ead, as if to say:--"Come along,--I'll
show you."

He led Phil through the back lanes to Chinatown, stopping in front of
a cheap, Chinese restaurant. He pointed inside. Phil made to enter.

He encountered, of all people, Brenchfield coming out.

The suddenness of the Mayor's appearance caused him to catch his
breath. In Phil's mind it solved the problem at once.

Brenchfield stopped and stared at Phil, then he glared at Smiler who
turned tail and ran off as if for his very life.

The Mayor appeared to be in one of his most sullen moods. He turned
again and looked angrily at Phil, his eyes travelling from the young
smith's face to his boots, then back to his left hand in which he
still held his recovered spurs.

Phil jingled them suggestively, and kept on into the restaurant.
Brenchfield remained on the sidewalk in front of the door.

Phil knew quite well that he was taking chances, but he risked that.

There was nothing of any moment taking place in the main dining-room.
Several diners were on stools at the counter. Others were at tables. A
Chinese waiter was serving, while the cook was tossing hot cakes
beside the cooking range. The door of the adjoining room was open.
Some Chinamen were at a table, deeply interested in a game of
chuckaluck. In a room still farther back, some white men were playing
poker.

Phil strolled in there. No one paid any heed to him.

His eyes travelled over the players. He did not know any of them. But
it did not take him a second to settle in his mind which was the man
he was after.

A little, stout, narrow-eyed fellow, who did not seem to have been
shaved or washed for months, was seated at the far corner, chewing
tobacco viciously. Evidently he had just resumed his game, for Phil
heard one of the players exclaim:--

"Aw!--get a move on, Ginger! What'n the deuce do you want to keep us
here all day for, waitin' for you and that blasted Mayor to quit
chewin' the fat?"

None worried about the new arrival: they were all too engrossed in
their game.

In the middle of it, Phil went up close.

"Men,--I hate to butt in, but I want that dirty little fellow over
there." He pointed suggestively at his man.

"Yes,--you Ginger!" he shouted, as the little man gaped.

"Aw,--get back on your base!" was all he got for answer, for the man
had no idea who had challenged him, and drunks had a habit of
interfering at cards, ultimately to find themselves thrown out into
the street. He took