The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-04

that important secrets had more than
 once been given away and that if not located and dealt with the traitor would
 soon accomplish the ruin of the society.
 All this came to a head one night,
 when the most important meeting of the year was held. For more than an hour
 the rooms of the secret society had been filled with an ominousy quiet crowd of Chnamen, who were waiting in perfect
 stiffness the return of one of the officials
 who had gone to fetch their erstwhile
 head, Sing Low. For the first time in i twenty-ope years he had failed to ap-
 pear at the meeting of the society, and
 and, more than that, all the private
 records and documents of the "Sons of
 the Silver Land'' had been stolen. No wonder there was perfect stiffness in the
 secret rooms, and that over in the corner
 one Chinaman waited, holding a huge
 razor edged sword. These things are dealt with quickly among these Chinese
 guilds
 They brought him in presently, the cousin and another society member car
 rying him, for the honorable head was
 too much overcome with the mixture of
 opium and bad congnac to walk of his
 own accord. Nile was dropped Imply
 into the corner where the Chinaman and
 his sword waited, and to indignantly
 quiet set of members the cousin showed | the precious papers and records that
 he had just taken from Sing Lows silk en vest. The man had been found dead drunk in low cantina in the Mexican | part of the town, while the society pa | pers and records-had access to only | two men, the cousin and Sing Low him | self-were dropping unheeded to the cantina floor, to be seen there of all who might care to read. And but for the cousin, who had found them in time, the
 papers would have been distributed far
 and wide before the setting of to-mor- rows sum- and the society, Sons of the
 Silver Land" with all it's important se-
 crets would have ruined and many of it's members implicated in all sorts of crimes and given up to prison cells or perhaps the gallows. The sin of Sing Low had been a tremendous one, for which no atonement could be made, and there was but one thing to do, as far as his punishment was concerned.
 The meeting lasted a long time, and finally Sing Low was released from the ildUuS Ol HIS lOl lultISi Icl iiioiC uNAo than alive His drunken stupor had lasted but a short time under their hands, and, in afrenzy of terror, he awaited what he knew was still to come. The room was still now, and you could have heard pin drop as the wretched man was placed on his knees just in front of the masked Chinaman, who held in both hands the great, sharp sword. Another man, the cousin of Sing Low, knelt quietly in front of him and drew his barred head and neck down and forward so as to meet the uplifted sword. Then there was deathly quiet as the huge blade aecended. It made circle and a whistling sweep in the air before it descended slowly, and touched the neck of the condemned. There it stopped No blood came, and there was no cry or moan from Sing Low, for the | reason that the blade had just touched his flesh, and no more. Then the cousin l stood up, facing the judge, and the | executioner did likewise holding the | sword erect, as he announced, solemn ly
 Honorable Judge, this man is deadn'
 Five minutes later the Chinamen were all hurrying from the hall. Sing Low had been dragged, still on his knees, | from theroom, and flung into the mar row, weed choked street outside. He ! had endeavored to beg mercy, but his | lips were stiff and dumb. Then he had [ clung to the judges knees, jabbering | hysterically only to be cast aside like | a truly dead thing, for Chinaman lost ! to caste and his secret society is worse l than dead. He had moaned and begged | at the feet of his cousin, but he, too | had passed relentlessly on, paying no 1 attention to dead mans speech. And | so, at last, they had all gone-among | the crowd Sing Lows own clerks and the dead crouched, alone and deserted of all, in the darkness of night.
 In the early dawn Sing Low stumbled drunkenly homeward--not to the house in which he lived with his Mexican wife, but to Chinatown, for at the last, in joy, sorrow. death or dis grace, the heart of seven an Oriental turns to his own people, such as they may be. And Sing Low had no thought for Felipia, much as he had loved her, or even for his restaurant, with it's American sign that had brought him