking of reverence and almost of sadness. His glance traveled to the northwest and fixed itself on the far horizon meditatively. In the distance the hazy cliffs were slowly being obscured by an undefined cloud which seemed without dependence on the sky--a volume yellowish and murky. The dunes were stifled in dead calm. Nothing moved. Only the heat waves writhed upward as though to lick the still air in their ravenous thirst.

"It will be another hour, maybe," speculated Prince Chu. "Then the Twin Gods of Thunder Mountain will begin to sweep the desert." He had learned the legends of the desert peoples, and he had found beauty in their poetry. In his eyes smouldered a certain brilliancy--the look of a dreamer. In his sensitive lips, in his long, thin-bridged nose, spoke ages of refinement. Prince Yuen Ming Chu's family history stretched back two thousand years, even to the ancient Tsins.

After eating, he carefully rinsed and packed his fragile porcelain rice and tea bowls. Emerging from under his sun-shade, he righted one of the kiaks, and was about to repack it, when some inner sense warned him to straighten up and look back of him.

Staring at him, about forty feet away, were two individuals of the genus homo and otherwise not easily classifiable. One was taller than the other, and the shorter one seemed the most ragged of the two. Their much-traveled appearance suggested that they had been somewhere; but their lack of any equipment for a journey aroused Prince Chu's suspicion that their destination might be "just anywhere to get away from where they had been." He rightly guessed that their object was to put a considerable distance between themselves and the Hopi Reservation.

He had been long enough in the country to recognize these two specimens as a certain brand of unscrupulous white riff-raff, driven from the city slums, which was given to preying upon the Indians, in one way or another. It was evident that they were leaving the Hopi people under circumstances of haste. In one swift glance he gleaned all of this, and then continued unconcernedly with his packing.

After their astonished survey of the dragon tent, the pair limped nearer.

"Hey! Got any water?" croaked one.

In response, Prince Chu merely grunted and poured water from one of the bags into the stew pan which he happened to have in his hand. Still squatting on his heels, he handed it to the man who reached for it, and the other, the shorter one, made a grab for the bag.

The old Chinaman drew it back and held up his hand in refusal. He was particular about who drank from his water bags.

The bandy-legs growled a curse and reached lightning-quick toward his hip, but as quickly checked the motion. "Wot'n 'ell d' yuh mean?" he hoarsely demanded. "Can'tcha give uh man uh drink?"

"No savvy," responded Yuen serenely.

"Don't get too ripe, Shorty," cautioned the taller, bleak-nosed one with red-rimmed eyes. "Take uh swig outa this."

After draining the tin, the ragged Shorty extended it for more.

Obligingly, indifferently, Prince Chu refilled it.

"Can'tcha talk English?" questioned the sun-blistered rogue.

Yuen Ming Chu, the scholar, simply shrugged, shook his head and smiled. Though granting them their needs, with a courtesy inherently his, he desired speedy riddance of his unwelcome guests. An eye even less discerning than his would have marked them as a cold-blooded pair. A weapon bulged in the hip pocket of each, and their movements were nervous and jerky. Obviously they were assassins and drug addicts. The old Chinaman's only weapon, an antiquated shotgun, was still strapped to his pack.

"The freak is uh Chink!" suddenly exclaimed the tall one. The speaker's beak nose and pasty cheek points gleamed strikingly. Apparently the sun had not affected the small area of his face which was exposed.

"Got anything to eat, John?" he questioned. Then, as an after-thought, he performed the motions of consuming food.

"All li--all li!" acknowledged Yuen. He put more rice to cook, and added his last piece of bacon. Covertly watching his guests, who had stretched themselves out under the smoke tree to wait, he observed that they were stealthily watching him also. Their conversation was low mumbled. They evidently mistrusted that he might understand them; but they were careless enough to let escape a few words which could be caught by the ears so long attuned to desert stillness.

"Damn funny--Chink out here--Yeh, runnin' hop t' the Injuns--Got it?--Sure 'eez got it. All Chinks uh got it!--Huh?"

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."

The short and ragged one tore the pack to pieces and left no space the size of a lead pencil unsearched. He finished his fruitless task in exasperation.

"Clean out His Nibs next," commanded the pasty-nosed ruffian.

Panting from his exertions and the blistering sun, the plunderer stepped up behind their victim, and keeping himself out of gun range, he deftly felt through Prince Chu's garments.

"I have not what you want," stated the Chinaman calmly.

"Yuh haven't, hey! Then wot's this?"

The eager fingers were fumbling with the clasp of a long, flat pocket case, black leather bound.

"It contains medicines, and certain chemicals, but nothing of value to you. Yes--cigarettes. Help yourself."

The case opened suddenly. Viewing an array of little vials, the searcher noticed one containing a white, crystaline powder, and his glum expression lightened immediately. He jerked out the vial and dropped the case to earth.

"Here's the snow, Squint!" he rasped excitedly, working at the cork.

The gun-wielder's drawn face relaxed in pleasurable anticipation.

"Mistaken again," remarked the measured voice of Yuen Ming Chu. "It is an anti-venom, to be used in case of snakebite. Should you use that as you would cocaine, without first having been bitten by a snake or the black spider, it would kill you."

The blue-bearded gunman's face clouded with anger. "If that's uhnother bluff, Chink," he threatened, "I'll croak yuh!"

"It is not a bluff," responded the silver-haired Oriental.

Sensing truth in the impassive words, the tall man ordered his partner to further rifle the Chinaman's person.

Prince Chu's face was still steadily expressionless.

"You are wasting your time," he said.

"Well, wot in 'ell er yuh doin' in this country, anyhow?" peevishly questioned Shorty, of the blistered face.

Before his question could be answered his exploring fingers encountered a chain of heavy linked gold about the Chinaman's neck, and he yanked at it.

"Wot's this?" he demanded.

For the first time, he might have seen a change come into their victim's expression. Exultantly observant, his partner directed him to snip the chain. When the chain had been removed by the practised use of a small pair of sharp nippers, the two crooks beheld at its end the most marvelous stone that they had ever seen. As large around as the rim of a tea cup, it covered Shorty's palm, while the gold chain glittered unheeded down from his hand. In the half-shadow of his hat, the opalescent lights flamed from the great jewel with a rapidity of changing fire which seemed alive--emerald, crimson, orange, pink and blue; fascinating, benumbing.

"My God! It's worth a million!" gasped Shorty.

Prince Chu's stern old lips curled slightly upward in their irony.

"Do not make a second mistake, my friend," he said. "In your dollars, it is worth ten millions. But if you should find it possible to dispose of the jewel, it would be worth your life."

"Wot's that!" the two exclaimed, almost in a word.

The Chinaman shrugged and smiled enigmatically.

"'Nother one uh yer Chink bluffs," mumbled Shorty.

"I ain't so sure," joined his partner meditatively. "But we better get movin'. Com' on! Stick 'er where she'll be safe, Shorty. Get that shotgun. Get both them water bags. That's it--both uv 'em. It's hot an' we'll need 'em," he added with a chuckle of grim significance.

"All right," announced Shorty, lowering his gun and grinning at the Chinaman with lips that twitched. "We'll toddle on, Ole Timer. Sorry can't have yer company."

"You may need it," tranquilly replied Prince Chu, commencing deftly to pick up his scattered things. "I shall not be far behind."

The gunman laughed unpleasantly. "I guess yuh'll keep outa gun range," he retorted, backing away a few steps.

"Which way?" inquired Shorty, loaded with the appointed articles. They contemptuously turned their attention from their late victim, now that they had rendered him harmless, they thought, and disabled by lack of water.

"Wait uh minute," the Squint interjected. "Let's see the rock. I wanna look at it close."

Shorty dug the great black opal from an inner pocket and was about to hand it to the other, when he halted suspiciously.

"Yuh ain't startin' nothin', Squint, are yuh?" he inquired.

"Com' on, yuh boob," protested the other. "How could I? We're t'gether, ain't we? Ain't there enough in it fer both uv us, anyhow? I jus' wanna see how the thing feels. Gee, she's some rock!" he exulted, as Shorty released the great jewel unwillingly. He allowed his attention to be consumed by the fascinating opal for a moment, and then he slipped the stone into an inner vest pocket.

"Hey, you! Wot're yuh comin' on me?" challenged the ragged one.

"Yer pockets're apt t' have holes in 'em, Shorty----"

At this point they were interrupted by the even-toned, dispassionate voice of the Chinaman. He had stood up from his patient reassembling, and there was such a contempt, such an impalpable foreboding in his voice, that both bad-men were impressed with a vague apprehension.

"Mr. Shorty, you have made your third mistake today," came the veiled, slowly articulated words.

Then addressing them both, "You have never seen such a stone, before, have you?"

"Com' on--cut it short," interrupted the squint-eyed.

"There is only one such stone in the world," continued Prince Chu, unhastened. "It has ruled empires for ten thousand years. Before this, thieves have stolen it; yet none have kept it long, except its rightful owners." He paused impressively.

Despite their callousness, the two thugs were getting a little nervous. Each had been speculating on the almost impossible value of the jewel. How could they dispose of it? Perhaps he was right. Maybe it wasn't intended for such as they. Still they should be able to realize something out of it.

"It has this peculiar faculty," continued the smooth, unruffled voice, "that when it falls into the hands of one who is not entitled to it, the unlawful possessor will enjoy good fortune as long as he retains it; but if he should relinquish it from his person, it becomes his fate to meet a violent death, very shortly afterward."

Prince Chu allowed himself the shadow of a smile, then his inscrutable eyes searched the faces of the ruffians to note when the significance of his clever invention should have penetrated their heat and drug crazed brains. He knew that superstition was not peculiar to his own race. It was the common penalty of all killers of men. Murder had stamped itself on the faces of these two, for such eyes as his to read, and fear now swept into the features of the one called Shorty.

"Gimme that back!" he shouted, his voice rising to a strained pitch and breaking. "Wot'd'ya have t' take it for, anyhow? Com' on, Squint, lemme have ut back," he begged.

The pasty-nosed Squint laughed sneeringly, and his lips twisted in a simulation of pity.

There came a low whine over the distant dunes. The disputing pair had not noticed that the sun's light was fading out. The air was stifling.

"Don't be uh boob," gibed Squint. And there was a crackling edge to his laugh. "The Chink's tryin' uhnother shindy on us." But his tone carried no confidence in his words. There seemed to be an insidious, occult, inexorable something about this Oriental who had communed so long with the desert.

The badgered Shorty twitched his gun hand instinctively, then discreetly checked himself.

"Yeh--yeh, damn yuh!" he wailed in terrified anger. "Now yer scared to let go of it, yerself!"

Neither of them had noticed why their words had to be shouted. They were too wrapt in their argument to perceive that the dull whine had risen to a distinct roar.

Swiftly the Chinaman had gathered up his outfit, and he was cinching it into place on the burro. The cut-throats had taken about twenty paces from him when he had halted them with his recital of the black opal's mythical qualities. Still in verbal conflict, they moved on.

A wind puff swished over the low dunes, driving loose sand through the crackling branches of the brittle salt bush. An incessant rush of suffocating air followed. Little rivulets of sand began to lift and worm along the ground and spill over the rolling dunes. Dust cloud blanketed the desert.

Prince Chu picked up the lead rope of his abbreviated burro and commenced to plod southward, with his back to the swirling, wind-driven dust. A hundred yards ahead of him the fleeing pair were trying to take note of their position and were traveling undecided as to direction.

In the south distance, before the dust had filled the air, there had been visible the jagged outline of the San Francisco Mountains. Now nothing was visible save the immediate wind-swept surface of the earth, the troubled dunes, and the higher desert ridges. Yuen Ming Chu had no intention of letting his despoilers beyond the range of his vision. And he was obliged to shorten the intervening distance; for the hot wind rose into a hurricane.

He rapidly overtook the two wobbling, stumbling men. They were letting themselves be swept directly with the drift of the storm, hunched over, running, scurrying up the ridges, sliding down.

They were not concerned with their pursuer's presence. They had shorn him of harm. He looked down at them, as they picked themselves up under the leeward of a sand drift.

"You are drifting with the storm," shouted Ming Chu. "It is blowing a west angle to our course. You must walk so that it strikes first the point of the left shoulder."

"You lead out," faintly responded the authoritative one of the pair. "Move on ahead, there. We'll follow. But no damned monkey business, Chink!"

Prince Chu looked back at them as he brushed by with his burro, and he interrupted a significant exchange of glances between them. Steadily he bore ahead, and the very surface of the earth seemed to be lifting up to bear them all down into smothered oblivion. He was fully at the mercy of these plunderers who followed him six paces in the rear. He had read the meaning in the look which they had exchanged. They intended to coolly shoot him down when they had done with his guidance. The drifting sand would do the rest.

"Such as it is to be, so it shall be," meditated this silver-haired son of the Great Ancients.

They were not following him easily. The driven sand cut through their ragged clothing. Occasionally one of them fell headlong. Neither tried to assist the other. The shorter one seemed to be the sturdier of the two. The long-legged one stumbled more frequently. One or the other of them frequently called on him to wait for them. He perforce obeyed. When they were close behind him, Ming Chu could see contortions of fear at work in the pallid face of the gasping Shorty. Each time that his partner went down he registered a look of satisfaction.

Prince Chu smiled inwardly. The prospect of violent death was fermenting in Shorty's brain. His features portrayed a fixed terror born of the alleged fate dependent on his losing possession of the marvelous opal. His mind was caught in the dread that the prophesy's fulfillment was bearing down upon him.

The surface of the desert was moving, shifting; slow rollers rose and sank, and drifted on. The earth picked itself up and rushed whither the mad wind drove. Small dunes melted away, where they were not rooted down by the stunted growth. New ones swelled up before their eyes--swelled up and burst and crawled ahead. Flat rivulets of sand ran, riffled, spumed against the rifted cholla trunks. The wild dry sea tumbled, rushed and roared on, relentless, insatiable. The three men and the beast were pounded, blasted, blown tumbling with the drift. There was no longer any tacking against its drive. The slipping sand sucked them down. Each step made a whirlpool into which they sank, straining to tear free, while the awful volume of the wind drove down upon them.

The high outline of a sand ridge loomed suddenly before them. It was an elevation which had built itself up year after year, by reason of its resistant creosote bush and other tenacious growth. It was halting the rushing flood of sand, banking it back against the terrific current. They were swept toward it. Its base seemed swelling, crawling to meet them, and its outline was mounting higher and higher. They were driven up with the piling earth. The thundering volume frayed at them, pressed the breath from their lungs, tumbled them, carried them with it. A mountain was being formed. They shot across its summit and dropped as though from a cloud. They slid and rolled and lodged under the lee of the ridge.

His face bleeding, his hands shaking, the ragged, short man stepped backward from the creeping pile and laughed. The sound made the other jump and whirl around on him. It was a sharp, strained cackle--a mad expression of release from the immediate clutches of death.

The man's pasty face was pale green and drawn into lines of pain. He cursed the laughter.

"Laugh when we get outa this," he snapped, "er that damn Chink'll get us yet." He made a threatening step toward the shorter one.

"Yer scared yer goin' t' croak, ain'tcha?" he snarled. "Yuh wanna see me croak first, don'tcha? Well, don'tcha try t' start nothin' with me! I'm uh live man yet, by God!"

The smaller man stepped backward again. The sand sucked in around his shoe-tops. He stood still a moment, and then a curious, pained, questioning look came into his face. He advanced a step, hastily, and whirled about. Looking down at the spot where he had stood, he saw two black-spotted coils, one above the other, partly buried, and a flat, fanged head protruding from the sand. He had felt three sharp stings in his half-deadened leg, before he had moved.

Almost forgotten by the battered twain, the harmless Yuen Ming Chu had also observed the mottled coils and the venomous puffed head of the diamond rattler.

On recognizing what had befallen him, the stricken man's screech mounted to the whistling roar overhead.

"Wot'sa matter? Bit--hey?" interrogated the Squint.

"I'm croakin': now I'm croakin' sure!" gasped Shorty.

"Hey, shut up! Can the racket! Ain't the Chink got some stuff fer that? Sure he has.

"Hey, John--come through with yer snake dope. Bring it here!"

Prince Chu was standing about fifteen feet from the pair. Now he drew from his inner pocket the little flat case of medicines. Selecting the vial of white crystals, he replaced the case in his pocket and drew the cork from the bottle. Before he made any move toward the distressed Shorty, he emptied the contents of the vial into the palm of his hand. Sufficient wind yet stirred within their shelter to disturb the light pulverized stuff. So he closed his fingers over it. Holding it thus, he waited, while the flicker of a smile touched his impassive features.

The smitten Shorty caught the inkling of some subtle purpose back of the Chinaman's pause.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Wot'sa matter?"

He tried to draw his gun. It was packed solid in his pocket with sand. Frantically he dug it out, while his partner stood by, half-amused.

"No tricks, Chink! Come through with it!" he frenziedly commanded. He drew the pistol finally.

The old Chinaman maintained his distance. "Why should you shoot me?" he questioned. "If you should do that, the powder would spill from my hand and be lost in the sand."

A startled look overspread the features already terrified.

"If you come any nearer," was the mild assurance, "I will let the powder scatter."

"Hell!" articulated Shorty, deadened in his tracks.

"I will give this to you when you have returned the black opal to me," stated the scion of the Ancient Tsins.

These words acted as a spring releasing the afflicted man's action. He wheeled about to his partner.

"Now, will yuh gimme that?" he shrieked.

But a mortal terror had at last entered the face of Squint. He saw his partner dying a violent death, and he had no mind to release the uncanny stone which he was now convinced would work the same fate with him, if he should let it go. With the most desperate speed he had ever achieved in his lifetime, his hand flashed for his gun.

There followed a streak of flame and a report against the twilight and the din of the storm. The tall, squint-eyed man sank first to his knees, and then crumpled down into the sand. Death caught the horrified expression in his red-rimmed eyes and held it until he pitched forward, face down, his right hand still wedged in his hip pocket by the sand which had prevented him from drawing the gun.

With fingers shaking out of his control, Shorty turned the limp form over and clawed into one of the inner vest pockets until he triumphantly drew forth the smoldering black opal at the end of its shimmering chain. Half-crawling, half-stumbling, he started with it for the extended hand of Yuen Ming Chu. He had dropped his short weapon behind him, and the troubled sand was crawling down over the upturned form of his victim.

He did not reach the outstretched hand, even though Prince Chu was coming to meet him. His face purpled in blotches, his breath choked, and the grip of convulsion tore him down.

The old son of the Tsins and the Mings stooped over him for a moment and examined the purpled veins and the black, contorted features. He shook his head.

"Too late," he murmured.

And again opening his little, flat case, he extracted another vial, and from it he let a few drops of the amber liquid trickle down between the gasping lips. Soon the movements relaxed and calm wiped out the tortured lines. The sand sifted down and the moving mountain crept on.

There was as nothing where the two men had stood and fought, and enacted the latest chapter in the history of that great, black, lambent jewel; more precious even than life, outlasting death; which had ruled empires for ten thousand years.

The STORY TELLERS' CIRCLE

THE PONY EXPRESS

One of the most picturesque and thrilling institutions of the Old West, now given place to train, automobile and aeroplane, was the Pony Express. All too little fiction has been written around these hardy riders and sturdy mounts, all too little recognition taken of the sterling feats of courage and endurance they performed.

We are glad to publish Earl C. McCain's story, "From One to Another," in this issue; and glad to learn that tentative plans have been made to have the government issue a limited number of the old pony express stamps for use in the pony express relay race planned as part of the Portola festival in San Francisco this year. One hundred and twenty-five horses and twenty-five riders will take part in this race from St. Joseph, Mo., to San Francisco, following as nearly as possible the old Wells-Fargo route of the early days.

Mr. McCain, who is a Westerner himself, has investigated races of this sort, and in regard to the events of his story says, "There has never been a race of this exact type held. The nearest to it was The Denver Post Endurance Race, from Evanston, Wyo., to Denver. Twenty-three cowboys on broncos took part in this, Charles E. Workman finishing first and F. T. Wykert second, arriving neck and neck in front of _The Post_ building.

"This summer an endurance contest of a different type was held at Colorado Springs. The horses were to travel sixty miles each day and return, and at the end to be judged by condition as well as the time made. The sixty miles had to be covered in from nine to eleven hours. Twelve horses participated, the winner being Norfolk Star, a cavalry horse from Fort D. A. Russell, ridden by Captain H. E. Watkins.

"The contest continued for five days, three hundred miles, and Norfolk Star's time was 47 hours, 37 minutes. Jerry, a horse from Fort Sill, Okla., made slightly better time than Norfolk Star, but lost out by finishing in poor condition. Two cow ponies were entered in this contest, but both were eliminated early in the race. Rabbit, a three-quarter thoroughbred, finished second, and Fox, a horse of unknown breeding, owned by Ed Pringle, of Colorado Springs, beat out Jerry for third place.

"One of the old-timers here states that a contest slightly similar to the race described in my story was held back in the 60's, when the Pony Express was in operation. It is his belief that express parcels were started from St. Joseph and San Francisco at the same time, the race depending upon which reached the opposite destination first."

"EAST!"

You remember the scheme which we began talking about more than a year ago for boxing the compass with complete novels representative of the various points of direction? There was James B. Hendryx with "North!" which has just been published in book form at $1.75; and there was Charles Alden Seltzer with "West!" which was published in book form at the same price last season. At that time we asked you, our readers, who should complete the four major points. H. Bedford-Jones was almost unanimously chosen as the man to write the story for "East!" We are glad to say he has done so, and a ripping piece of work it is, too. In "East!" this author, whose Chinese stories fairly breathe the mysterious atmosphere of the Orient, takes us into the interior of China with a young American engineer who sets out to solve the secret of the Mountain Paradise of which no Oriental would speak and of which the Americans and Europeans heard the wildest rumors. Even its location was a mystery. Yet it did not take this Bedford-Jones hero long to find it, nor to solve the puzzle as to the identity of the goddess Si-wu who was reputed to reign over this ideal kingdom. The story, replete with action and adventure, leads the issue for next month.

Of the major points in the compass, it only remains now for some one of the best writers to give us "South!" Who shall it be? What sort of story do you suggest to complete the swing around the circle?

Robert Pinkerton will be with us again, in the next number, with "Downstream," a novelette of the Canadian bush country. And E. S. Pladwell, a newcomer for SHORT STORIES, will be on hand with a realistic and engaging Western novelette.

Among the short story men will be Edwin Hunt Hoover with another story of Dutch and Blue Danube--of how Dutch sang cowboy songs to a fetching young lady, and played detective--and how they all danced to the tune of the tenderfoot who "looked like a wise old bronc"; Robert S. Lemmon, back with another of John Mather's adventures in Ecuador, this time among the Jivaro head-hunters; Herbert Louis McNary with one of those railroad telegraph stories many of you have been asking for--only this tale will be equally enjoyable to those who haven't the slightest interest in railroad or telegraph affairs.

READING UNDER DIFFICULTIES

Short Stories travels to some queer corners of the earth and is read under trying conditions, but it seems that Major Altizer's experience wins hands down:

Editor, SHORT STORIES,

Dear Sir:

I have long intended to send you a testimonial of my enjoyment of
SHORT STORIES. I have been reading the magazine for years, and I
must confess that it does not fail to hold my interest. The style
of stories you use can certainly be nothing else than beneficial to
those who enjoy a life of out-doors and adventure.

There are numbers of your stories which recall to me times I
spent right at the scene where the plot is laid, perhaps one of
the reasons why I enjoy SHORT STORIES. I think one of my greatest
disappointments was during the Great War. As you know, magazines
were then prohibited from being sent by individuals to the soldiers
in France. But I had a plan to overcome that. A friend back home
would pick out the best stories, cut them from the covers, and mail
them to me in letters. It happened that I had to spend several days
and nights in a particularly exposed observation post, a letter had
just been sent to me which contained a story from SHORT STORIES.
Several hours later I was trying to read it, when, Wham; along came
a high explosive and the debris entirely buried my short story, for
I took the usual "duck" without consideration for anything else.

With best wishes for the continued success of your magazine, I am,

MAJOR C. S. ALTIZER,
Cambria.

Danford G. Britton, author of "North Wind's Message," in this issue, is another who has run across SHORT STORIES in an out-of-the-way corner. In this case the wandering copy of the magazine was the gem from which Mr. Britton's fine poem sprang. As he tells it:

Something over two years ago I made one of my annual outing trips
up into Canada. We were delayed in making our return journey by a
real old blizzard and were holed up in our cabin for about three
weeks.

The cabin had evidently been built for some time and among other
odds and ends it contained an old copy of SHORT STORIES. I read
the magazine through several times and one short article or verse
on the North interested me especially. As there was nothing to do
except tend fires, to pass away the time, I tried my hand at a
little verse of my own. A few days ago in going through my camping
togs I came across it.

Have you encountered SHORT STORIES under unusual circumstances? If so, let us hear about it; the members of the CIRCLE are no doubt interested in hearing of the queer adventures and experiences of the magazine--many of them no doubt more startling than anything that ever gets between its covers.

THE MAIL BAG

So many interesting letters are arriving from members of the CIRCLE lately, that it is a temptation to crowd everything else out to give them room. The more the merrier--and the better for SHORT STORIES--so keep right on sending them.

Here is one from a former South African, who will be pleased to know that there are several more of Greene's "Major" stories on the press right now:

Editor, SHORT STORIES.

I am a South African by birth, having been born in Johannesburg,
South Africa, during the time Oom Paul Kruger ran the Transvaal
Republic. Have been in America about twelve years and am proud to
say that I am an American citizen; nevertheless, I have the kindest
thoughts and remembrances of my native land and I certainly enjoy
the "Major" stories. They are well written and the author must know
his South Africa, which is a good field for good stories.

THEO. BEHR.

THE READERS' CHOICE COUPON

The Readers' Choice Coupons are beginning to flow in; keep it up! Cut out the coupon below, fill it out with the names of the stories in this issue that pleased you, and let us have it. It is your chance to get the kind of stories you want.

Chas. A. Beck was the first to send in his Coupon, and the good letter he sent with it is worth printing:

"Readers' Choice" Editor, SHORT STORIES:

As far as I am concerned you'll have to wait a few more issues in
order to get my opinion of who writes the best stories. Just as I
said on the Coupon _all_ of the stories in the ---- issue of SHORT
STORIES are fine and dandy. I know what I am talking about for I am
a reader of about ten different adventure and short story magazines
and the stories in your March 25th issue are some of the best I
ever read. I have read Short Stories for the last seven years and I
never read a bum story yet.

CHARLES A. BECK.

What is your opinion of this issue?

READERS' CHOICE COUPON

"Readers' Choice" Editor, SHORT STORIES:

World's Work (1913), Ltd., 20 Bedford St., London, W.C. 2.

My choice of the stories in this number is as follows:

1 ____________________________

2 ____________________________

3 ____________________________

4 ____________________________

5 ____________________________

I do not like:

______________________________ Why? ________________________

NAME __________________________ ADDRESS ____________________

_A Selection of Popular Titles from_

HEINEMANN'S THREE & SIXPENNY LIBRARY

Robert Hichens _Bella Donna_

Jack London _Martin Eden_

Joseph Conrad _Typhoon & three other Stories_
_The Nigger of the Narcissus_

W. Somerset Maugham _The Moon & Sixpence_

The author of "Pam" _Yellowleaf_

Richard Dehan _The Dop Doctor_
_That Which Hath Wings_
_Between Two Thieves_
_The Man of Iron_
_The Eve of Pascua_

Frances Hodgson Burnett _The Shuttle_

Maurice Hewlett _The Fool Errant_
_The Little Iliad_

Marie Conway Oemler _The Butterfly Man_
_A Woman Named Smith_
_The Purple Heights_

E. F. Benson _Account Rendered_
_Mammon & Co._
_Juggernaut_

Sarah Grand _Adnam's Orchard_

Flora Annie Steel _The Gift of the Gods_
_A Sovereign Remedy_

_Wm. Heinemann, Ltd._

Short Stories Twice-a-Month

_THE NEXT NUMBER_

EAST!

A complete novel, wherein a young American, breathing the spirit of action, of the West, meets a secret of the ever mysterious Orient, and realises his desire for high adventure.

H. BEDFORD-JONES

_=and in the same Number=_

DOWNSTREAM

A novelette of the North, and of the forces abroad in the mighty stretches--were they caused by the mind of man, or by the gods of the Indians?

ROBERT E. PINKERTON

THE HIGH TRAIL

A grave choice confronted Rob Macdonald, lately come to the cattle-country. The high trail was the hardest to follow, but counted most in the end among the barons of the ranges.

E. S. PLADWELL

THE HEAD HUNTERS

John Mather, Naturalist, to whom adventures were all in the day's work, meets a fellow scientist not so lucky as himself.

ROBERT S. LEMMON

AND OTHERS

Printed by Richard Clay & Sons, Ltd., The Chaucer Press, Bungay, Suffolk. Published twice monthly by The World's Work (1913) Ltd., at the Registered Offices of the Company, 20, Bedford Street, London. Sole Agents for South Africa: Central News Agency, Ltd.