It was on this trail that I found our breakfast."

Shrimp wanted to ask how he had caught the deer, but realized that he had recently been altogether too familiar with a Britisher. Probably a friend of George Thoid, he thought, and winced. It curled his hair to think what the mob would say could they know of it. Still, he had to admit that the guy wasn't a bad guy, even though he hated to admit it.

They were moving up wind, and Clayton paused and and raised a warning hand. "There is a man ahead of us," he said in a low tone.

"I don't see no one," said Rosetti.

"Neither do I," said Clayton, "but he's there." He stood still for a few minutes. "He's going the same way we are," he said. "I'll go ahead and have a look at him. The rest of you come along slowly." He swung into a tree and disappeared ahead.

"You can't see no one, you can't hear no one; and this guy tells us there's a guy ahead of us-and w'ich way he's goin'!" Rosetti looked appealingly at Lucas.

"He hasn't been wrong yet," said Jerry.

Sing Tai did not die. The Jap bayonet inflicted a cruel wound, but pierced no vital organ. For two days Sing Tai lay in a welter of blood, deep hidden in his cave. Then he crawled out. Suffering from shock, weak from loss of blood and lack of food and water, often on the verge of fainting

from pain, he staggered slowly along the trail toward the village of Tiang Umar. Orientals are more easily resigned to death than are occidentals, so greatly do their philosophies differ. But Sing Tai would not die. While there was hope that his beloved mistress might live and need him, he, too, must live.

In the village of Tiang Umar he might get word of her. Then he might be able to determine whether to live or die. So Sing Tai's loyal heart beat on, however weakly. Yet there were moments when he wondered if he would have the strength to carry on to the village. Such thoughts were depressing him when he was startled to see an almost naked giant appear suddenly in the trail before him-a bronzed giant with black hair and gray eyes. This, perhaps, is the end, thought Sing Tai.

Clayton had dropped into the trail from an overhanging tree. He spoke to Sing Tai in English, and Sing Tai replied in English which had just a trace of pidgin. In Hong Kong, Sing Tai had lived for years in the homes of Englishmen.

Clayton saw the blood soaked garments and noted the outward signs of weakness that seemed to verge on collapse. "How you get hurt?" he asked.

"Jap monkey-man run bayonet through me-here." He indicated the spot in his side.

"Why?" asked Clayton, and Sing Tai told his story.

"Are there Japs near here?"

"Me no think so."

"How far is this village you are trying to reach?"

"Not very far now-maybe so one kilometer."

"Are the people of that village friendly to the Japanese?"

"No. Very much hate Japs."

Clayton's companions appeared now from around a curve in the trail. "You see," said Lucas. "Right again."

"That guy is always right," muttered Shrimp, "but I don't see how he done it-not with no glass ball nor nuthin'."

"Not even with the aid of mirrors," said Bubonovitch.

Sing Tai looked at them apprehensively as they approached. "They are my friends," said Clayton-"American aviators."

"Melicans!" breathed Sing Tai with a sigh of relief. "Now I know we save missie."

Clayton repeated Sing Tai's story to the others, and it was decided that they should go on to Tiang Umar's village. Clayton gathered the Chinese gently into his arms and carried

him along the trail. When Sing Tai said that they were near the village, the Englishman put him down, and told them all to wait while he went ahead to investigate.