Johnnie he cruises over to China, and the old
fellow, savvying how things are, says all right, marry, and they get
married, and he gives 'em his blessing and lays down and dies. A good
old scout, Johnnie said, and I guess he was.

"Well, everything's fine, only Johnnie wants to come back and live in
the United States, and the girl too. She was sixteen years old when she
left California, and a woman's life in the United States looked a lot
better to her than in this land of one-half her ancestors. So she and
Johnnie takes a steamer to Vancouver, and they get there all right; but
not till they got there did either of them happen to think that they
were foreigners and barred as Chinese from coming into the United
States. Which was a pity, they being pretty white and so strong for
everything American. Anyway, Johnnie writes to Trumbull, my old boss, to
see what he could do, and after ten days or so Durks happens along and
bumps into Johnnie and is surprised as you please to see him, and
Johnnie tells him his story, and Durks tells him not to worry about
that--that he'd smuggle him and his wife across in a schooner he'd just
bought. They would take a little coast steamer and meet her a few hours
up the coast, and then across the sound to Seattle--'twould be the
easiest thing ever you see.

"And there they were, Johnnie and his wife, and when he got that far in
his story Johnnie stops and looks up at the sky most mournful-like.
Springtime it was, mind you, and fine weather, with the sun shining and
the waters of the inlet rolling up on the rocks gentle-like, and the
first of the birds were up from the south and singing and chirping, and,
I s'pose, nesting overhead--a bran'-new spring day in a piny grove on a
pretty little island off the coast of British Columbia, when anybody
should 'a' been happy, 'specially with a new young wife.

"'Well, what's wrong--what you so blue about?' I asks Johnnie when he'd
got through squinting up the tree branches to the sky.

"And he tells me how after his wife was aboard the steamer which 'd
brought 'em to this place she sees Durks and tells Johnnie how Durks
came near kidnapping her one time--before she went back to China with
her father. Her father and Durks had a terrible row over it. Her father
near killed Durks with a hatchet. And now here was Durks turning up in
this accidental way; too accidental altogether--for Durks. He would
steal her or something, and once he got her into San F