“I would believe that fellow capable of anything,” she returned. “I mean anything that did not call for personal courage on his part.”
“Humph!” murmured Chess thoughtfully. “I wonder what he was doing with the Chinaman in his party. You know, sometimes Chinamen are smuggled across from Canada against the emigration laws of the States.”
He headed the Lauriette for the camp then, and they arrived there in a rather serious mood.
CHAPTER XII
THE DANCE AT ALEXANDRIA BAY
“You might have been mistaken, I suppose, Miss Ruth?” suggested Mr. Hammond, the president of the film corporation, sitting at his desk in the room of the main bungalow which he used as an office. “It was growing dark when that speed boat passed you and your friend, was it not?”
“Not out on the river, Mr. Hammond. It was light enough for us to see the men in that boat plainly. Just as sure as one of them was a Chinaman, the short, fat man was Horatio Bilby.”
“It doesn’t seem possible that the fellow would chase away up here after us when he so signally failed down below. My lawyer tells me that he had no real authority from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to secure Wonota’s services, after all.”