devilish ingenuity of Binhart would resort to
any means to escape being further harassed by the Law.

Blake even recalled, a few days later, the incident of the Shattuck
jewel-robbery, during the first weeks of his regime as a Deputy
Commissioner. This diamond-thief named Shattuck had been arrested and
released under heavy bail. Seven months later Shattuck's attorney had
appeared before the District Attorney's office with a duly executed
certificate of death, officially establishing the fact that his client
had died two weeks before in the city of Baltimore. On this he had
based a demand for the dismissal of the case. He had succeeded in
having all action stopped and the affair became, officially, a closed
incident. Yet two months later Shattuck had been seen alive, and the
following winter had engaged in an Albany hotel robbery which had
earned for him, under an entirely different name, a nine-year sentence
in Sing Sing.

From the memory of that case Never-Fail Blake wrung a thin and ghostly
consolation. The more he brooded over it the more morosely disquieted
he became. The thing grew like a upas tree; it spread until it
obsessed all his waking hours and invaded even his dreams. Then a time
came when he could endure it no more. He faced the necessity of
purging his soul of all uncertainty. The whimpering of one of his
unkenneled "hunches" merged into what seemed an actual voice of
inspiration to him.

He gathered together what money he could; he arranged what few matters
still remained to engage his attention, going about the task with that
valedictory solemnity with which the forlornly decrepit execute their
last will and testament. Then, when everything was prepared, he once
more started out on the trail.

* * * * * *

Two weeks later a rough and heavy-bodied man, garbed in the rough
apparel of a mining prospector, made his way into the sun-steeped town
of Toluca. There he went quietly to the wooden-fronted hotel, hired a
pack-mule and a camp-outfit and made purchase, among other things, of a
pick and shovel. To certain of the men he met he put inquiries as to
the best trail out to the Buenavista Copper Camp. Then, as he waited
for the camp-partner who was to follow him into Toluca, he drifted with
amiable and ponderous restlessness about the town, talking with the
telegraph operator and the barber, swapping yarns at the livery-stable
where his pack-mule was lodged,