“They shot two. They'd have trouble shooting forty. Make Tom do the work—right now, to-night, while we're lying up here. They'll follow him; and you won't have to stand back of him if he's caught. He'll just be one of the rebels then. Get this right, Tex! It's a real chance. You'll never get another like it. With the soldiers we can get a launch—hire it, even, if you want to play safe—and go right up there and get the stuff. Nobody'll ever know it wasn't just a case of soldiers on the loose.”
“How're you going to get away? They'd know we weren't here, wouldn't they?”
“Don't try to tell me we couldn't slip out of China, if we had to. This isn't England or America. I don't believe we'd even have to. Just a case of playing it right—using your head.”
“Where is this place?”
“It's there, and I'll take you to it.”
“You'll have to tell me.”
Quietly she moved her head in the negative. He would hardly know that the viceroy was not going on through to Hankow and Peking; she had the information herself only from Rocky Kane. Nor would he know, by any chance, the situation of his excellency's ancestral home. For Tex was not what they termed a “sinologue”; he knew white men and women and yellow servants, the steamers and railways, the gambling clubs and race tracks; little else. There was then, little reason why he should think of the viceroy at all.
“It's anything from a million or two up, Tex,” she said coolly. “And my information comes straight. I'll prove it by taking the chance with you.”
He shook his head; half turned. “Where is it?” She smiled.
He left her abruptly then. And coolly she watched him go. It would take a little time for Tex's imagination to rise to it; and until the last moment he would try to bluff her down. It was just poker; they had played that game before, she and Tex. Once he had robbed her. But not this time—not, as she phrased it, if she saw him first.