“Come, brothers, come,” called Yee Wing, again. His voice was light and mocking. “The spoil is large. You shall take all my possessions with you—this time.”
The three stopped short. Then, as one, they turned, fleeing.
Too late! Yee Wing stepped back into the magazine—a match sputtered up——
The night was split by a great burst of thunder. It went resounding across the salt flats to Alameda, across the bay to the City beside the Gate, it was beaten back by the brown Piedmont hills. And with it, as the earth quaked to the sound, the souls of three Sam Sings, and of Yee Wing, Powder-man, went forth to join the souls of their ancestors.
THE SEARCH FOR THE SPRING
“MR. EDWARD HEATON, sir.”
Austin Knowles, sitting alone over his coffee and paper, put down his cup and leaned back, an expression of pleased surprise lighting his grave face. “Oh,—ask Mr. Heaton to come in here,” he said.
A moment, and the servant ushered in a young man whose manner, frank and boyishly eager at the threshold, at once became, on catching sight of the other, more subdued, even somewhat solicitous.
The elder looked up. “Well,” was his kindly greeting, “you’re abroad early. Take a chair. Everything all right at the building, I hope.”
“Yes, sir,—not a vacancy since McGinn & McGinn, the attorneys, leased. That was two months ago.” There was a touch of pride in Heaton’s answer.