a town you 're not likely to crawl out of again inside o'
three months?"

"I know all that!" acknowledged Blake.

For the second time Tankred turned and studied the other man.

"And you're still goin' after your gen'leman friend from up North?" he
inquired.

"Pip, I 've got to get that man!"

"You've got 'o?"

"I 've got to, and I 'm going to!"

Tankred threw his cigar-end away and laughed leisurely and quietly.

"Then what're we sittin' here arguin' about, anyway? If it's settled,
it's settled, ain't it?"

"Yes, I think it's settled!"

Again Tankred laughed.

"But take it from me, my friend, you'll sure see some rough goin' this
next few days!"

XII

As Tankred had intimated, Blake's journey southward from Panama was
anything but comfortable traveling. The vessel was verminous, the food
was bad, and the heat was oppressive. It was a heat that took the life
out of the saturated body, a thick and burdening heat that hung like a
heavy gray blanket on a gray sea which no rainfall seemed able to cool.

But Blake uttered no complaint. By day he smoked under a sodden
awning, rained on by funnel cinders. By night he stood at the rail.
He stood there, by the hour together, watching with wistful and haggard
eyes the Alpha of Argo and the slowly rising Southern Cross. Whatever
his thoughts, as he watched those lonely Southern skies, he kept them
to himself.

It was the night after they had swung about and were steaming up the
Gulf of Guayaquil under a clear sky that Tankred stepped down to
Blake's sultry little cabin and wakened him from a sound sleep.

"It's time you were gettin' your clothes on," he announced.

"Getting my clothes on?" queried Blake through the darkness.

"Yes, you can't tell what we 'll bump into, any time now!"

The wakened sleeper heard the other man moving about in the velvety
black gloom.

"What 're you doing there?" was his sharp question as he heard the
squeak and slam of a shutter.

"Closin' this dead-light, of course," explained Tankred. A moment
later he switched on the electric globe at the bunkhead. "We 're
gettin' in pretty close now and we 're goin' with our lights doused!"

He stood for a moment, staring down at the sweat-dewed white body on
the bunk, heaving for breath in the closeness of the little cabin. His
mind was still touched into mystery by the spirit housed in that
uncouth and undulatory flesh. He was still piqued by the vast sense of
purpo