and then he
passed on with unanswered questionings fading from his mind.

He saw a large house on fire on a hillside to the right, and no man
heeding it....

They came to a narrow railroad bridge and presently to a mono-rail train
standing in the track on its safety feet. It was a remarkably sumptuous
train, the Last Word Trans-Continental Express, and the passengers were
all playing cards or sleeping or preparing a picnic meal on a grassy
slope near at hand. They had been there six days....

At one point ten dark-complexioned men were hanging in a string from the
trees along the roadside. Bert wondered why....

At one peaceful-looking village where they stopped off to get Bert's
tyre mended and found beer and biscuits, they were approached by an
extremely dirty little boy without boots, who spoke as follows:--

"Deyse been hanging a Chink in dose woods!"

"Hanging a Chinaman?" said Laurier.

"Sure. Der sleuths got him rubberin' der rail-road sheds!"

"Oh!"

"Dose guys done wase cartridges. Deyse hung him and dey pulled his legs.
Deyse doin' all der Chinks dey can fine dat weh! Dey ain't takin' no
risks. All der Chinks dey can fine."

Neither Bert nor Laurier made any reply, and presently, after a
little skilful expectoration, the young gentleman was attracted by
the appearance of two of his friends down the road and shuffled off,
whooping weirdly....

That afternoon they almost ran over a man shot through the body and
partly decomposed, lying near the middle of the road, just outside
Albany. He must have been lying there for some days....

Beyond Albany they came upon a motor car with a tyre burst and a young
woman sitting absolutely passive beside the driver's seat. An old man
was under the car trying to effect some impossible repairs. Beyond,
sitting with a rifle across his knees, with his back to the car, and
staring into the woods, was a young man.

The old man crawled out at their approach and still on all-fours
accosted Bert and Laurier. The car had broken down overnight. The old
man, said he could not understand what was wrong, but he was trying
to puzzle it out. Neither he nor his son-in-law had any mechanical
aptitude. They had been assured this was a fool-proof car. It was
dangerous to have to stop in this place. The party had been attacked
by tramps and had had to fight. It was known they had provisions. He
mentioned a great name in the world of finance. Would Laurier and Bert
stop and help