watching his motions with difficulty in the uncertain light, snatched
quickly at his hand. The weapon was thus turned at random as the trigger
was pressed, and Tom, deafened by a sudden report, drew back as the
revolver flashed in his face.

The disguised man fell to the ground. The boy watched him for a moment,
but he lay there quite still in the shadow.

A feeling of fear swept through the boy's heart, and he hurried back to
the shore to call for help. The man might not be dead. He was surprised
to find what a long distance it was back. He had not, in his first
excitement, thought he had gone more than a couple of hundred yards.

As he drew near to the water's edge he heard the sound of a number of
voices. The day was beginning to break. Coming out on the shore, he saw
the _Madrona_ lying at the mouth of the slough with the thick smoke
wreathing from her funnel.

On the rocks near by several men in uniform were standing in a group
about some object upon the ground. With a strange presentiment the boy
made his way around the shore and joined them. What he saw there was a
man lying upon his face. He did not need to see the features to
recognize who it was.

It was the Chief of the Customs Department.

"Where have you been, Tom?"

The boy turned around at these words, and saw the Captain of the
_Madrona_. The sight of his bluff honest face made the boy feel himself
again; and reminded him, too, of his errand, which he had forgotten for
the moment.

"I followed the man dressed up like a woman who was with him," Tom
answered, excitedly; "he's a mile back in the woods now-- I want to take
a surgeon along, for I think he's killed. I caught at his hand with it
in, and it went off somehow--the revolver, I mean--and I think it killed
him--but I didn't mean to; I couldn't see."

"I'll go back with you at once--who did you say it was?"

The boy told what had happened as they hurried back through the trees.

"That must be Tee Ling."

"Who?"

"Tee Ling; you've heard of him--the most notorious opium smuggler on the
coast-- I see it's a trail."

"Yes, all the way. So it's a China man, then?"

"Of course. There's not a more detestable scoundrel among all the
Chinese in America. He has a den some place on the British Columbia
coast, and probably we'll unearth his southern headquarters within a
mile or so of where we stand. He dresses as a woman simply as a
disguise. He has a hundred of them. You've had a terribly nar