"I followed the man dressed up like a woman who was with him," Tom answered, excitedly; "he's a mile back in the woods now— I want to take a surgeon along, for I think he's killed. I caught at his hand with it in, and it went off somehow—the revolver, I mean—and I think it killed him—but I didn't mean to; I couldn't see."
"I'll go back with you at once—who did you say it was?"
The boy told what had happened as they hurried back through the trees.
"That must be Tee Ling."
"Who?"
"Tee Ling; you've heard of him—the most notorious opium smuggler on the coast— I see it's a trail."
"Yes, all the way. So it's a China man, then?"
"Of course. There's not a more detestable scoundrel among all the Chinese in America. He has a den some place on the British Columbia coast, and probably we'll unearth his southern headquarters within a mile or so of where we stand. He dresses as a woman simply as a disguise. He has a hundred of them. You've had a terribly narrow escape from him, my dear boy."
"I saw him at the Custom-house last night, when I was reporting what I had seen."
"Where—in the office?"