cript of
extraordinary interest and significance. We inferred that if the sum
demanded were not sent, the writer might be constrained to cast
himself as rubbish to the void. Now The Babe had his little failings,
but cowardice was not one of them. Indeed, his physical courage
redeemed in a sense his moral and intellectual weakness.

"There is only one thing to do," said Ajax; "we must rescue The Babe.
We'll spin a dollar to determine who goes to the city to-morrow
morning."

I nodded, for I was smelling the letter; the taint of opium was on it.

"Awful--isn't it?" murmured Ajax. "Do you remember those loathsome
dens in Chinatown? And the creatures on the mats, and in the bunks!
And that missionary chap, who said how hard it was to reclaim them.
Poor Babe!"

Then we filled our pipes and smoked them slowly. We had plenty to
think about, for rescuing an opium-fiend is no easy job, and
reclaiming him afterwards is as hard again. But The Babe's blue eyes
and his pink skin--what did they look like now?--were pleading on his
behalf, and we remembered that he had played in his school eleven, and
could run a quarter-mile in fifty-eight seconds, and was always cheery
and good-tempered. The woods of the Colonies and the West are full of
such Babes; and they all like to play with edged tools.

Next day we both went north. Ajax said that two heads were better than
one, and that it was not wise to trust oneself alone in the stews of
San Francisco. The police will not tell you how many white men are
annually lost in those festering alleys that lie north of Kearney
Street, but if you are interested in such matters, I can refer you to
a certain grim-faced guide, who has spent nearly twenty years in
Chinatown, and you can implicitly believe one quarter of what he says:
that quarter will strain your credulity not a little.

We walked to the address given in the letter--a low dive--not a
stone's-throw from one of the biggest hotels west of the Rocky
Mountains. The man behind the bar said that he knew The Babe well,
that he was a perfect gentleman, and a personal friend of his. The
fellow's glassy eyes and his grey-green skin told their own story. A
more villainous or crafty-looking scoundrel it has been my good
fortune not to see.

"Where is your friend?" said Ajax.

The man behind the bar protested ignorance. Then my brother laid a
five-dollar gold piece upon the country, and repeated the question.
The man's yellow fingers began