, "we're not so badly off, after all. Here we
are right back in old United States of America!"

"United States?" Jarvis stared.

"Says so in this message I found in a brass can. Says--"

Dave broke off suddenly. Something on the crest to the right of them had
caught his attention. Grasping his automatic, Dave went skulking away in
the shadow of the hill.

Jarvis, too, had seen it and awaited the outcome of this venture with
eager expectancy.

CHAPTER XIII

CIO-CIO-SAN

Hardly had Johnny Thompson's finger lessened its pressure on the trigger
of his automatic, than the interpreter sprang straight at the figure that
cast the shadow.

A scream rent the air.

With a spring, Johnny was on his feet, just in time to see one of the
figures drop. In the dim light he could not tell which one. He stood there
motionless. It had all happened so quickly that he was stunned into
inactivity.

In that brief moment bedlam broke loose. The Mongol chief sprang from
behind his curtain. Other Mongols, deserting all night games of chance,
came swarming in on all sides. Their jargon was unintelligible. Johnny
could not tell them what had happened, even had he rightly known.

The fallen man was dragged out upon the snow, where his blood made a
rapidly spreading dark circle on the crystal whiteness. He was dead beyond
a doubt.

Slowly the group settled in a dense ring about some one who was talking
rapidly. Evidently the survivor of the tragedy was explaining. Was it the
interpreter or the other? Johnny could not crowd close enough to tell.

He flashed his electric torch upon the fallen body. The sight of the hilt
protruding from the chest, over the heart, gave Johnny a start. His
interpreter had won. It was his knife that had made the fatal thrust. The
dead man was undoubtedly Oriental and not a member of the Mongolian
tribe.

That knife! Johnny started. How had this person come into possession of
that blade which he had given to Cio-Cio-San? That Cio-Cio-San would not
give it away, he was certain. What then had happened? Had it been stolen
from her, or was this strange interpreter, who had doubtless just now
saved his life, Cio-Cio-San herself? It seemed unbelievable, yet his mind
clung to the theory. He would soon know.

Slowly the crowd dispersed. The killing of an Oriental in such a camp as
this was merely an incident in the life of the tribe, a thing soon to be
forgotten. Two servants of the chief bore the body a