s that red bag that started all the trouble?" demanded Chief
Hunter. Joe Dawson produced it.

"You can't open that," leered Dalton, though he spoke uneasily.

"If we can't unlock it, we'll cut it open with a sharp breadknife,"
mocked Hunter. "Yet I reckon thet we'll find the key in yer pocket."

This guess turned out to be correct. The key was inserted in the lock
and the bag opened. Powell Seaton pushed forward to help the police
official in the inspection of the contents.

"There are my papers," cried Powell Seaton, grabbing at two
envelopes.

"Look 'em over, ef you want, but I reckon I'll haveter have 'em to go
with the prisoner," assented Chief Hunter.

"They're the same papers that this fellow stole--one set from Clodis,
and the other from my bungalow through a helper," cried Mr. Seaton.

Anson Dalton watched Seaton with a strange, sinister look.

"Gracious! Look at these, here!" gasped Chief Hunter, opening a small
leather case. Nearly a score of flashing white stones greeted his
eyes.

"Di'munds, I reckon," guessed the police chief.

"Yes; Brazilian diamonds," confirmed Powell Seaton. "Probably this
prisoner's share or proceeds from smuggling in diamonds. That
business, then, was what the 'Black Betty' was used for."

"Those are the diamonds I came down here to negotiate for," broke in
Dawley, wonderingly.

"You?" demanded Hunter, surveying the soft-voiced one.

"Yes; my father is Dawley, the big jeweler at Jacksonville," explained
the youth. "Here's his card. I'm the buyer for the house, and your
prisoner wrote that he had some fine stones to sell."

"They're fine, all right, or I'm no judge of Brazilian diamonds,"
nodded Powell Seaton. "But I guess the United States Government owns
them, now, as a confiscated prize."

A carriage was brought around to the door, and Anson Dalton was driven
to the county jail, eight miles away, to be locked up there pending
the arrival of United States officers.

Dawley easily proved his innocence, and the truth of his own story.
Despite his effeminate manners and soft voice, it afterwards developed
that the youth was a skilled buyer of precious stones, and a young man
of no little importance in the business community of his home town.

Following the swift succession of events at the little Florida town,
there came a lull in the long strain of excitement and danger.

Every now and then Dick Davis and Ab Perkins, aboard the Rio-bound
"Glide," found a chance to