"I ain't up against anybody. Miss Eva'll settle her own affairs."
"Excuse me." And I made the gesture of withdrawing.
"Don't get het up under the collar," he protested. "Only I never did like this discussing ladies. She don't cotton to me for some reason. I'm free to say I admire her very much. I guess that's all."
"Nothing I can do for you, then?"
Stires lighted a pipe. "If you're so set on helping me, you might watch over Ching Po a little."
"What is he up to?"
"Don't know. But it ain't like him to be sitting round idle when there's harm to be done. He's got something up his sleeve—and a Chink's sleeve's big enough to hold a good-sized crime," he finished, with a grim essay of humor.
"Are these mere suspicions on your part, or do you know that something's up?"
"Most things happen on Naapu before there's been any time for suspicion," he rejoined, squinting at his pipe, which had stopped drawing. "These folks lie low and sing little songs, and just as you're dropping off there's a knife somewhere.—Have you heard anything about the doings up yonder?" He indicated the mountain that rose, sharply cut and chasmed, back of the town.
"Trouble with the natives? No."