word of advice. Do not try to make trouble for me, for if you do, I shall certainly make Port Arthur too hot to hold you.” And with this warning he turned abruptly and hurried back to the fort.

For an instant Gilbert thought to answer back, but then he shut his lips tightly and remained silent. He was satisfied in his mind that Captain Barusky had not told him the truth concerning Ivan Snokoff[Pg 27] and his dealings with that rascal. Yet how to get hold of the captain in a legal way was a question.

[Pg 27]

“I’ll have to go slow,” he thought. “If I don’t the captain will try to prove that I am a spy—and then I may be put in prison or shot. I wish this war scare was over. Then a fellow might get down to real business.”

The next day was a busy one for the young American. He had several bills to collect, and in some instances it was hard to get the money. There was also something wrong about a consignment of goods, and this matter had to be straightened out at the customhouse.

Gilbert had had an account at one of the banks, but now he resolved to close this and stow his cash about his person.

“There is no telling what is going to happen soon,” he thought. “If there is any fighting here, financial matters will be all upset. I’ll keep the money where I can lay my hands on it.”

There was another matter to worry Gilbert fully as much as did the money. He had had consigned to several firms in Manchuria goods to the value of sixteen thousand dollars. These goods were on board the three-masted schooner Columbia, which was now somewhere in Japanese waters, with part of her cargo consigned to firms in Nagasaki. What[Pg 28] would happen to the schooner, if she should attempt to come into Port Arthur during the outbreak of a war, there was no telling.

[Pg 28]

“If she came here from Nagasaki, perhaps the Russians would capture or sink her,” he reasoned. “I wish I could get Captain Ponsberry to remain at Nagasaki until the atmosphere clears just a little.”

Gilbert knew Captain Ponsberry very well—a sailor of the old school, who had plowed the waters of the Pacific and the Far East for many years. The captain had been to Manchuria twice before and knew the surrounding waters very well.

“I must get word to him somehow,” said the young American to 

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