“I think you may try it safely now, all right,” smiled Kennedy coolly.

We climbed out of the window, not an instant too soon from the raging inferno about us.

Having gained the clump of woods, the gaunt figure had paused long enough to gloat over his clever scheme.  Instead, he saw us making good our escape.  With a gesture of intense fury he turned.  There was nothing more for him to do but to zigzag his way to safety across country.

The barn was now burning fiercely and it was almost as light as day about us.  Kennedy paused only long enough to look down at the ground where the fire had been started.

“See, Walter,” he exclaimed pointing to a square indention in the soft soil.  “No white man ever made a footprint like that.”

I bent over.  The prints had the squareness of those paper-layered soles of a Chinaman.

“Long Sin,” came the name involuntarily to my lips, for I knew that Wu would delegate just such a job to his faithful slave.

Kennedy did not pause an instant longer, but in the light of the burning barn, as best he could, started to follow the trail in a desperate endeavor either to overtake Long Sin, or at least to find the final direction in which he would go.

. . . . . . .

At the entrance of the passageway which led to the little underground chamber in which we had sought the treasure hidden by the Clutching Hand, Wu Fang was seated on a rock waiting impatiently, though now and then indulging in a sinister smile at the subtle trick by which he had recovered the ring.

The sound of approaching footsteps disturbed him.  He was far too clever to leave anything to chance and, like a serpent, he wriggled behind another rock and waited.  It was only a glance, however, that he needed to allay his suspicions.  It was Long Sin, breathless.

Wu stepped out beside him so quietly that even the acute Long Sin did not hear.  “Well?” he said in a guttural tone.

Long Sin drew back in fear.  “I have failed, oh master,” he replied in an imploring tone.  “Even now they follow my tracks.”

It was bad enough to confess defeat without the fear of capture.

Wu frowned.  “We must work quickly, then,” he muttered.

He picked up a dark lantern near-by, indicating another to Long Sin.  They entered the cave, flashing the lights ahead of them.

“Be careful,” ordered Wu, proceeding gingerly from one stepping-stone to another.  “We shall be followed no further than this.”

He paused a moment and pointed his finger at the earth.  Everywhere, except here and there where a stone projected, was a sticky, slimy substance.  It was an old trick of primitive races.

“Bird lime,” hissed Wu, pointing at the viscid substance made of the juice of the holly bark, extracted by boiling, and mixed with a third part of nut oil and grease.