For another half-hour the two worked on at their separate tables. The girl never once raised her eyes from her task, but sat with one hand following down the list of names and figures, while with the other she entered them in their{81} due places in the ledger. But her employer more than once looked up at her, and noted, as he had noted before, the decision and quickness of her hands, and, as he had not noted before, the distinction of her profile. She was remarkably like her handsome brother; she was also like the picture of one of the Rhine-maidens in an illustrated edition of the Rheinegold. But he gave less thought to that than to the fact that he had evidently secured an efficient secretary.
ONE:He flashed back a glare of rebuke and then bellowed to heaven and earth, "Oh, the devil and Tom Walker! I don't keep run of sutlers and citizens!" He took a circuit, standing in his stirrups and calling orders to his teamsters, and as he neared me again he said very gently, "Good Lord! my boy, don't you know better than to shoot your mouth off like that? You'll find nobody with the Major but Ned Ferry, and I don't say you'll find him."
ONE:But I was wrong this time, he said. I gave you a lot of trouble in consequence.The log burst the door in at a blow, Ferry and I fired, and our foes sprang in. Certainly they were brave; the doorway let them in only by twos, and the fire-log, falling under foot, became a stumbling-block; yet in an instant the room was ringing and roaring with the fray and benighted with its smoke. Their first ball bit the top of my shoulder and buried itself in the wall--no, not their first, but the first save one; for the bureau mirror stood in dim shade, and the Federal leader made the easy mistake of firing right into it. The error sealed his fate; Ferry fired under his flash and sent him reeling into the arms of his followers. They replied hotly but blindly, and in a moment the room was void of assailants. Ferry started to spring from the bed, but Charlotte threw her arms about him, and as she pressed her head hard down on his breast I could not help but hear "No, my treasure, my heart's whole treasure, no!"
THREE:Before the steamer stopped she was surrounded by dozens of the smaller boats, and, as soon as they could do so, many of the boatwomen came on board. The captain recommended one of them who was known as "American Susan," and the trio were confided to her care for transfer to the hotel on Ho-nan Island. Susan and her attendant women shouldered the valises which the travellers had brought from Hong-kong, and led the way to her boat. The gallantry of the boys received a shock when they saw their baggage carried by women, while their own hands were empty; but the Doctor told them it was the custom of the country, and by carrying their own valises they would deprive the women of an opportunity of earning a few pennies. To this view of the matter they yielded; and before they had recovered their composure the boat was gliding across the river, propelled by the powerful arms of her feminine crew. Susan proposed to be in their employ during their stay at Canton, and a bargain was speedily concluded; for fifty cents at day, the boat was to be at their disposal from morning till night to carry them over the river, or to any point they wished to visit along its banks. Frank thought they would be obliged to look a long time to find a boat with two men at the oars for a similar price in New York, and Fred thought they would have to look still longer to find one rowed by two women.
