andshakes and well-wishes
from the consul, the boys were off for Peking. By this time the streets
were rather quiet, although they knew that before they could pass beyond
the limits of the great, sprawling town with its million of inhabitants
dawn would be showing in the sky.

The swift ride through the city was a revelation to the American boys.
All was strange with an atmosphere of age and decay. The habitations,
save those occupied by foreigner--and these were grouped together--were
mostly old and mean. The streets were in bad condition--worse than
usual because of the softening effects of the rain--and the lights were,
in places, infrequent.

Watchmen patrolling the thoroughfares in the idle manner peculiar to all
alleged guardians of the night, gazed menacingly at the machines as they
whirled by, talking in their spark language, as Jimmie expressed it, but
the uniforms kept them at a respectful distance. Here and there were
little tea shops, and before these were groups of natives, circled close
together.

It seemed to Ned like a ride through a cemetery, the occupants of which
had been awakened to life for an instant and would go back to their
graves and their dreamless sleep again as soon as the machines had
passed. The weight of ten thousand centuries seemed to hang over the
place.

There was a faint line of dawn in the direction of the Yellow Sea when
the boys came to the suburbs of Tientsin. Before them lay nearly eighty
miles of rough road to the capital city. With good luck, they figured
that they could make that in four hours.

Now, at dawn, the road which curved like a ribbon before them, started
into life. From field and village streamed forth natives carrying and
drawing all kinds of burdens. In that land the poor are obliged to be
early astir, and even then the reward of their labors is small.

It was autumn, and the produce of the field was ripe for barter. There
were loads attached to horses and loads drawn in carts; there were
'rickshaws, and bundles on backs, and on long poles carried over bent
shoulders.

The strange procession of the motorcycles and the marines caused many a
surprised halt in the procession of industry. Chinamen stood at one
side while the steel horses shot by them, and then gathered in little
groups by the wayside to discuss this newest invention of the foreign
devils.

The sun rose in a cloudless sky and the earth steamed under its rays,
sending back in eddy