DANGLING IN MID AIR
Before dawn, the morning after his interview with Mazie, Johnny was away for the camp of the Mongols. There was a moist freshness in the air which told of approaching spring, yet winter lingered.
It was a fair-sized cavalcade that accompanied him; eight burly Russians on horseback and six in a sled drawn by two stout horses. For himself he had secured a single horse and a rude sort of cutter. He was not alone in the cutter. Beside him sat a small brown person. This person was an Oriental. There could be no mistake about that. Mazie had told him only that here was his interpreter through whom all his dealings with the Mongols would be done.
He wondered much about the interpreter. He had met with some fine characters among the brown people. There had been Hanada, his school friend, and Cio-Cio-San, that wonder-girl who had traveled with him. He had met with some bad ones too, and that not so long ago. His experiences at the mines had made him, perhaps, unduly suspicious.
He did not like it at all when he found, after a long day of travel and two hours of supper and pitching camp, with half the journey yet to go, that this little yellow person proposed to share his skin tent for the night. At first he was inclined to object. Yet, when he remembered the feeling that existed between these people and the Russians, he realized at once that he could scarcely avoid having the interpreter for a tent-mate.
Nothing was said as the two, with a candle flickering and flaring between them, prepared to slip into their sleeping-bags for the night.
When, at last, the candle was snuffed out, Johnny found that he could not sleep. The cold air of the long journey had pried his eyes wide open; they would not go shut. He could think only of perils from small yellow people. He was, indeed, in a position to invite treachery, since he carried on his person many pounds of gold. He, himself, did not know its exact value; certainly it was thousands of dollars. He had taken that which the doctor had carried, and had left the doctor to do what he could for the sufferers, and to assist Mazie in her preparations of the great kitchens and dining-room where thousands were to be fed.
For a long time, he thought of treachery, of dark perils, reaching a bloody hand out of the dark. But presently a new and soothing sensation came to him. He dreamed of other days. He was once more on the long journey north, the one he had taken the year previous. Cio-Cio-San was sleeping near him. They were on a great white expanse, alone. There was no peril; all was peace.
So great was the illusion that he scratched a match and gazed at the sleeping face near him.
He gave a little start at the revelation it brought. Certainly, there was a striking resemblance here to the face of Cio-Cio-San. Yet, he told himself, it could not be. This person was a man. And, besides, Cio-Cio-San was now rich. She was in her own country living in luxury and comfort, a lady bountiful among her own people.