“You have said quite enough,” laughed Frank. “Had you not said half as much, I should have returned the stick to you. I have no fancy to be harassed and hunted by a lot of Chinese thugs. Here, sir, is the stick.”
The stranger bowed low and expressed his thanks as he received the mysterious little article from Merry’s hand.
“But now,” he said, as he slipped it into his bosom, “it will be well for you to be on your guard, Mr. Merriwell.”
“The stick has been seen in your possession.”
“You will be hunted and dogged by men determined to obtain it from you.”
“Whew! Then I am not getting rid of the hoodoo when I give it up to you?”
“But I shall tell them I have given it up.”
“To whom?” smiled the stranger, in a mysterious way. “You do not know my name. You do not know where to find me. You do not know anything about me. You see——”
“Then why don’t you give your name?” cried Starbright.
“Because I do not wish to—because this trail must be broken here. I do not wish to be hunted by those cursed Chinese cutthroats!”
“Was that the reason why you did not give your name when we first met a short time ago?”
“It was not!” roared Dick. “I know the reason, and I——”
“Stop!” commanded Frank, his eyes flashing. “You are forgetting yourself, Starbright!”
The big Andover man stood glaring at the stranger, who was quite unmoved. Dick’s eyes were gleaming, and he seemed to long to attack the possessor of the mystic stick then and there.
“Your friend is excitable, Mr. Merriwell,” said the unknown. “Why should he care to know my name?”
“Oh, I have a reason!” asserted Starbright.
“And I have a reason for declining to give it—just now. Some time, perhaps, I may choose to make myself known to Frank Merriwell.”
Merry felt convinced that he had seen this man before—that he knew the man. In vain, however, he tried to remember when and where they had met.
“Don’t bother about it,” said the other, as if he surmised that Frank was trying to recall him. “It’s of no consequence, and you may be mistaken.”
“I know I have seen you some time,” he said unswervingly.
A faint smile seemed to hide itself in the stranger’s beard.
“Still I assure you it is of no consequence.”
“But it’s very perplexing. I have a way of remembering faces perfectly.”