Roy Norton

“ Lead me to the trough.’ And then he plants me next to his brand, and tells me where burro-loads of coin could be made over in China handling opium. That tickled me like the sight of the black ball does a rancher betting on a shell game, because I could talk pretty fair Chinese myself. ”

“ If ever a feller saw a gang of pirates loose, that floating junk shop had ’em. Old Admiral Kidd never drew such a full hand. They all looked suspicious-like at me from the first. I couldn’t figure it out unless ’twas they saw my bag was dead heavy, and I was some plastered with rice in my crevices. ”

“ Then good old Wong would have his Chinks lined up, they would scuttle over the bridge in a hurry, grab off a load of the stuff and disappear into the city. Next day we would meet, cut up the coin and no one the wiser. Wasn’t very big profits, but sales were quick.
“Oh, yes—I could see my way to returning home and being elected constable, or something of that sort, but I wanted to get enough to own a newspaper and go to congress. Took me about two months to stow away sixteen thousand in my room.
“Funny how a feller never gets satisfied. ”

“ I’m a mild man at my worst, and ‘meek of spirit,’ as Mother used to preach, but I sure didn’t feel much sad when I heard the mate complaining next day that it was a tough job to work ship short-handed. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 81 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”