ation to Fortune. "What fools those brewery
fellows are," chuckled Braun. "They imagined that I was only dodging
a few unwelcome legal papers."

"By Heavens! I have turned over a gold mine to them, and they won't
kick. If it had not been for my damned gambling craze I would have
had a cool hundred thousand more.

"And they will surely keep the secret of 192 Layte Street, for they
wish to run their own 'joint' there. All they want is silence, to
change it a little, and no police interference. They are bound to
play my game to save themselves from police interference."

The villain laughed aloud in his glee. "And Emil and Lilienthal,
even Timmins, know nothing. It has been a great stroke of nigger
luck. This fortune is safe. Now for the last touch."

He groped his way aft to where the cheap heavy-looking package lay
with one side balanced upon the rail. It was a huge coarse packing
trunk. The crew were busied in watching the light of the South
Ferry and avoiding the floats and tugs groaning along in front of
Governor's Island.

There was no one aft as the muscular scoundrel seized a handspike
and tilted the rough-looking packing trunk overboard. It sank
instantly, though Braun started as he fancied he heard a crash.
"If the propeller struck it, no matter," he growled. "There's a
hundred pounds of broken stairway irons lashed on him. And I will
soon be thousands of miles away."

He shook the rain off like a burly water dog as he glanced in at
the cabin window of the tug. There was Irma Gluyas, lying sleeping
peacefully, with her head upon Leah Einstein's lap.

"Safe enough," he muttered, as he sheltered himself under the
overhanging deck roof.

But as the murderer's eye fell on the black valise, he smiled with
an infernal glee. "There it is landed--this prize--after months!

"And they will think that the fool cleared out with it. Thank God!
Steward Heinrichs is on the 'Mesopotamia.' He will look out for
us; but if he knew what was in that valise I'd have to fight for
my life."

The tug now swung around into the North River, and the driving
spray forced the absconding scoundrel into the Captain's little
stateroom. "How long now?" shouted Braun, in the whistling tempest.
"I'll have you alongside the 'Mesopotamia' in twenty minutes,"
answered the skipper. "The 'Falcon' is the fastest tug on the
Brooklyn front."

He pushed out a black bottle, which Braun, in his character of
"jovial tourist," liberally sample