ent you no such letter, Captain Blastblow," protested Colonel
Shepard. "I never wrote any such letter; some one has been playing a
trick on you."

"But I have the letter in your own handwriting," pleaded the captain.
"I will read it to you. It is dated at the St. James Hotel, with a
picture of the house, and the heading printed upon it. Here is what it
says:--

CAPTAIN BLASTBLOW:

I have received a despatch which will prevent me from leaving
Jacksonville for a few days. You will proceed to New Orleans as
soon as you get this letter; and I will go there by land with my
family. For reasons I will explain to you some other time, I want
you to keep out of the way of the Sylvania. I have made a bet that
the Islander will get to New Orleans first; and I expect, from what
you said, you will win the bet for me. This letter will be
delivered to you by my friend, Mr. Boomsby, who will take passage
with you; and you will treat him as well as you would me."

Yours truly,

P. G. SHEPARD.

"If those instructions are not as plain talk as any shipmaster could
desire, I should like to know what would be plain," continued Captain
Blastblow, as he finished the reading of the letter. "I hove up the
anchor at once, and rang to go ahead. I was ordered to keep out of the
way of the Sylvania, and I have done my best to avoid her."

"But I did not write that letter, Captain Blastblow," repeated the
owner; and by this time we were all rather amused at the straightforward
earnestness of the captain of the Islander. "Let me see the letter,
if you please."

The captain handed him the letter. Colonel Shepard examined it
critically. He shook his head as he did so.

"I must acknowledge that the writing looks very much like mine," he
said, after he had read it through and examined it in every part. "Who
could have written it?"

"Nick Boomsby wrote it, without a doubt," I replied. "I went to school
with him, and he was a good penman, though that was about all he was as
a scholar."

"Is that my friend, Mr. Boomsby?" asked the colonel, laughing heartily.

"The same person; and he has become a swell of the first magnitude," I
replied. "If I had known, or suspected, before we got to Key West, that
Nick was on board of her, I could have explained the strange conduct of
the Islander, and why she so carefully kept out of our way."

I gave a full account of the robbery of the bank messenger in the