ica?' 'Sure!' our Chink answers. 'All light,' says
Foy Lee. 'You come with me.' The rascal knows all the time what to
do, only he wants to make it seem hard, so he can get his little rake
off.

"Foy Lee takes his friend to an office over on a side street in some
Chinese city. There he meets a man who guarantees him passage to U. S.
if the Chink will just sign the paper. That's all--no money nor
nuthin'--only sign the paper an' he gets to America. What is the
paper? Oh, just a promise that the Chink will pay the company that's
sending him all his future wages--less enough for food--until fifteen
hundred dollars have been paid. Just a mere matter of slavery, that's
what it amounts to.

"But the Chink signs. What's fifteen hundred in the land of 'plenty
dollah?' Now our Chink is put on a vessel bound for Mexico. There he
is met by an agent of the same company that put him on board in China.

"This agent takes him to a town, near the border--say Presidio, or some
such place. Then the real fun begins. The company notifies their man
at headquarters that the Chink has arrived and is ready to be shipped
across the border. Headquarters looks up the Chink's bond that he
signed in China, and which has been received through the mail, and
sends back word that everything is O. K., that the Chink, with several
others, is to be handed to a smuggler at a certain spot, to be smuggled
over the border. And when the Chink is so delivered the company's part
ends.

"After this the Chink's fate is in the hands of the smugglers, and if
they get caught, and the poor coot is sent back to China again by the
emigration authorities, he's still got to pay that fifteen hundred,
although all he got for his money was a long ride and hard treatment.

"The border runners take their consignment of Chinese and either pack
them in the back of an auto or wagon, or arrange to smuggle them across
some other way. If they're lucky, they get through. If not they get
hauled up by the border officers, and the runners get jail and the
Chinks are sent back to their native land. And even if they do get
through the lines the Chinks' troubles aren't over, for at any time
they're liable to be pulled in for not having what they call a 'chock
gee,' which is a government paper signifying they are here lawfully and
not by smuggling. I told you about that before.

"And that's how the game works. These smugglers get hold of a ranch
near the border so