Armed expeditions were not in favor with the
authorities. The action did not escape the gold washers, and they drew
together in a huddle, chattering among themselves. They had no arms
visible, and the skipper took little heed to them; his entire faculties
were working on the problem that faced him. Little, too, stood beside
him, waiting for the strangers to come in sight above the hummocks that
rose between river and forest. It was one of the gold seekers who
startled them into swift life.

"Oh, sar! Dat man he run! He queer fella, sar; no good, dat man!"

Barry swung around, followed the direction of the speaker's outflung
arm, and saw a brown figure running like a deer towards the down-river
gorge. He had run the minute Barry disarmed his men.

"Fire after him!" he shouted, then remembered that his men had no guns
at hand now. He whipped out his own pistol and fired. But the distance
was too great for such a short-barrelled weapon, and the fugitive ran
on, bounding like a rubber ball over sand and grasses until he vanished
from sight over the river bank.

"After him and bring him back!" cried Barry, shoving two of his own men
in that direction. The seamen followed with true sea clumsiness in
running; but as they ran they gained speed, and they were not two
hundred yards behind the chase when they too reached the river and
vanished.

"Now what's up, I wonder," muttered Little, staring from his skipper to
the open-mouthed gold washers, who expressed alarm beyond suspicion of
connivance. "Here, you!" he demanded of the man who had been spokesman;
"what fashion that man, hey?"

"He no man for us, sar," chattered the shivering native. "He bring de
last lot of rice for us. Me no know him before, sar. He new man, I
t'ink."

"New man?" echoed Barry, still more at a loss. His face had darkened,
and the scowl that sat on his forehead reminded Little of a certain
scene on a hotel veranda in Surabaya. Further speech or thought was cut
short then by a cry from one of the _Barang's_ crew, and topping the
last rise of the river bank marched three white men in the uniform of
naval officers, followed by twelve stout natives in seamen's rig. They
advanced towards the waiting men of the _Barang_, lined up at a sharp
"Halt!" and the white men came forward alone. They were keen-eyed men,
tanned and capable, yet they impressed Barry as contrasting very poorly
with the naval officers he had known. The men were poorer yet; they were