The Press., 1915-07-28
The Dragon
 Seal Its Mystery and Its
 Solution.
By cLARISSA MAcKIE

 | Mason tilted back in his chair and stared across the China sea, where a passing steamer slid through the oily waters. The little whitewashed hut with it's tiny veranda facing the sea and it's bit of garden looked like a dozen others of its kind which formed the muddy little Chinese village.
 Albert Mason had lived there ever since the late uprising. He had be- come separated from his tourist party and, to his own great amaZement, dis covered himself prisoner on pirat- ical looking craft which fled before the wind at night and lay hidden in ob- scure harbors during the day.
 One day the junk had nosed into the soft mud of the Chekiang shore, ana tie hut.
 Here" said his captor, bland look ing, cold eyed Celestial, "here you {, stay, thief of the world, until you give | up the dragon
 | "Dragon?" echoed Mason, hearing for the first time the charge against him. | "Do you believe that I've Kidnapped I part of your menagerie?" The official shrugged his shoulders. and his companion pulled his sleeve. ! speaking in Chinese, which of course 1 Mason did not understand: "Let the foreign devil stay here awhile enjoying his own company. | Soon he will disgorge." Aho | tiously.
 "He will not" said the villainous looking captain. "He cannot go be- yond the confines of his own garden. The place is guarded night and day" So Mason stood on the veranda of the hut and watched the junk go tee tering away to the dim north whence they had come.
 He never forgot that first evening when, after he had eaten fish and rice and drunk tea, he had stepped on the veranda.
 He walked down the path to the end of the garden and looked at the moon. Why not escape tonight-or must he wait until his guards relaxed their viligance and then make the eff fort?
 Now or never" he muttered and pressed against the gate that opened upon the muddy bank above the rest less waves.
 The gate resisted his efforts-it was as if some great weight held it closed.
 Then came bloodcurdling growl. and there stepped into the moonlit l>&f0 striped form with eyeballs like flame and a breath like pestilence.
 Mason fled to the other gate, and again he met the flaming eyes and the jungle smell.
 Men guarded him by day; a man eat ing tiger and his mate kept watch by night
 Like a madman he flew into the house and locked the doors.
 A year and a day passed, and the captain of the junk came and asked him if he would give up the dragon. And Mason, raving with anger, bitterly refused, although he knew not what the man meant And the captain smil- ed and went away.
 And now two years and two days had passed and the junk had not made her second visit to the prisoner.
 His position was singular one. He was innocent of having broken any law of the country-of having commit ted any crime. In his baggage there was not single thing that he had not brought from home, except few toys, grotesque straw animals, gayly color ed, which he had purchased from an insistent street vender. The very next day he had been trapped with some hand luggage and spirited away from Shanghai
 It's case of mistaken identity" he told himself over and over again as he restlessly tramped the garden paths, envying the freedom of the birds swinging in space and the fishermen off shore.
 Back home there, in New Hamp- shire, his wife and children were mourning him as dead. It was an ago nizing thought
 He went to his worn travelling bags and listlessly turned over the con- tents. Thre was little clothing left That which he wore was in tatters. There were pictures of his family, his case of medicines for an emergency, the straw toys-that was all. His l trunks, If unclaimed, were still in Shanghai.
 The medicines were getting low. He i had been obliged to take most of the | quinine pills during his frequent at tacks of chills and fever. There was a IN. hy.or 6y loft hn <I,of for some great emergency-and two | unopened bottles of chloroform. These were tigfi1k' sealed with wax, and the contents appeared to be inviolate. He | had brought it to use when adding to his collection of lepidoptera, but his cases and his butterfly nets and his pins and other paraphernalia were in | the trunks.
 ChlorofOrm, a willing servant, he | unused, his dark thoughts running on. eliminating himself from his horrid ex- istence.
 And then, like a lightning flash re- vealing unsuspected avenues of escape. came the idea.
 The remainder of the day he was hervously excited. He took the pie lures of his family, the brandy bottle and the quinine, the straw toys and his one clean shirt and made a pack age, which he belted around his chest under his clothing. He cooked and ate an enormous quantity of rice and fish; then he threw himself into his hammock and slept heavily until 10 o'clock.
 He shook himself into wakefulness, slung jug of cold tea from his shoul- der and went into the garden.
 In one hand he carried large bath sponge tied to strong stick. In the other hand he carried bottle of chloroform. At the nearest gate he paused and looked through at the out stretched form of the iunple cat Shn