We plodded on. Once more we spent the night in the jungle, and again the ground was wet and spongy and the trees alive with monkeys. On the following day, for all our sleepiness and blistered feet, we tramped a full thirty miles, and spent that night in a strongly scented bamboo hut.
Forty-eight hours later we came upon an unfinished railroad that a German company was building in Siam. It was the only railroad in the country. We struck out along the top of it in the early afternoon, and with no thorny bushes or tangled vines to hinder, we got on faster than we had for weeks past. Long after dark we reached the house of the German superintendent of the line. He gave us permission to sleep in a neighboring hut in which were stored several tons of dynamite.
An hour’s tramp next morning brought us to the work train. Hundreds of Chinese laborers, in mud-spattered trousers and leaf hats three feet wide, swarmed upon the flat cars as they were unloaded. We climbed on to one of these cars, and were jolted away with the Chinese coolies through the sun-scorched jungle.
Ten miles south the train turned on to a side-track and stopped near a helter-skelter Chinese village. A heavy storm drove us into a shop where Chinese food was sold. We spent the whole morning talking about the nature of the yellow race while the store-keepers quarreled over their cards, and, when they tired of this, tossed back and forth about the room a dozen boxes of dynamite. At noon they set out on those same boxes a generous dinner of pork, duck, and rich wine, and invited us to join them. We did so, for we were very hungry; but we feared that we would have to part with most of our money when the time came to pay the bill. Throughout the meal the Chinamen were most polite, helping us to everything good to eat. When it was over they rolled cigarettes in wooden wrappers for us. They themselves smoked these all the time, even while eating.
“Suppose they’ll want all our cash, now,” groaned James, as I drew out my purse to pay them. But, to our great surprise, they refused to take a copper.
“Now, what do you suppose their game is?” gasped the Australian. “Something tricky or I’m a dingo. Never saw a pig-tail look a coin in the face yet without grabbing for it.”
The head shop-keeper, an old fellow with a straggly gray queue and shifting eyes, swung suddenly round upon us.
“Belly fine duck,” he grinned.
Our faces froze with astonishment.
“Dinner all light?” he went on. “Belly good man, me. No takee dollies for chow. Many Chinyman takee plenty. You find allee same me. No blamed fear. One time me live ’Flisco by white man, allee same you, six year. Givee plenty dollies for joss-stick. Me no takee dollies for chow.”