g food-stuffs.

"Sure," the reporter answered. "Cheerful, isn't it?"

Hamilton gave a little shiver of repugnance, but taking out his
schedule, asked the underground store-keeper all the personal questions
on it. Then, realizing that he would be able to know about his
customers, the lad quickly made enough inquiries to assure him that
there was no fault to find with the work, and started for the upper air.
Just as they passed out of the stairway, the policeman, who was the
last, still being on the steps, Hamilton heard a shot, and a bullet came
whizzing by his head. It was answered by a fusillade of shots.

The boy's first instinct was to duck back under the cover of the
staircase from which he had just come out, but the policeman, as he
left it, roughly gave him a push, as much as to say, "Keep out of
there," and started on a dead run for the group where the firing was
going on.

"That's the Hip Sings," the reporter said, pulling Hamilton into the
shadow of a doorway, "the Ong Leongs have been waiting for them, ever
since that affair in the theater."

"What was that?" asked Hamilton, although more interested in the
immediate excitement than the story.

"Time of the Chinese New Year," the reporter answered in short, crisp
sentences. "There was a gala performance in the theater with suppers and
banquets before and after. Everybody brought fire-crackers to the
theater, and at a certain time all the fire-crackers were set off. When
the noise stopped eighteen men were found shot dead, all members of the
Ong Leong Tong. The Hip Sing men were blamed for it, but none ever
caught."

"What's up now?" cried Hamilton, in alarm.

As he spoke two men dashed out of a building near by, and fired at the
group beyond. The others turned and made a rush. The two newcomers cut
across the street, thus for a moment diverting the line of fire which
had been perilously close to where the two boys were standing.

"This is too hot for me," said the reporter, "we'd better get out of
here as fast as we know how. We'll go to the end of this street and turn
to the right. Are you ready? Come along."

Out from the doorway like a couple of frightened hares the two lads
bolted, pursued by a few shots which, they flew so far over their heads,
Hamilton surmised were intended as a warning to keep out of the way
rather than as attempts to shoot them. In the few seconds that had
elapsed it seemed that the streets had become full of running police