"Who gets the fifteen hundred dollars?"
"Has that smuggling been going on here—near the Shooting Star?"
"Cease firing!" the deputy laughed. "I'll answer Bud's question first. Yes, it has been going on here—right past Roaring River. That's how our marshal got shot up—tryin' to stop a load of Chinks from gettin' through.
"That fifteen hundred, Dick, is divided between the men who actually do the running, and the company that ships the Chinks to Mexico. The smugglers get about five hundred a head for every man they get in. The 'chock gee' is often counterfeited, but not very successfully. It's printed like a government bank bill, and is just as hard to fake."
For some time the discussion about smuggling went on. The deputy told of the different tricks resorted to by the border runners in getting their human cargo safely into the United States, and to what lengths they will go to prevent capture. Boats are also used to transport the Chinese to the American seacoast, Hawkins said, and if, by chance, the runners were caught with a load of prospective undesirable Americans they got out of the difficulty by the simple expedient of dumping the Chinese into the sea.
Another method of transportation was for the smugglers to put off in a small craft from a Mexican port, with a cargo of barrels and Chinese. When the boat neared the United States coast the Chinese would be nailed in the barrels and thrown overboard, to trust to the mercies of Fate to bring them ashore. Often the wind blows in an offshore direction, which spells death to the floating Chinese; weeks later they are found dead, when the barrels pile up on some distant coast.
This system of sneaking Chinese into this country was well established, said Hawkins, and the smugglers make use of scouts in small cars before they attempt to bring a load of Chinese across the line. These scouts ride swiftly along the route of the proposed entry, and locate, definitely, the position of each border patrol, so that when the run is actually made the driver of the car filled with Chinese knows the spots to avoid.
Of course the Boy Ranchers were chiefly interested in the part their new Shooting Star property might have played in this game of smuggling.
"And the fellow that lived here is the local head of that system!" Bud exclaimed. "Say, we let a rare bird go when he escaped."
"We've still got a chance to get him," Dick declared. "He must be around somewhere. That note—you saw the note we found, didn't you, Mr. Hawkins?—well, that indicated we might look for another visit from the coot. The Kid will be glad to see him, eh, Kid?"