“Nonsense,” joked Fabian. “Why, Tie Co, think how nice it would be to have a little woman cook your rice and to love you.”

“I not have wife,” repeated Tie Co seriously. “I not like woman, I like man.”

“You confirmed old bachelor!” exclaimed Fabian.

“I like you,” said Tie Co, his boyish voice sounding clear and sweet in the wet woods. “I like you so much that I want go to New York, so you make fifty dollars. I no flend in New York.”

“What!” exclaimed Fabian.

“Oh, I solly I tell you, Tie Co velly solly,” and the Chinese boy shuffled on with bowed head.

“Look here, Tie Co,” said Fabian; “I won’t have you do this for my sake. You have been very foolish, and I don’t care for your fifty dollars. I do not need it half as much as you do. Good God! how ashamed you make me feel—I who have blown in my thousands in idle pleasures cannot take the little you have slaved for. We are in New York State now. When we get out of this wood we will have to walk over a bridge which crosses a river. On the other side, not far from where we cross, there is a railway station. Instead of buying you a ticket for the city of New York I shall take train with you for Toronto.”

Tie Co did not answer—he seemed to be thinking deeply. Suddenly he pointed to where some fallen trees lay.

“Two men run away behind there,” cried he.

Fabian looked round them anxiously; his keen eyes seemed to pierce the gloom in his endeavor to catch a glimpse of any person; but no man was visible, and, save the dismal sighing of the wind among the trees, all was quiet.

“There’s no one,” he said somewhat gruffly—he was rather startled, for they were a mile over the border and he knew that the Government officers were on a sharp lookout for him, and felt, despite his strength, if any trick or surprise were attempted it would go hard with him.

“If they catch you with me it be too bad,” sententiously remarked Tie Co. It seemed as if his words were in answer to Fabian’s thoughts.

“But they will not catch us; so cheer up your heart, my boy,” replied the latter, more heartily than he felt.

“If they come, and I not with you, they not take you and it be all lite.”

“Yes,” assented Fabian, wondering what his companion was thinking about.

They emerged from the woods in the dusk of the evening and were soon on the bridge crossing the river. When they were near the centre Tie Co stopped and looked into Fabian’s face.

“Man come for you, I not here, man no hurt you.” And with the words he whirled like a flash over the rail.

In another flash Fabian was after him. But though a first-class swimmer, the white man’s efforts were of no avail, and Tie Co was borne away from him by the swift current.