he sat up and felt for broken bones. There
were none; and he looked about him. The wall of masonry resolved itself
into a cargo of brick piled on the levee side of the street, and obeying
the primary impulse of a fugitive, he quickly put the sheltering bulk of
it between himself and the lighted thoroughfare.

The next step had to be resolutely thought out. How was he to get rid of
the handcuffs? Any policeman would have a key, and there were doubtless
plenty of locksmiths in St. Louis. But both of these sources of
assistance were out of the question. Whom, then? The answer came in one
word--M'Grath. On a day when the up-river voyage was no more than fairly
begun, one of the negroes in the crew had procured a bottle of bad
whiskey. To pacify him the mate had put him in irons, using two pairs of
handcuffs for the purpose. Therefore, M'Grath must have a key.

But would M'Grath do it? That remained to be seen; and since hesitation
was no part of Griswold's equipment, he covered the fetters as well as
he could with a scrap of bagging, and walked boldly down the levee and
aboard the _Belle Julie_, falling into line with the returning file of
roustabouts.

The mate was at the heel of the foot-plank, and he saw at once what the
scrap of sacking was meant to hide.

"Hello, there, Gavitt!" he called, not less gruffly than of yore, but
without the customary imprecation; "What are ye doing with thim things
on?"

Griswold told a straight story, concealing nothing: not even the
detective's refusal to tell him what he was arrested for.

M'Grath was smiling grimly when the tale was finished. "And did he let
ye come back to collect yer day-pay, then?" he asked, ironically.

"Hardly. He shoved me into a cab and then went into a saloon to get a
drink. While he was gone, the horses ran away and I got out," said
Griswold, still adhering to the exact facts.

"Ye'd ought to find that cabby and buy him a seegyar," was the mate's
comment. "So ye legged it, did ye?"

"Yes; when I got a show. But I can't get these things off."

This time M'Grath's smile was a grin.

"I'll bet ye can't. They ain't made f'r to come off. Never mind; peg
along afther me. You did be doing me a good turn wan black night, and
I'm not forgetting it."

He led the way up to his quarters in the texas, and telling Griswold to
wait, went down on his knees to rummage in the locker beneath the berth.

"I've got a couple o' pair av thim things in here, somewhere,