They watched the launch making back to the coast, then they took to the oars and put back for the schooner.
“Well,” said George, who was at the yoke lines, “it gets me how these sorts of things are let pass by the law.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Hank, with a laugh. “Why, girls are disappearing every week in ’Frisco, they get inveigled into Chinatown and that’s all. They get taken off to Canton and sold as slaves to mandarins or worse.”
“But how do the Chinks manage to get them out of America?” asked George.
“You’ve seen it,” said Candon. “You said there were two white men with those Chinese—that’s how. The traffic wouldn’t stand a minute without the help of whites. Money, that’s what’s the mischief, money and the damned capitalistic system that makes money king. Lord, I want to get at those chaps, I’m sufferin’ to get at those chaps.” He stopped rowing. Hank, equally excited, also rested on his oar till George cut in and they resumed.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SURPRISE
THEY came alongside the Wear Jack just as the fires of sunset began to pale beyond the peak of San Nicolas.