him white.
Palmer and his crowd don't seem to be able to make anything of it--or
don't want to--yet it has been going on for years."

"I should like to come," Phil answered, "only I've promised to have
another dance with Miss Pederstone, and I couldn't possibly think of
disappointing myself in the matter. Give me a line on where you'll be,
and I'll come along and join you as soon as that particular dance is
over. Won't you stick around till then, and we can go together?" he
suggested.

"No! I have a kind of hunch there is things doing. You hurry along as
soon as you can. Keep your eyes open and, if all is quiet, come round
to the track door of the middle Warehouse, Brenchfield's. You should
be up there by eleven-thirty. I'll be there then, sharp at that time,
and will let you in if all is jackaloorie."

"Have you a gun?"

"Sure!" replied Jim, "and one for you. Here!--stick it in your pocket
now. It is loaded. Darned handy thing!"

Phil walked part of the way up the back streets with Jim.

It was noisy as usual round Chinatown, with its squeaky fiddle,
tom-tom and cocoanut-shell orchestras, intensified by a fire-cracker
display on the part of the more aristocratic Chinese in honour of John
Royce Pederstone's victory. The remainder of the town, apart from the
neighbourhood of the dance-hall, was in absolute quietness.

Phil parted from Jim near the railway tracks and slowly retraced his
steps toward the town hall, whose blaze of lights stood out in high
contrast with the surrounding darkness.

When Phil got back, the band had just concluded a cheery two-step and
the dancers were scattering in all directions for seats round the hall
and for the buffet.

Eileen Pederstone caught sight of him as soon as he entered, and
signalled him over.

"I thought you had gone home, Mr. Ralston," she remarked, her eyes
sparkling with enjoyment and her breath coming fast with the exertion
of the dance.

Phil took in her slender, shapely, elfin beauty, and his heart beat a
merry riot of pleasure as he sat down by her side.

"I went along the road a bit with Jim," he answered. "He had some
business he wished to see to."

"Poor Jim," laughed Eileen, "he takes life so strangely; at times
tremendously seriously; at others as if it meant nothing at all. Now
he plays the solemn and mysterious, and again he assumes the role of
the irresponsible harlequin. I don't think anyone really understands
Jim Langford."

"I don't think an