profound importance
to them--remember, the 'barbarian,' eight thousand miles from home.
Probably couldn't read a word. I suppose the cat followed him--the
traditional source of food He must have wanted water badly."

"I should say! He wouldn't have taken the chances he did."

"Well," I announced, "at any rate, I can say it now--there's another
'mystery of the sea' gone to pot."

McCord lifted his heavy lids.

"No," he mumbled. "The mystery is that a man who has been to sea all
his life could sail around for three days with a man bundled up in his
top and not know it. When I think of him peeking down at me--and playing
off that damn cat--probably without realizing it--scared to death--by
gracious! Ridgeway, there was a pair of funks aboard this craft, eh?
Wow--yow--I could sleep--"

"I should think you could."

McCord did not answer.

"By the way," I speculated. "I guess you were right about Bjoernsen,
McCord--that is, his fooling with the foretop. He must have been caught
all of a bunch, eh?"

Again McCord failed to answer. I looked up, mildly surprised, and found
his head hanging back over his chair and his mouth opened wide. He was
asleep.

THE BOUNTY-JUMPER[20]

By MARY SYNON

From _Scribner's Magazine_

[20] Copyright, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1916, by
Mary Synon.

"... While faith, that in the mire was fain to wallow,
Returns at last to find
The cold fanes desolate, the niches hollow,
The windows dim and blind,

"And strown with ruins around, the shattered relic
Of unregardful youth,
Where shapes of beauty once, with tongues angelic,
Whispered the runes of Truth."

--_From "The Burden of Lost Souls_."

On the day before Isador Framberg's body was brought back to Chicago
from Vera Cruz, James Thorold's appointment as ambassador to Forsland
was confirmed by the Senate of the United States. Living, Isador
Framberg might never have wedged into the affairs of nations and the
destinies of James Thorold. Marines in the navy do not intrigue with
chances of knee-breeches at the Court of St. Jerome. More than miles
lie between Forquier Street and the Lake Shore Drive. Dead, Isador
Framberg became, as dead men sometimes become, the archangel of a
nation, standing with flaming sword at the gateway to James Thorold's
paradise.

For ten years the Forsland embassy had been the goal of James Thorold's
ambiti