of lifting her out, so that he
might search the cart undisturbed. But the moment that he touched her
she screamed frantically. Her husband was too busy holding his bruised
face to heed her, but Ping Wang went at once to see what was happening,
and finding that Charlie was lifting her bodily, shouted, 'Put her down,
Charlie. Don't touch her!'

'But she has hidden my pigtail,' Charlie protested.

'Never mind. Don't touch her again, for it's a terrible insult to a
Chinese woman to lay hands on her. Put her down and jump out.'

Charlie put the woman down, jumped out of the cart, and picked up his
'beehive,' but he was very indignant at having been robbed of his
pigtail. To stop the cartman from following them, he caught hold of the
horse, and led it into the thickest mud, where the wheels sank in almost
to the axle.

They started off at a trot immediately, the Chinaman and his wife
yelling after them insulting remarks. Fortunately there was no one
about just then, and the three travellers were out of sight before the
cartman and his wife had an opportunity of telling any one about the
foreigners whom they had seen disguised as Chinamen.

When they had run for about a quarter of a mile, they began to walk, and
discussed what should be done to hide the loss of Charlie's pigtail.

'To start with,' Fred said, 'we had better take off our goggles now.'

'If you can hide the loss until we get to Kwang-ngan,' said Ping Wang,
'I will buy you a new one. Put your "beehive" on the back of your head.'

Charlie did so, but as he was without a skull-cap, his European forehead
was most noticeable.

'That will never do,' Ping Wang declared. 'Put your beehive as it was
before. We will walk in single file; I in front of you, and Fred behind
you.'

In that order they had walked for nearly two miles, when a man, passing
in the opposite direction, mistook Fred for an acquaintance. He stopped
short, and shook his own hands. Fred knew that the Chinese, when they
meet a friend, instead of shaking his hand, shake their own. Wishing to
be polite, he shook his own hands in reply.

Then the Chinaman made some remark. Fortunately Ping Wang, having been
nudged by Charlie, turned round, and seeing Fred being addressed by a
Chinaman, explained that Fred was a man of weak intellect. The Chinaman
was astonished, but having satisfied himself that Fred was not the man
he had fancied, went on his way, turning round, however, after walking a
few yar