home, but these provoked only sardonic laughter.

Wild with rage and pain he bored in. He had but one chance--to get this
shadow in his gorilla-like arms. He lacked mental flexibility. An idea,
getting into his head, stuck; it was not adjustable. Like an arrow sped
from the bowstring, it had to fulfill its destiny. It never occurred to
him to take to his heels, to get space between himself and this enemy he
had so woefully underestimated. Ten feet, and he might have been able to
whirl, draw his pistol, and end the affair.

The coup de grace came suddenly: a blow that caught Quasimodo full on
the point of the jaw. He sagged and went sprawling upon his face. The
victor turned him over and raised a heel.... No! He was neither Prussian
nor Sudanese black. He was white; and white men did not stamp in the
faces of fallen enemies.

But there was one thing a white man might do in such a case without
disturbing the ethical, and he proceeded about it forthwith: Draw the
devil's fangs; render him impotent for a few hours. He deliberately
knelt on one of the outspread arms and calmly emptied the insensible
man's pockets. He took everything--watch, money, passport, letters,
pistol, keys--rose and dropped them into the river. He overlooked
Quasimodo's belt, however. The Anglo-Saxon idea was top hole. His fists
had saved his life.

CHAPTER III

Hawksley heard the panting of an engine and turned his head. Dimly he
saw a giant bridge and a long drab train moving across it. He picked up
the fallen man's cap and tried it on. Not a particularly good fit, but
it would serve. He then trotted round the deckhouse to the street side,
jumped to the wharf, and sucking the cracked knuckles of his right hand
fell into a steady dogtrot which carried him to the station he had left
so hopefully an hour and a half gone.

An accommodation train eventually deposited him in Poughkeepsie, where
he purchased a cap and a sturdy walking stick. The stubble on his chin
and cheeks began to irritate him intensely, but he could not rid himself
of the idea that a barber's chair would be inviting danger. He was now
tolerably certain that from one end of the continent to the other his
presence was known. His life and his property, they would be after both.
Even now there might be men in this strange town seeking him. The closer
he got to New York, the more active and wide-awake they would become.

He walked the streets, his glance constantly roving. But