The Red Dragon by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

TRACKS in sand are impermanent things. The small wind covers them inches deep. Sometimes an experienced woodsman can trail through underbrush merely by watching for broken twigs and reeds, but here in this barren waste there were no shrubs. Only hard rock and shifting, dry dirt.

For the past week Michael Stuart, the Red Dragon, had depended utterly upon the unreliable memories of the Chinese immigrants who were busy trying to farm this unfarmable country.

Yes, they saw many bodies of Japanese troops. Yes, some of them were going north. No, there hadn’t been any white people in the party. Oh, yes, there had been two or three supply carts in some of the detachments and these, of course, might carry white people. One never knew just what the Japanese did, begging the Japanese officer’s pardon.

Occasionally the black eyes of the Chinese widened with surprise. But few Japanese officers could even attempt to speak the south-of-the-Wall dialects. However, they knew nothing of Japanese affairs. Since the short ones with bristly hair had come to this part of the north, the immigrants had only hoped that they would find the taxes fair and the troops not too demanding. Of course, the bandits were much worse of late. The armies, you see, had disbanded, and the Chinese soldiers had taken up the only trade they knew, even though that trade was suddenly illegal.

No, they couldn’t remember having seen a white girl.

Michael Stuart rode on, pushing ever north. At first he had searched along the Wall, but he knew that Blakely wouldn’t stay there when the Red Dragon was still on the loose. Blakely would now be in possession of the golden locket. If Betty Sheldon lived up to her standards of past resourcefulness, then she would have given Blakely the locket and would even be aiding him in the search for the Black Chest, whatever it contained.

She might have been told that the Red Dragon was dead, and in that case she would act differently. Stuart reasoned that she had been told that, and that she would probably refuse to believe it until the body was located and shown to her.

A little yellow dirt had colored Stuart’s face well enough and a little adhesive tape from the first-aid kit in his hip pocket had served to give his eyes the proper slant. The color of his eyes was his only concern, and he wore his Japanese cap low and always sat with his back to the sun or light when talking to people.

The cavalry horse had been equipped with a compass and map of the entire Japanese conquest, and by comparing these with the faint smudge map Betty had left him, Stuart hoped that he was making fair progress in the direction of the cache.

He was puzzled about one thing in particular. He had not asked Betty for a complete description of the ground. Would the Black Chest lay in a forgotten city? The marks on the chart seemed to indicate that. Perhaps

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