CHAPTER VIII—ABOARD THE YELLOW JUNK
IN making their escape from the steamer, Tex Connor and the Manila Kid seized one of the small boats, manning, one at either end, the tackle-falls. Connor was quick, rough, profane. The Kid, breathless with excitement, hesitant, glancing back over the rail for a thinly girlish face that did not, then, appear, worked with ten thumbs at the ropes. Connor's end, the boat, fell first, a short way, nearly pitching him out. He cursed this futile man, his jackal, roundly; then clung to the tackle as the stern fell.... The Kid moaned with pain as the slipping hemp burned the skin off his fingers, but held it just short of disaster.
Hot red flames licked out overhead as the boat jerkily dropped. The women were screaming up there. A white man, the second mate, leaned over, swearing vigorously at them. They passed an open freight gangway, where bodies lay.
“Ready, now!” cried Connor. “Let go with me!”
“Wait a minute, can't you?” whined the Kid. He was peering into the dark interior of the steamer; grasping a moment more; wrapping a handkerchief about his left hand. “My God! Can't a fellow tie up his hand.”
A thin blue figure appeared, stepped lightly over into the boat and dropped on a middle thwart.
“Dixie!” cried the Kid in falsetto.
She wore a cap, and carried an oddly lady-like shopping bag.
“Where'd you come from?” growled Connor.