with graders and car-men and track-layers in
Chinese saloons along Bottle Alley. Sometimes it was with a
bridge-builder or a lottery capper in the barroom of the Hotel Central,
where he would sit without coat or vest, calmly giving an eye to his
game of "draw" or stolidly "rolling the bones" as he talked--but always
with his ears open for one particular thing, and that thing had to do
with the movements or the whereabouts of Connie Binhart.

One night, as he sat placidly playing his game of "cut-throat" in his
shirt-sleeves, he looked up and saw a russet-faced figure as stolid as
his own. This figure, he perceived, was discreetly studying him as he
sat under the glare of the light. Blake went on with his game. In a
quarter of an hour, however, he got up from the table and bought a
fresh supply of "green" Havana cigars. Then he sauntered out to where
the russet-faced stranger stood watching the street crowds.

"Pip, what 're you doing down in these parts?" he casually inquired.
He had recognized the man as Pip Tankred, with whom he had come in
contact five long years before. Pip, on that occasion, was engaged in
loading an East River banana-boat with an odd ton or two of cartridges
designed for Castro's opponents in Venezuela.

"Oh, I 'm freightin' bridge equipment down the West Coast," he solemnly
announced. "And transshippin' a few cases o' phonograph-records as a
side-line!"

"Have a smoke?" asked Blake.

"Sure," responded the russet-faced bucaneer. And as they stood smoking
together Blake tenderly and cautiously put out the usual feelers,
plying the familiar questions and meeting with the too-familiar lack of
response. Like all the rest of them, he soon saw, Pip Tankred knew
nothing of Binhart or his whereabouts. And with that discovery his
interest in Pip Tankred ceased.

So the next day Blake moved inland, working his interrogative way along
the Big Ditch to Panama. He even slipped back over the line to San
Cristobel and Ancon, found nothing of moment awaiting him there, and
drifted back into Panamanian territory. It was not until the end of
the week that the first glimmer of hope came to him.

It came in the form of an incredibly thin gringo in an incredibly
soiled suit of duck. Blake had been sitting on the wide veranda of the
Hotel Angelini, sipping his "swizzle" and studiously watching the
Saturday evening crowds that passed back and forth through Panama's
bustling railway station. He had