The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 92: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Author of ‘‘ Sailing with Morgan ”’ CHAPTER I. DON’T mind telling you, Oakes, but, mind you, there is not an- other soul in the world I would tell! I have seen the place. It is not a case of buying a pig in a poke. “Of course, it was ten years ago and more that the thing happened, but— Just think of it, man! A rope of opals and rubies three feet long and not one of the opals smaller than a good-sized chestnut! Pearls, too, as thick as the seeds in a cacao-pod and a handful of rings, any one of which is worth a king’s ransom—”" He stretched out his hand for the siphon and slowly filled his glass, set- ting it back in the bamboo ring of the chair arm. Oakes carefully clipped the end from a cigar and looked at . Hemingway. “Why didn’t you get some of ‘em and bring ’em away t ” = Why weren't you there to help carry ’em off? We had all that we could do to save our hides. I had worked my way down from Tibet; where More and I had gone the year before for sapphires. “We didn’t get very many, and what we did get were mostly worth- 562 ANTI po-rep etme y J A COMPLETE NOVELETTE less on account of flaws. We had the devil of a time gettin’ out on account of the Goloks bein’ on the war-path. “You see, in comin’ down-country we took the Great China road that Sven Hedin wrote of and so come down past Lhassa, keepin’ to the hills to the north all the way till we came to the Bayankhara-ula Range. “From there we worked northwest through the Tossun-nor country till we came to Si-ning Fu in Kan-suh. “It was no joke gettin’ down that far, either, for that road has always been deemed dangerous on account of those very Goloks. We _ traveled mostly by night and so hit the head- waters of the Hwang-ho, where we got a sampan and so came down to Peking—’’ “A little matter of a fifteen - hun- dred -mile trip through a practically impassable country, disposed ot in something near six sentences,” com- mented Oakes, leaning forward and waiting expectantly for further speech till the flaring match burned his fin- gers. “And then what?” “And then when we got to Peking we found the White Flag rebellion was in full blast, and a week later we were besieged in the legations in the COMmiicloo S CO@