shing into the house
to get the raw-hide whip with which he had punished the Chinaman before,
and with which he had threatened his wife.

When he returned a moment afterwards, Li Choo was nowhere to be seen;
but in his place were two other Chinamen who had, as it were, fallen
from the skies, standing where Li Choo had stood, immobile, blinking
and passive like Li Choo, their hands lost in the long sleeves of their
coats, their pigtails so tightly braided as, in seeming, to draw
their slanting eyelids still to greater incline, and to give a look of
petrified intentness to their faces.

Something in their attitude gave Mazarine apprehension. It was as
though Li Choo had been transformed by some hellish magic into two other
Chinamen. The rage of his being seemed to stupefy him; he could not
resist the sensation of the unnatural.

"What do you want? How did you come here?" he asked of the two in a
husky voice.

"We want speak Li Choo. We come see Li Choo," answered one of the
Chinamen impassively.

"He was here a minute ago," answered Mazarine gruffly.

Then he turned away, going swiftly toward the kitchen, and calling to Li
Choo. As he went, he was conscious of low, cackling laughter, but
when he turned to look, the two Chinamen stood where he had left them,
blinking and immobile.

The uncanny feeling possessing him increased; the thing was unnatural.
He lurched on, however, looking for Li Choo. The Chinaman was not to be
found in the kitchen, in the woodshed, in the cellar, in the loft, or in
his own attic room; and the half-breed, Rada, declared she had not seen
him. He could not be at the stables, for they were too far away to be
reached in the time; and there were no signs of him between the house
and the stables. When Mazarine returned to the front of the house, the
two Chinamen also had vanished; there were no signs of them anywhere.
Search did not discover them.

Mingled anger and fear now possessed Mazarine. He would search no
longer. No doubt the other two Chinamen had joined Li Choo in his
hiding-place, wherever it was. Why had the Chinamen come? What were they
after? It did not matter for the moment. What he wanted was Louise, his
bad child-wife, who had broken from her cage and flown from him. Where
would she go? Where, but to Slow Down Ranch? Where, but to her lover,
the circus-rider, the boy with the head of brown curls, with the ring on
his finger and the Cupid mouth! Where would she go but to the