manded
McGlade.

"If Connie Binhart 's down there I 've got to go and get him," was
Never-Fail Blake's answer.

* * * * * *

The following morning Blake, having made sure of his ground, began one
of his old-time "investigations" of that unsuspecting worthy known as
Pip Tankred.

This investigation involved a hurried journey back to Colon, the
expenditure of much money in cable tolls, the examination of records
that were both official and unofficial, the asking of many questions
and the turning up of dimly remembered things on which the dust of time
had long since settled.

It was followed by a return to Panama, a secret trip several miles up
the coast to look over a freighter placidly anchored there, a
dolorous-appearing coast-tramp with unpainted upperworks and a rusty
red hull. The side-plates of this red hull, Blake observed, were as
pitted and scarred as the face of an Egyptian obelisk. Her ventilators
were askew and her funnel was scrofulous and many of her rivet-heads
seemed to be eaten away. But this was not once a source of
apprehension to the studious-eyed detective.

The following evening he encountered Tankred himself, as though by
accident, on the veranda of the Hotel Angelini. The latter, at Blake's
invitation, sat down for a cocktail and a quiet smoke.

They sat in silence for some time, watching the rain that deluged the
city, the warm devitalizing rain that unedged even the fieriest of
Signer Angelini's stimulants.

"Pip," Blake very quietly announced, "you 're going to sail for
Guayaquil to-morrow!"

"Am I?" queried the unmoved Pip.

"You 're going to start for Guayaquil tomorrow," repeated Blake, "and
you 're going to take me along with you!"

"My friend," retorted Pip, emitting a curling geyser of smoke as long
and thin as a pool-que, "you 're sure laborin' under the
misapprehension this steamer o' mine is a Pacific mailer! But she
ain't, Blake!"

"I admit that," quietly acknowledged the other man. "I saw her
yesterday!"

"And she don't carry no passengers--she ain't allowed to," announced
her master.

"But she 's going to carry me," asserted Blake, lighting a fresh cigar.

"What as?" demanded Tankred. And he fixed Blake with a belligerent eye
as he put the question.

"As an old friend of yours!"

"And then what?" still challenged the other.

"As a man who knows your record, in the next place. And on the next
count, as the man who 's wi