er," calmly
persisted Blake.

"What's the use of pounding me, when I 'm on the square again?"
persisted the ex-drum snuffer.

"That's the line o' talk they all hand out. That's what Connie Binhart
said when we had it out up in St. Louis."

"Did you bump into Binhart in St. Louis?"

"We had a talk, three days ago."

"Then why 'd he blow through this town as though he had a regiment o'
bulls and singed cats behind him!"

Blake's heart went down like an elevator with a broken cable. But he
gave no outward sign of this inward commotion.

"Because he wants to get down to Colon before the Hamburg-American boat
hits the port," ventured Blake. "His moll's aboard!"

"But he blew out for 'Frisco this morning," contended the puzzled
Sheiner. "Shot through as though he 'd just had a rumble!"

"Oh, he _said_ that, but he went south, all right."

"Then he went in an oyster sloop. There 's nothing sailing from this
port to-day."

"Well, what's Binhart got to do with our trouble anyway? What I want--"

"But I saw him start," persisted the other. "He ducked for a day coach
and said he was traveling for his health. And he sure looked like a
man in a hurry!"

Blake sipped his bruilleau, glanced casually at his watch, and took out
a cigar and lighted it. He blinked contentedly across the table at the
man he was "buzzing." The trick had been turned. The word had been
given. He knew that Binhart was headed westward again. He also knew
that Binhart had awakened to the fact that he was being followed, that
his feverish movements were born of a stampeding fear of capture.

Yet Binhart was not a coward. Flight, in fact, was his only resource.
It was only the low-brow criminal, Blake knew, who ran for a hole and
hid in it until he was dragged out. The more intellectual type of
offender preferred the open. And Binhart was of this type. He was
suave and artful; he was active bodied and experienced in the ways of
the world. What counted still more, he was well heeled with money.
Just how much he had planted away after the Newcomb coup no one knew.
But no one denied that it was a fortune. It was ten to one that
Binhart would now try to get out of the country. He would make his way
to some territory without an extradition treaty. He would look for a
land where he could live in peace, where his ill-gotten wealth would
make exile endurable.

Blake, as he smoked his cigar and turned these thoughts over in his
mind