the envelope in his sleeve--"to next Chinaman. HE no go. S'pose you go
with me, Hop Li--you no makee nothing--allee same, makee foolee!"
"I know; but you just take me there. DO!"
The young girl was irresistible. Ah Fe's face relaxed. "Allee litee!" he
said, with a resigned smile.
"You wait here a moment," said Cissy, brightening. She flew up the
staircase. In a few minutes she was back again. She had exchanged her
smart rose-sprigged chintz for a pathetic little blue-checked frock of
her school-days; the fateful hat had given way to a brown straw "flat,"
bent like a frame around her charming face. All the girlishness, and
indeed a certain honest boyishness of her nature, seemed to have come
out in her glowing, freckled cheek, brilliant, audacious eyes, and the
quick stride which brought her to Ah Fe's side.
"Now let's go," she said, "out the back way and down the side streets."
She paused, cast a glance through the drawing-room at the contemplative
figure of the sheriff's deputy on the veranda, and then passed out of
the house forever.
*****
The excitement over the failure of Montagu Trixit's bank did not burn
itself out until midnight. By that time, however, it was pretty well
known that the amount of the defalcations had been exaggerated; that
it had been preceded by the suspension of the "Excelsior Bank" of San
Francisco, of which Trixit was also a managing director, occasioned by
the discovery of the withdrawal of securities for use in the branch bank
at Canada City; that he had fled the State eastward across the Sierras;
yet that, owing to the vigilance of the police on the frontier, he had
failed to escape and was in hiding. But there were adverse reports of a
more sinister nature. It was said that others were implicated; that they
dared not bring him to justice; it was pointed out that there was more
concern among many who were not openly connected with the bank than
among its unfortunate depositors. Besides the inevitable downfall of
those who had invested their fortunes in it, there was distrust or
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