nd seem to be Germans--I
couldn't be sure of that, sir."

"Germans or chimpanzees, we're going by them this night. Where's Seth
Barker--why doesn't he come down? Does he think we can pass by the
hill-road?--the wooden block! Call him, one of you."

They were about to do this when Seth Barker himself came panting down
the hillpath, and, what was more remarkable, he carried an uncouth sort
of bludgeon in his hand. I could see that there had been a bit of a
rough and tumble on the way, but it wasn't the time for particulars.

"Come aboard, sir," says he, breathing heavy; "the gangway's blocked,
but I give one of 'em a bit of a knock with his own shillelagh, and
that's all right."

"Is there any more up there?" I asked quickly.

"May be a dozen, may be more. They're up on the heights looking for you
to go up, captain."

"Aye," said I, "pleasant company, no doubt. Well, we must strike
eastward somehow, lads, and the sooner the better. We'll hold to the
valley a bit and see where that leads us. Do you, Seth Barker, keep
that bit of a shillelagh ready, and, if any one asks you a question,
don't you wait to answer it."

Now, I had resolved to try and get down to the sea by the valley road
and, once upon the shore, to signal Harry Doe, if possible, and, if not
him, then the ship herself as a last resource. Any road seemed to me
better than this trap of a house with armed men all about it and a
pistol bullet ready for any stranger that lingered. "Aboard the ship,"
said I, "we'll show them a clean pair of heels to 'Frisco and, after
that, ask the American Government what it can do for Ruth Bellenden and
for her husband." We were four against a hundred, perhaps, and
desperate men against us. If we got out of the scrape with our skins,
we should be as lucky a lot as ever sailed the Northern Pacific Ocean.
But should we--could we? Why, it was a thousand to one against it!

I said this when we plunged into the wood; and yet I will bear witness
that I got more excitement than anything else out of that venture, and
I don't believe the others got less. There we were, the four of us,
trampling through the brushwood, crushing down the bushes, now lying
low, now up a-running--and not a man that wouldn't have gone through it
twice for Ruth Bellenden's sake. If so be that the night was to cost us
our lives, well, crying wouldn't help it--and those that were against
us were flesh and blood, all said and done, and no spirits to scare a