at the beginning of twilight and the flickering fire was
already making shadows on the beamed ceiling of the cabin. Neil and Ted
Norris pulled off their leather coats and stretched themselves out
comfortably with their feet toward the blaze.

"Now," said Ted, looking at Wolcott Norris, "is the time for you to spin
us a yarn."

"Yes," replied the mining engineer gazing at the three of them with an
expression that they later remembered, "I guess this _is_ the time to
spin you a yarn."

To their surprise he got up abruptly from his splint-backed chair and
went out to his bedroom. As he returned he was thrusting something into
his coat pocket.

"After I got through Jefferson," he said, when he was sitting in front
of the fireplace once more, "I went to technical school to study
engineering--mining engineering--which meant that when I started out to
work I traveled round the country from one place to another, and within
a short time I had a commission to go to China. When I went I took some
one with me."

Wolcott Norris paused and for a minute or two gazed straight before him.
None of the three listeners interrupted the silence; there had been a
quality in the mining engineer's voice which had made them feel that
they were about to hear something unusual.

"Here's her picture," he said, and took from his pocket the object he
had placed there on entering the room a few moments before. He handed it
to Teeny-bits, who bent forward a little so that the glow from the
firelight fell on the photograph. Neil Durant and Ted Norris leaned
toward him and the three of them saw the likeness of a young woman with
smiling eyes and fine, clear features.

"Mighty nice looking," said Neil Durant. "She reminds me of some one
I've seen before, I can't think where."

There was a slight unsteadiness in Wolcott Norris' voice when he spoke
again, but he overcame it and went on with his story rapidly.

"We were married just after I got my new job, went out to San Francisco
and sailed for China on the Japanese steamer _Tenyo Maru_. It was a
wonderful world to us then--more wonderful than I can describe to you.
Rain or shine, every day was a perfect day, and we sailed on and on in
that little old steamer out across the Pacific until we came at last to
Asia. For several months we were in Shanghai at the headquarters of the
company, then they sent me up into the province of Honan to a little
place called Tung-sha on a tributary of the Yangts