A figure moved in the gloom. Before she could cry any warning to Copley an arm was put firmly about her and Ruth was almost lifted to one side. She saw the gleam of a weapon in the other hand of her neighbor, and the point of this weapon was dug suddenly into the broad back of the gruff boatman who was Bilby’s companion.
“Don’t get nervous, ’Lasses,” came in Tom Cameron’s voice. “We’re all friends here. Ah! A nice automatic pistol from our friend, Mr. Bilby. Just so. Here, Nell!”
But it was Ruth’s hand that took the captured weapon, although Helen stood at her side squeezing her other hand and whispering:
“My goodness, Ruthie, what a perfectly glorious experience! Are those the real smugglers?”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” replied her friend. Then she accepted the revolver extracted from the hip pocket of the boatman by Tom Cameron. “Where is the King of the Pipes?”
“Taking the air. We heard the talk below here through the hollow tree. Do you know,” whispered Helen, “that old beech is a regular chimney. And we saw the boat come here. Then we grabbed the King of the Pipes outside.”
“Tom did not hurt him, I hope?” murmured Ruth.
“Not a bit of it. In fact, the queer old fellow said he was willing to abdicate in Tom’s favor, and now, I suppose, Tommy-boy is King of the Pipes,” and Helen, the irrepressible, grinned.
The two ex-army men, however, took the matter quite seriously. Tom disarmed the Chinamen as well as the white men. And to search and disarm a squirming Oriental, they found not easy work.
“But I disarmed enough Fritzies in Europe to learn my job pretty well. How’s the weather, Sergeant?”