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him to his feet. Although Kurt was tall, Captain Yang loomed over him like a mountain which has a summer house at its summit.
    Captain Yang said, “I think we will have a very enjoyable trip, bucko mate.”

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Danger in Kalgan
     
    I T was a very different looking Kurt Reid who arrived one night on the Peking-Suiyuan Railway in Kalgan. He stepped from the train in the company of a gigantic merchant who had six servants unload their baggage.
    Kurt Reid was dressed in a well-tailored dark suit and wore a pearl gray hat. He was clean shaved again and looked as much unlike the bucko mate as had the prisoner of Lin Wang. His clear black eyes searched through the crowd as do those of men about to hang, and he found no friendship or promise of rescue. Yang Ch’ieu nudged him, as a signal to move along.
    They picked their way through littered streets toward a small hotel. Japanese soldiers were in evidence everywhere, dressed in mustard-colored uniforms, officers marked by red cap bands. Guards with fixed bayonets stood before many entrances. Japan was about to take over North China, and Kalgan, near the Great Wall, was the jumping off place.
    Kurt Reid felt very tired and down in the mouth. He had been unable to locate Anne Carsten in Shanghai, although he had tried his best to find her at the risk of his own liberty. And he had approached the puzzle of Lin Wang’s move no further.
    On the surface, it would appear that Lin Wang was fighting to retain North China, and to do so, Lin Wang considered it vital that this Takeki person, supposed to be a Japanese spy, be killed. But the closer Kurt Reid came to it, the more convinced he was that killing a Japanese spy in the Japanese lines was an impossibility.
    But with that confession of Bonner’s as a lure and with Yang here beside him, Kurt knew he would try.
    As they rounded a corner and pressed their way through a camel caravan which had stopped in the street, Kurt drew a sudden breath of surprise, causing Yang to look down at him quickly.
    Kurt walked on calmly enough although he was certain that he had seen a familiar face in the crowd. Maybe all White Russians looked alike, and maybe there was more than one fur hat and coat like that in China, but something more than sight had given him his information.
    Varinka Savischna was here! He had seen her entering a shop.
    That bothered him more than a little, and heartened him a great deal. On one hand he hated to see Varinka in a Japanese town, but on the other, her presence might be an omen of good luck. If he could see her, maybe he would be able to find out where this Takeki might be found.
    With springier stride he followed Yang into the hotel and registered. The six servants, hiding their warlike faces under their hats, made their way back to the lesser ground floor quarters.
    Kurt’s room was a small affair, boasting only a bed and a chair and a picture of the Mikado, put up by the hotel keeper, doubtless, to show Japan that he had their cause at heart.
    Yang had gone to his own room, and for a moment Kurt fondled the idea of getting out and away. But when he looked down into the street he saw one of the six slowly puffing a cigarette at the hotel entrance. The man was armed, and even though a street fight might give away their identity, these guards knew what to expect from Lin Wang as the price of failure.
    A man in a blue gown thrust his head into the doorway and said, “Everything all right, sir?”
    “Yes,” said Kurt. “Quite all right.”
    But the small yellow-faced man did not go away. He entered and patted the bedspread smooth and adjusted the pillow. “Anything I might tell the gentleman?” he said.
    “No,” replied Kurt.
    “Pardoning your honor, but this one is a good guide. He knows all things.”
    Kurt studied the man for a moment and then said, “You can tell me something, if you promise to forget the question immediately. Where can I find this one known as Takeki ?”
    The other shook