“Good!” he muttered to himself, as he prepared for his downward climb. “Trust an Oriental to make things hard. Suppose they thought if they had it any closer to the car the children might raise the dickens by playing with it.”
He swung there relaxed. They were dropping. He could tell that plainly enough. Now he could distinguish little lines of hills, now catch the course of a river, now detect the rows of brown willows that lined its banks.
He looked for the gleam of the City of Gold. There was none. The sun had evidently climbed too high for that.
His eyes roamed to the north. Then his lips uttered a cry:
“The ocean! We can’t escape it!”
CHAPTER XII
THE RUSSIAN DAGGER
Johnny Thompson, with his interpreter by his side, found himself in the camp of the Mongols. It was a vast tented city, a moving city of traders. Down its snow-trod streets drifted yellow people of all descriptions. Men, women and children moved past him. Some were young, some very old. All appeared crafty and capable of treachery.