, could afford to smile. There would be no peace and no rest for
Connie Binhart; he himself would see to that. And he would "get" his
man; whether it was in a week's time or a month's time, he would "get"
his man and take him back in triumph to New York. He would show
Copeland and the Commissioner and the world in general that there was
still a little life in the old dog, that there was still a haul or two
he could make.

So engrossing were these thoughts that Blake scarcely heard the drum
snuffer across the table from him, protesting the innocence of his ways
and the purity of his intentions. Then for the second time that
morning Blake completely bewildered him, by suddenly accepting those
protestations and agreeing to let everything drop. It was necessary,
of course, to warn Sheiner, to exact a promise of better living. But
Blake's interest in the man had already departed. He dropped him from
his scheme of things, once he had yielded up his data. He tossed him
aside like a sucked orange, a smoked cigar, a burnt-out match.
Binhart, in all the movements of all the stellar system, was the one
name and the one man that interested him.

Loony Sheiner was still sitting at that table in Antoine's when Blake,
having wired his messages to San Pedro and San Francisco, caught the
first train out of New Orleans. As he sped across the face of the
world, crawling nearer and nearer the Pacific Coast, no thought of the
magnitude of that journey oppressed him. His imagination remained
untouched. He neither fretted nor fumed at the time this travel was
taking. In spite of the electric fans at each end of his Pullman, it
is true, he suffered greatly from the heat, especially during the ride
across the Arizona Desert. He accepted it without complaint, stolidly
thanking his lucky stars that men were n't still traveling across
America's deserts by ox-team. He was glad when he reached the Colorado
River and wound up into California, leaving the alkali and sage brush
and yucca palms of the Mojave well behind him. He was glad in his
placid way when he reached his hotel in San Francisco and washed the
grit and grime from his heat-nettled body.

But once that body had been bathed and fed, he started on his rounds of
the underworld, seined the entire harbor-front without effect, and then
set out his night-lines as cautiously as a fisherman in forbidden
waters. He did not overlook the shipping offices and railway stations,
neit