“Now, what’s all this? Water sign, mountains, stopping place— Bill descended to picture writing there, I see! That’s the mountain across from my camp where I took Bill in and fed him—gave him my best hiking boots, too, by Jove! My camp by the river— Bill, you are ingenious!
“Without a doubt you wish me to understand that within a month you will be at my old camp by the river—counting on more food and more boots, perhaps! H’m! I don’t just know about that.
“Don’t see how you are going to make it. Handicap too heavy. Doubt whether I myself could overcome the obstacles—leg irons, officers on the watch, posses on the trail, three hundred miles to go— Bill, old fellow, if you make it you’ll prove yourself a man worth helping! You won’t get half the distance—but if you do, you may have my next-best boots and welcome!”
Abington turned the case over, held it closer to the light, frowned and gave a faint whistle at what he saw. He had supposed that the message had been repeated here as a precaution against his failure to notice the barely discernible markings in the leather on the other side.
But as he peered sharply at the fine indentations his eyes brightened with interest. For although the river and the stopping-place symbols were repeated, and the string of tiny circles which signified the number of days’ journeying, the plural sign was there just below them. At the end of the journey, mountains—but they were indicated by the conventional, premodified Manchurian symbol and, close by, the sign of a mummy.
“What the deuce!” breathed Abington, pulling black eyebrows together. “He’s blundered there—maybe means he’ll leave my camp only in custody. No, by Jove! That can’t be it, either.”
For a long time he sat motionless except when he turned the cigarette case for a renewed scrutiny of the other side. The message that had seemed so simple presented an unexpected little twist of mystery.
Bill Jonathan, pursued by the chain of evil, meant to journey for perhaps a month and arrive at John Abington’s camp in the mountains that bordered the river. That much seemed fairly plain, and one would logically expect no further information at present.
But there was more to it, apparently. Bill had not sat in that roadster idly scratching hieroglyphics on the cigarette case of an archaeologist just to pass the time away. Meaning to escape in the car, uncertain too of the number of minutes at his disposal, he must have grudged every second of delay while he worked out his message.