“Kethem Digger Dan cloe,” blazed Sing.

“That’s a likely tale,” said the sheriff, “betcha he knows more about stage robbin’ than he’ll let out.”

“I am sure he does not about this one.  He was with me every moment.”  Nevertheless, she could not help remembering the substitute Chinaman whom Sing had put in to do his washing.  But, though the complex Oriental nature will never be quite understood by the Occidental, she had confidence in the loyalty of the Chinaman, who had served them for five years, and whose life had once been saved by her father.

“Ah Sing, will you tell me what happened,” she asked, knowing well that a command would only elicit a stolid “No savvey.”  Put as a favor, or a confidence, he might respond.

“Him Digger Dan, no good!  He stealem me clo’e.  Ketchem.  Missa Land (Rand) an’ plenty man come, he lun (run).  I ketchem him!  Tlee (three) lobber (robber) come.  To-o muchee men.  I no can fight!  He — "

“They tied him on a horse and drove it down the canyon for us to follow, while they got away.”

“I tell you, he knows more about it than he’s telling!”

“I don’t think so, sheriff,” said Rand, positively.  The man turned to him, suspiciously.

“Me go home, all same Missie Joe?” Hop Sing raised an expressionless face and glared at the broad belt of the sheriff.

“Well, you can go, but I’m going to keep an eye on you and see that your apron’s hanging in the Halstead’s kitchen every day of your heathen life.”

Later that night when Rand started home, strange incantations were going on in Sing’s lean-to.  In four china bowls punk was burning, and an old Chinaman was muttering weird invocations over the clothes of Digger Dan slowly smouldering in a coal-oil can in the middle of the floor.  Hop Sing held one hand in the smoke, raised the other aloft and made a blood-curdling oath of some sort which, by the expression of his face, probably consigned the owner forever more to the nethermost depths ’of Tophet.

“Why, where is Ali Sing?” asked Jo the next morning, when she found the tall slave still in the kitchen.

“He got heap sick cousin.  He go way.  I stay.  He come back bime-by.”  Jo knew that it was useless to question further.

The summer drifted by and still Sing did not return.  Rand walked in one day with the first flurry of snow, from his claim in the south.  He caught both of Jo’s hands in his without a word, kissed them tenderly and let them go.

“Rand,” she faltered, “it is so long since I’ve heard from you.  You have been acting so strangely-for months!”

“Jo, have you not heard the talk that has been whispered with my name ever since Sing disappeared?  They say that I know too much about the holdups; that I helped the Chinaman to escape; that Digger Dan and Hop Sing are one; that — "

“I would not listen to such falsehoods,” cried the girl, her grey eyes flashing.