"Yes. But what—"
"Well, look here, you silly boy, I've got it on now. Look on my watch chain. I wonder if that could be what—what that Mongolian was regarding so closely?"
"Maybe," responded Roy carelessly, "but now I'm really off to get that water. Hot or cold?"
"Both!" cried Peggy.
The spirits of youth are elastic, and even in their predicament Peggy found her heart almost singing within her at the beauty of the green little valley after their long, dusty journey over the alkali barrens.
"After all," she assured herself, "I don't believe they mean us any real harm and—oh, what an adventure to tell about when we get home again."
A refreshing wash and a hasty adjustment of her hair before a mirror in a tiny "vanity box," which shared the watch charm snap with the little jade god, served to still further raise Peggy's spirits.
Red Bill Summers and his followers ate at the upper end of the valley, but the Chinaman brought food on an improvised board tray to the captives. Having set down two dishes of a steaming stew of some kind, flanked with coffee, sweetened and flavored with condensed milk, and real bread, the Oriental glanced swiftly about him. Red Bill and his companions were noisily convivial, and paying no attention to what was transpiring at the lower end of the valley. Like a flash the Chinaman slid to his knees and extending his hands above his head touched his forehead to the ground three times in front of Peggy.
Then rising he exclaimed:
"Melican girl, gleat joss, mighty joss. Ah Sing he come bymby.
Goo'bye."