The Spoilers of the Valley Part 70

"Whoever they are, keep them till I come."

"Sure!"

And off Phil went at a run.

When he was about a quarter of a mile from the house, he saw Ah Sing amble round from the far side of the house and go in at the front door. This had hardly taken place, when he heard the scream of a woman in fear. A flying figure darted out and down the trail, up which Phil was now hurrying from the beach. He failed at first to make out who the figure was. It was followed closely by the Chinaman, crying out his incoherent Chinese jibberish and broken English, and, despite his years and apparent shuffling gait, he was bear-like in his agility and gained at every step on the woman he was pursuing. She turned her head in fear, and seeing how close to her he was she screamed again, then collapsed in a heap.

Ah Sing stooped over her, looking down, still muttering and shaking his fists angrily, but evidently in a quandary. He did not notice the oncomer until he was almost by his side. Phil tossed his gun from him, caught the Chinaman by the neck with his two hands, lifted him off his feet and nearly shook his greasy head off in the process. He then got him by the collar in one hand and the loose pants in the other, raised him sheer over his head and hurled him ten feet away, against the foot of an apple tree where he crashed and lay in stupid semi-consciousness.

Of all the unexpected persons to Phil, the young lady who lay on the ground was Eileen Pederstone. He raised her gently in his arms and carried her up the pathway through the orchard and back into the house. He set her on a camp cot and fetched her a gla.s.s of water. And it was not long before she sat up. But the dread of something was still upon her. She was pale and she trembled spasmodically.

She clung to Phil's arm, keeping close to him as they sat on the edge of the cot, as if afraid that his presence were not quite the substantial reality it seemed.

He tried his best to soothe her and to get her to explain what had happened, but she did not answer him. He patted her back, he put his arm about her. He pushed her hair up from her eyes. But she sat and trembled, and would not be comforted.

She had a large towel pinned about her waist, and from the broom which lay on the floor near the door it looked to Phil as if she had been sweeping out the place when the Chinaman had entered.

"But you must tell me what happened!" said Phil. "Did you say or do anything to Sing to make him angry?"

"Oh, I don't know! I have no idea!" returned Eileen at last brokenly.

"He--he--when I came--there was no one here.--I started in to sweep up.--I was sweeping at the door when he came in suddenly--he frightened me.--I must have swept some of the dust over him, for he ran right into the broom.--He swore at me and started to jibber.--He caught me by the arm.--He swore again.--I--I struggled free and ran out--and--and he followed me--shouting he would--he would kill me."

Phil's brows wrinkled in perplexity, for he could not make the thing out at all.

Ah Sing he knew for a peculiar individual and a wily one, with considerable standing among the other Orientals in the neighbourhood, but he had always heard of him as being meek and docile enough with those for whom he worked and, like most Chinamen, had a wholesome respect for the power of the white man's law. That he should suddenly break out in this outrageous way, for no apparent cause, was beyond Phil's comprehension.

Quietly and without speaking further, Phil and Eileen sat together, then tears of relief came to Eileen. Her shuddering ceased. She gazed up at Phil timidly and, as she gazed, she must have noticed the anxiety and yearning in his eyes for she laid her head on his breast and wept quietly. Phil did not try to stop her tears. He sat there, smoothing her glossy brown hair with his big hand and talking soothingly to her the while.

At last her sobbing spent itself and she slowly raised her head and wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. Phil caught her face in both his hands and gazed searchingly into it for a while. Helplessly, Eileen braved his look and, when a faint trembling smile played about the corners of her mouth, Phil drew her face close to his and his lips touched hers.

Eileen blushed, and jumped up suddenly with a cry of alarm. She rushed over to the stove and lifted up the lid of a pot, the contents of which were bubbling over.

"Come on, boy!" she cried with a strange tone of possession in her voice which set Phil's heart jumping, "help me get dinner out. Big, lanky, fail-me-never Jim will be here pretty soon."

They had hardly put the finishing touches to the table, when Langford ran in. He seemed to have sensed something wrong before he got inside, for his face wore an anxious look.

"Merry Christmas, Eileen! Awfully glad you came out to see us.

Hullo!--what has been wrong? I saw you, and Phil, and Sing in a mix-up and I hurried along. What was the trouble, Phil? Has Sing been playing any monkey-doodle business?"

"It was nothing at all! Hurry and get a wash up, Jim! Dinner's ready,"

smiled Eileen. "We'll tell you all you want to know when we are having something to eat."

They sat down to a pleasant little meal, but, somehow, the earlier proceedings had cast a damper over the usual gaiety of the trio and their conversation for once was desultory and of a serious nature.

Phil explained as best he could what had taken place between Eileen and Sing. Eileen could throw no further light on Phil's story. But Jim did not seem to require any, for a look of perfect understanding showed in his big, gaunt, honest face.

"Do you know, Eileen,--you could not have heaped a worse insult on Sing than you did," he remarked.

"But I didn't say a word, Jim!"

"No!--but you demonstrated on him with that broom."

"And what of that? Anybody is liable to get a little dust swept over him by a busy housewife."

Jim rose. "Wait a bit!" he remarked. He went to the door and whistled a loud note that Ah Sing was familiar with.

Shortly afterwards, the Chinaman, very much bruised up--his eye swollen, and limping--came in. An expression of the deepest humility and cringe was on his battered countenance.

"I heap solly! I velly solly! I no mean hurt lady. I no do him any more. You no tell policeman Chief! You no tell him, Bossee Man Jim, Bossee Man Phil, Lady Missee Pedelston. Ah Sing he velly solly. Heap much plenty velly solly!" He grovelled and cringed.

"What you do that for anyway? you slit-eyed son of Confucius!"

"You know, Bossee Jim;--you know all about Chinaman. Lady, she sweepee bloom all over Sing. Bloom he sweepee up dirt. She pointem bloom; she touch Ah Sing with bloom. Allee same call Ah Sing dirty pig,--see! Me no dirty--me no dirty pig.

"Anytime pointem bloom, somebody b'long me die. One time, white man hit me bloom,--my lil boy he die same day away China. Pointem bloom Chinaman, somebody b'long him die evely time.

"Now maybe my wifee she die--maybe my blother, maybe my mama. I no savvy yet! Ah Sing get heap mad,--see!

"You no pointem bloom Chinaman any more, Missee Eileen. Makem heap angly. He get mad all up in him inside."

"Well, folks!--do you get it?" asked Jim.

Phil nodded.

"Yes!--evidently another of their Chinese superst.i.tions," returned Eileen.

"Just so!" said Jim. "Sing,--all right! You beat it,--quick!"

The Chinaman went like a shot.

"And that is the kind of material--just as it stands, sometimes not half so civilised--that we allow into our country to over-run it by the thousands, allowing it to rub shoulders with us, to come into speaking distance with our women folks; their children--out of homes and hovels fathered by beings like that--sitting side by side with our own dear little mites at school."

"Yes! but, after all, who brings them here?" commented the practical Jim.

"Who?"

"The farmers and the ranchers who are too mean to pay high enough for decent white labour; and the ordinary white labour itself who refuse to condescend to the more menial work on the farm. They have been the means of their coming here and--and now they are kicking themselves for their short-sighted stupidity, for John Chinaman is beating them to a frazzle at their own game and he is crowding us out of house and shelter like the proverbial camel did.

"John always was a better truck farmer anyway. He can make a fortune off a piece of land that a white man would starve on. He will outbid the white man every time in the matter of price when renting land for farming purposes and the land-owner doesn't give a darn then whether he rents to white or yellow--so long as he gets the highest bidder's money. The c.h.i.n.k spends hardly anything on clothes, he lives in a hovel; eats rice, works seven days in the week, pays no taxes except a paltry Road Tax of something like four dollars a year--and generally manages to evade even that;--doesn't contribute to Church, Charity or Social welfare, and sends every gold coin he can exchange for dollar bills over to Hongkong where it is worth several times its value here. And--when all is said and done--he is still the best of three cla.s.ses of Orientals our Province is being flooded with. There is the j.a.p, with his quiet, monkey-like imitation of white folks' ways, yet all the time hanging on to his j.a.panese schools right in the midst of us; and the Hindoo who, as a cla.s.s, prefers to herd like cattle in a barn and never will a.s.similate anything of this country but its roguery."

"Well, it oughtn't to be too late to work a remedy," put in Eileen.

"It may not be too late--it is not too late--but it seems to be much too big a proposition for any of our own politicians to tackle single-handed; while our politicians in the East and Over-seas haven't the faintest notion of the menace. You have to live among it and see just what we have seen to-day to get a glimpse of it.

"Why, even your own dad, Eileen, would be afraid to burn his political fingers with it,--and he understands it too."

"Oh, yes,--I know! He is in the party, like they all get. He has to do as they do. If he doesn't, he is either hounded out or has to play a lone hand and become 'a voice crying in the wilderness.'"

"Good for you, la.s.sie!" laughed Jim.