y," George answered sullenly.

His touch had aroused her. She straightened and turned wild eyes on the
gray mask. Garth waited then for her to betray him, but she only
stammered a little.

"He's right. A pleasant sight for ladies! Boat--must have thrown them
off the track."

She laughed hysterically. She sank on the end of the bench.

Garth was surprised, now that the strain was broken, not to experience
any exceptional relief. In spite of the game's vital stakes it had
interested him chiefly because of the various effects it might have had
on Nora. Yet it had yielded him no key to her presence here, to her
disgraceful marketing of her father's confidence, to her assumption at
home of black robes and grief, or, finally, to her apparent decision to
let the night's work continue in spite of his presence. Probably she
hoped he could not get help until the job had been done. Or--and the
thought struck him with the shameful tingling of a slap--perhaps she
thought he would let the others go rather than capture and convict the
woman he had craved in marriage.

He pressed his lips together. He beckoned to Slim. He took the whip in
his own hands.

"Is the safe here? Are we going to spend the rest of the night on this
boat? If the cops are awake it isn't wise."

"All right," the leader said. "George, you and Nora and Simmons wait
here. The rest of you start out."

The studious-appearing youth, the tramp, the dandy, and the elderly man
filed through the door and silently closed it. The leader spoke to Garth
quickly.

"George will unlock the safe without any trouble. He's the best in the
business. Your job's to open it and handle what you find without blowing
the lot of us to everlasting dirt."

Garth stirred uneasily.

"Explosives!" he said. "I see why you wanted me."

"The pay's high," Slim answered. "The fellows that are after this stuff
don't trust diplomatic talk. Everybody wants it if only to be sure that
nobody else gets it, for they claim that the nation that has it, could
make a league of all the rest look like Tod Sloan fighting Dempsey. The
inventor thinks Uncle Sam ought to have it, if anybody, but he's been
holding off. It's new, and he's either afraid of it himself, or he
thinks he can perfect it."

"He's afraid of it," Nora breathed. "He told me it was a sin to invent
it."

"The point is, Simmons," the leader said, "can you handle the stuff with
a degree of safety after you have read the formula? A