Before he could look around a rough hand had caught his queue and jerked him over backward.
"Not a bloomin' word out o' you, chink!" hissed a menacing voice in Ping's ear. "Ahead with ye, now, and unloose the painter. If you don't hustle, I'll kick yer inter next week. This is a hurry-up call, and don't you fergit that!"
Ping didn't wait to argue the question. Rolling over the top of the hood, he knelt in the bow and tore the painter loose from the iron ring. The engine was chugging by the time he had finished, and when the Sprite started, under the impulsive hands of the strange white man, she leaped away with a jolt that rolled Ping back into the arms of the boat's captor.
With an oath, the man hurled Ping into the bottom of the boat. He would as soon have tumbled the Chinese boy into the water, and it was luck, rather than design, that kept Ping out of the wet.
Crawling back on the stern thwarts, Ping leaned on his elbows, blinking his little eyes and trying to guess what had happened.
Behind, over the swiftly growing stretch of water, he heard an uproar on the house boat, then the pant and throb of another engine.
The strange white man looked around and swore.
"They're chasin' me, but they won't get me!" he muttered. "If this boat can put me ashore ahead of 'em, I'll save my bacon dry-shod; an' if it can't, by thunder, I'll take to the water and swim!"
Ping heard this, and dwelt upon the words for some time. The strange white man was running away from the other devil-boat. What had the strange white man done? Were Matt and McGlory on the other devil-boat trying to catch him? Or was it the three bad 'Melican men who were doing the chasing?