THE drawing-room car of the Overland Limited was well filled. When the great depot at Chicago had been left behind, Roger Dolloff settled himself comfortably after the manner of the experienced traveler and glanced about the car to see what manner of people should be his companions on the two-thousand-mile journey that lay before him. It was his custom to make little mental sketches of the people with whom he came in contact — an occupation that served to agreeably pass many otherwise dull moments. His glance quickly passed over several commonplace tourists and business men, mentally cataloguing them as uninteresting, and rested on a girl — for at first glance she seemed scarcely more — a few seats in front of him.

       She could not be older than twenty-five, he decided. She was very pretty — the profile of her face, framed in a mass of glossy hair, presented to his view as she half turned to watch the cross-streets of West Chicago slipping by, was faultless in its contour and dainty in its coloring. She was dressed in mourning, and the perfect simplicity of her costume served to etherealize her beauty. Her quiet ease of bearing bespoke the fact that she was accustomed to traveling alone. Thus far his musing carried him, then he spread open the evening paper and soon became engrossed in its contents.

       The early September dusk enfolded them, and the street lamps in the towns through which they rushed began to blink knowingly at them as they passed, while the semaphore signals stood like silent sentinels along the way.

       At Dixon, where they paused a few moments for the panting engine to catch its breath after the hundred-mile dash, Dolloff rose and made his way into the buffet smoking-car, where he delivered himself up to the enjoyment of a good cigar. A half hour later he returned to his seat in the drawing-room car and glanced again at the slender figure clad in black. She was reading now, while stray locks of her glorious hair shone like burnished ebony in the radiance of the brightly-glowing lights overhead, and he could not see her face.

       When Clinton had been left behind the porter came and made up the berths, and through the night the hurrying train sped on with its precious freight, while the sleeping passengers felt no premonition of impending danger.

       Dolloff lay with wide-open eyes, thinking of the mission on which he was embarked. It was an important one — doubly important for the bearing that it might have on his future. A month earlier the news of a startling bank robbery in San Francisco had been flashed across the continent. A million and a half in gold and notes had disappeared. The best detective talent of the West had failed ignominiously to bring the robbers to justice, and the cumbersome machinery of the law was at a standstill. A reward of twenty-five thousand dollars was offered for their apprehension, and Roger Dolloff had determined to secure it. One of the youngest of his profession, he was rapidly becoming known as one of the most successful, and the fame of his exploits had gone abroad. If successful in his present undertaking, his reputation would be assured.

       He closed his eyes and tried to compose himself to sleep. His thoughts took another turn, and a slender, black-robed figure came and stood beside him. A strand of her perfumed hair floated across his eyes, and he wondered vaguely why she was in mourning. For her mother, probably — or mayhap, a sister. Then he fell asleep.

       How long he slept he knew not, till a strange rocking and jolting of the car awoke him. He tried to rise. There came a sudden terrible shock; he felt himself hurled violently from the berth, felt a sudden sharp pain in his right arm, then a terrible weight pressing upon him. For a moment all was still; then shrieks and groans arose about him. He tried to cry out, struggled to throw off the awful weight that pinned him down; there came a sense of suffocation, and then he knew no more.

CHAPTER II.

       WHEN Dolloff next became fully conscious of existence, he looked about in amazement at his surroundings. There had been some faint prefiguring of consciousness when sharp pains had racked him and strong, firm hands had bandaged his shattered arm; but when a gentle presence had hovered round him and a light touch soothed his fevered brow, he had slumbered again.

       Now he woke and felt the same presence near him, and when he weakly raised his head and attempted to speak, the slender, black-robed figure that had pervaded his dreams came toward him from the window. She placed a soft, cool palm on his hot forehead with a gently commanding motion.

       "You must be perfectly quiet," she said, "and not try to talk, or I shall send for the doctor, and leave you to him."

       He gazed up into her eyes for a moment, sighed contentedly like a tired child, and fell into a quiet, dreamless sleep that lasted for hours.

       When he woke again the doctor was leaning over him, and it was evening.

       "He will do nicely, now," the doctor was saying. "You are an admirable nurse, Miss Chartier."

       The one addressed met Dolloff's questioning look with a bright smile, and when the doctor had departed, anticipated the flood of questions trembling on her patient's lips by telling him briefly the particulars of the railroad wreck, her own miraculous escape unharmed, and his rescue from the ruins of the burning car with a broken arm and a slight concussion of the brain. "And now," she concluded, "you are not to ask questions or to excite yourself in any way."

       "Two things I must know," said Dolloff. "How does it come about that you are my nurse, and how long is it since the accident happened?"

       "There were quite a number of passengers injured, and so few nurses available," she responded simply, "and I have had some little experience, so I volunteered my services. It has been — let me see — eight days since you were hurt." Dolloff groaned with the swift realization that he might as well bid adieu to all hope of winning the twenty-five thousand dollars reward.

       "Does your arm hurt?" she queried anxiously.

       "No," responded Dolloff, "I merely thought of something."

       "You mustn't think, if it affects you like that," she protested, and Dolloff smiled grimly and held his peace.

       Given a young and impetuous man, smitten down as Dolloff was, and a nurse, also young and distractingly pretty, as well as tenderly observant of her patient's every whim, and there is but one possible result. When, a week later, Dolloff was able to occupy an armchair by the window and idly watch the passers by, he was as deeply in love as a man might be. His nurse, when the necessity for her ministrations was past, would have left him to his newspaper and the visits of the colored waiter, but he pleaded his loneliness so convincingly that she yielded to his desire for her presence, and for the greater part of each day busied herself with some dainty needlework, while he lay back in his armchair and contentedly watched her face through half-closed eyes.

       Somewhat to his own amazement the loss of his chance of gaining the reward had ceased to trouble him, so long as he could have Marie Chartier by his side.

       On her part, knowing his feelings toward her better even than Dolloff himself did, she had taken a long walk one afternoon and thought over the situation of affairs very carefully. On her return to the hotel she had hovered over Dolloff with such an air of protecting tenderness that he felt encouraged almost to the point of a declaration of his love.

       Life had not been a path of roses for Marie, and her twenty-five years had been productive of more and varied experiences than fall to the lot of most women. Now that there appeared a promise of quiet and peace very alluring to her tired feet, she was minded to make the most of it. If only certain episodes in her past life could be forever kept from Dolloff's knowledge. But once married to him, if awkward things came to his ears she felt perfectly confident of her ability to convince him of her virtue. She would risk it, at any rate, she decided, and shrugged her shapely shoulders. The shrug settled Dolloff's fate.

CHAPTER III.

       TWO weeks of daily companionship with Marie plunged Dolloff into the far depths of his infatuation; and when, at the end of that time, she declared there was no further excuse for her visits, he was correspondingly aggrieved.

       "But you mustn't desert me now," he protested. "I can't spare you. I should die of loneliness. The doctor says that I must not go out for another week, and to sit by this window alone all day — ugh!" he looked up at her with the expression of a spoiled child.

       Marie was standing beside his chair, her hands loosely clasped before her, her head turned so that he could not see her eyes. Her heart, usually a well-behaved organ, was beating at a quite prodigious rate. Her lips were drawn to a tense line, but she spoke softly, without looking at him.

       "I would gladly do as you wish," she said, "but — I am all alone in the world, and — the world is harsh in its judgment." She ended with a little sob that may, or may not, have been a spontaneous expression of her feelings. At any rate, it went straight to Dolloff's heart, and with his uninjured arm he clasped her tightly.

       "Little girl," said he very tenderly, "I want you with me always. Will you stay?"

       She dropped down beside his chair and hid her face against his shoulder. She was strongly tempted to tell him everything, to show him all her past, that she might honestly accept his love if it stood the test, or — but she lacked the sturdiness of soul to subject it to the strain, and the impulse was crushed down, never to rise again with equal strength.

       He stroked her hair in silence for a moment, then gently drew her face from its resting-place and kissed her as an honest-hearted boy kisses his first sweetheart.

       She was thankful for the dusk, that he could not read her eyes, and clung to him for a moment like one rescued from some great peril. Then she drew his face to hers with her arms about his neck, and kissed him once — twice — swiftly, passionately, and fled from the room, leaving him with every nerve tingling as from an electric shock.

       Before her mirror, a few moments later, with the lights brightly gleaming, she gazed at her reflection with wide-open, wondering eyes.

       "I love him!" she cried in a hushed, amazed voice; and again, "I love him!" Then she fell upon her knees beside the bed, buried her face in her extended arms, and sobbed wildly, uncontrollably.

       When she entered Dolloff's room the next day he had just finished reading a letter, and his eyes were shining with excitement.

       "My lucky star is in the ascendant!" he cried as he drew her to him and kissed her. "Here's a letter from the president of the bank, saying that the robbers have not yet been apprehended, and begging me to come on as soon as I am able, to confer with the officials.

       "You must go with me," he declared. "We will be married a week from today, and go direct to San Francisco. It will be rather a novel honeymoon — hunting down a bank robber," and he laughed boyishly.

       Marie would have demurred at the suddenness of it all, but he vigorously overruled her objections, and in the end she submitted to his plans.

       It was an odd-appearing couple that stood before the minister in the parlor of the hotel a week later — the bride dressed in mourning and the groom with his right arm in a sling. The doctor who had attended Dolloff, and who had conceived an immense admiration for Marie's capabilities as a nurse, attended the ceremony and partook of the modest little wedding dinner as the guest of honor, and congratulated the groom with a heartiness that left nothing to be desired.

       The interrupted journey was resumed, and they sped away toward San Francisco, Dolloff radiantly happy — Marie with a dawning sense of peace and serenity that was very welcome.

CHAPTER IV.

       THE cashier of the Third National Bank of San Francisco sat at his desk, gazing at a sheet of paper covered with long columns of figures. A neat little memorandum book lay open by his elbow. He leaned his head upon his hand, and closing his eyes as if in pain, whispered to himself, "Seventy-five thousand dollars." He drew in his breath sharply. "Seventy-five — thousand — dollars."

       Beyond the railing the porter stood pensively flicking at an imaginary speck of dust with his feather duster. The cashier turned in his chair. "You may go now, Dennis," said he, adding in a kindly tone, "how is the little one getting along?"

       "Better, sor, thank you kindly, sor. The doctor do be after saying that she'll soon be well again," and Dennis, glad to be at liberty, hurried away.

       It was past the closing hour, and the rest of the bank's force had left for the day. Since the robbery the cashier had often remained to lock the doors himself. This afternoon, as the bright sunlight streamed in upon his desk, he sat with moody eyes, staring down the dark vista of the future. Today he was trusted and honored by a whole community. Tomorrow he would be an object of scorn and loathing — his name a by-word and reproach. His was the old, old story: a position of supreme trust gained by long years of rectitude; a sense of distaste for the monotony of his existence; a little dabbling in speculation; small losses, then larger ones; a pressing need met with money that was not his own; an ever-deepening entanglement; and now — the end. He smiled grimly as he thought of what capital the papers would make of the sweet morsel of news that would be born on the morrow.

       He had played his last card with masterly shrewdness, and he had lost. After appropriating seventy-five thousand dollars of the bank's funds, the eve of the annual accounting came upon him without resource for replacing it. With wiliness born of desperation he had planned the robbery that had so far baffled the detectives, thereby covering the tracks of his defalcation and leaving him with a substantial sum in hand. But one fatal factor had a place in the situation. The measure of his necessity had demanded an accomplice in the crime, for whose service he had paid, and heavily.

       Thus far detection had been practically impossible, so cleverly had he laid his plans, but now an unforeseen contingency had arisen. The accomplice he had chosen had most pressing reasons for wishing to avoid the attention of the officers of the law, regardless of his latest exploit. This fact the cashier had counted upon as a measure of safety against disloyalty to himself. And but for the breaking of one cog in the wheel of circumstances all would have been well. The accomplice had done his work, had received his share of the spoils, and before daybreak was speeding away on the Southern Pacific Railroad toward the Mexican border. He was a gambler by nature and profession, and with the gaming fever running riot in his veins and the means to gratify his passion at hand, he could not withstand the temptation that assailed him. A poker game was started in the smoking-car in which he rode, and he took a hand. Ill luck perched upon his shoulder, and in two days' time of the thousands with which he had left San Francisco but a few beggarly hundreds remained.

       A week later he was back in San Francisco, penniless and utterly desperate, and making extortionate demands upon his superior in crime as the price of his further silence. In the intervening weeks the cashier had experienced a vivid foretaste of purgatory; tomorrow the eastern detective would arrive, and now there remained but one last chance — flight. Thirty-five hundred miles away lay safety. With the turn of the tide that night a sailing vessel bound for Panama would leave the Golden Gate with the cashier as a member of the crew. He was a splendid sailor, the captain had been heavily bribed, and his disguise he believed to be secure from detection if the vessel should be overhauled.

       At ten o'clock the next morning Dolloff, seated in the private office of the bank's president, was discussing the situation with a much agitated man. The president's haggard face and trembling hands bespoke the strain under which he was laboring.

       "This last blow is the hardest," he moaned. "The robbery was bad enough, but the discovery that the man whom I have loved as a son and trusted utterly for years has betrayed that love and trust, has broken my heart. But he shall be brought to justice. Nothing shall shield him now. Young man!" he cried, rising to his feet in his excitement, "I have been informed that no clue is too obscure for you to follow. Find this man, and I will double the reward!"

       "I will find him," said Dolloff quietly.

       Marie had accompanied her husband to the bank, and when he left her at its entrance, returned slowly toward the hotel, stopping at a florist's stand to purchase a flower which she fastened at her bosom. When she resumed her walk a man emerging from a cigar store on the opposite side of the street chanced a glance across and see her. He gave a quick start of surprised recognition, seemed to hesitate for a moment, then crossed the street, and keeping at a certain distance behind her, dogged her footsteps to the hotel. She passed slowly up the stairway and along the hall, entering her room without looking around. A moment later, as she was removing her hat, a low knock startled her. Opening the door, she glanced at the man standing before her, his face wreathed in a triumphant, evil Smile, gave utterance to one low cry of terror, and fell fainting at his feet.

[To be continued.]

EDITORIAL AND PUBLISHERS ANNOUNCEMENTS.        We present this month what we feel sure is the best number of "The Colored American Magazine" so far issued. On account of delays in procuring our contributions, espe­cially the serial, "The Stress of Impulse," which starts in this, we decided to omit the July number, which makes this issue No. 3 of the volume. There will be no further delays, however, in the issue of the magazine, and all subscribers will have their subscription extended one month to make up for the omission.        Each issue of the magazine will in the future contain, not only the short stories and articles of general interest, but we shall begin in an early issue the publishing of historical and biographical articles of persons and incidents famous in the history of the race. We shall aim, not only to give our patrons a periodical that will entertain, but instruct as well.

 

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS I. TO IV.        ROGER DOLLOFF, a detective, while journeying to San Francisco to investigate the robbery of the Third National Bank, meets with serious injury in the wreck of the Overland Limited, and is nursed back to health by Marie Chartier, a passenger on the same train. He falls in love with, and marries her, and they resume the interrupted journey. The cashier, who has robbed the bank, fears betrayal by his accomplice and secretly and in disguise embarks on a sailing vessel bound for Panama. While Dolloff is conferring with the president of the bank, Marie is confronted by a man at their hotel, and faints from the shock of recognition.

CHAPTER V.

       WITH a long, shuddering sigh Marie opened her eyes and gazed up into the face of her unwelcome visitor. He had closed the door, and, seated in a chair, was calmly awaiting her return to consciousness.

       "Ah, my beauty," said he, when she turned away her head to escape the sight of his evil face, "I took you rather by surprise, didn't I?"

       "I thought you were dead," she cried in a low, strained voice.

       The man smiled sneeringly and shrugged his shoulders. "So I was, for a time — to the world, at least," he replied. "But now I am very much alive again, and having by great good luck found my loving and dutiful wife, I am ready to assume once more the bonds that bind us."

       Marie shuddered at his words, and glanced about like a wounded animal seeking some avenue of escape.

       "You do not appear very glad to see me," he resumed after a pause, in which he smilingly observed her evident agitation.

       "Glad!" she cried, "one is not usually glad to have the ghost of a hideous memory rise up to taunt one. I have suffered the misery of a lifetime through you already. Why did you deceive me into believing you were dead?"

       "Because it suited my purpose at the time," answered the man coolly. "Now it suits my purpose to let you know that I am alive. By heavens, you are prettier than ever, my dear; though you always were a good-looking jade. Good looking enough, at least, to use as bait for young fools with more money than brains. I'm deuced glad to find you again. We can drop into some city where I'm not known and play our old game. I'm a bit down on my luck just now, but with you to help me, my beauty, I can snap my fingers at the devil."

       Marie, with one hand tightly clenched against her breast, regarded him with mingled hate and terror. "James Fairfax," she said, "I will have nothing to do with your devilish schemes. When I was an innocent girl you lured me into your power and made my life a hell for three long years. You were a gambler, and worse, and forced me to play decoy while you fleeced your foolish victims. Then you deserted me; left me among strangers, without a cent or a friend to turn to in my extremity, and sent your tool to tell me that you were dead. He played his part well. I believed him, trusted in his honor, and only by accident discovered what his intentions toward me were in time to make my escape from a worse fate than you had doomed me to. I am older now, and through hard and bitter experience have learned to protect myself from such villains as he and you. Leave me and go your own way; I do not wish to look upon your face again."

       "So that is your little game," muttered Fairfax angrily. "I'll soon make you sing a different song, my lady. With all your high and mighty ways you can't deny that I am your husband, and as such I intend to enjoy the privileges implied by that position," and he leered upon her with a gloating smile. "Come, my dear," he resumed, "give me a kiss and let's be friends. There's nothing to be gained by making an enemy of me, and if you will be sensible, I swear I'll treat you right. Come, is it a bargain?"

       "No!" cried Marie. "I defy you. If you do not go away at once I shall summon assistance, and if you attempt to trouble me in the future I know how to defend myself. You belong in prison, and I shall not hesitate to tell what will send you there if you do not leave me in peace."

       Fairfax rose and cast upon her a look of baffled hate. "Confound you," he hissed, "I'll find a way to bring you to terms yet. You have not seen the last of me," and opening the door left her to reflect upon the terrible position in which this unexpected complication placed her.

CHAPTER VI.

       DOLLOFF, entering the hotel lobby with thoughtfully puckered brow, deep in the problem of the bank robbery, brushed against a slightly built, well-dressed stranger, who scowled uncivilly at his word of apology, ran lightly down the steps and was swallowed up in the passing throng. Halfway across the lobby, Dolloff's faculty of quick observation had gained the mastery of his abstraction, and the man's identity, brief as had been the glance bestowed, forced itself upon him.

       "Some deviltry afoot, or 'Happy Jack' Fairfax would not be in evidence," was Dolloff's inward comment. "This is new ground for him. I'll drop into headquarters this afternoon and give the chief a quiet tip," he thought, and dismissed the episode from his mind. But in the afternoon other matters claimed his attention, and unwittingly he let pass the opportunity of eliminating a dangerous and puzzling factor of the case in hand, that was destined to cause him much future vexation.

       So deeply was he engrossed in the problem laid before him by the bank president, that Marie's nervous and distrait manner passed unnoticed, and when they had lunched, and later sought out a quiet and unoccupied corner of the piazza, Dolloff lighted a cigar and fell into a brown study that lasted until his plan of campaign had been fully mapped out.

       The days that followed were busy ones for Dolloff, and at the week's end the tangled skein was in a fair way to be unraveled. The sudden flight of the cashier, by revealing his complicity in the crime, had shed a light upon certain hitherto puzzling features, and simplified Dolloff's task to an appreciable degree. Furthermore, the chance meeting in the hotel lobby had set Dolloff to wondering whether Fairfax, whom he knew for a clever and unscrupulous rogue, had any connection with the case. No grain of suspicion was too slight for Dolloff's careful weighing, and somewhat to his own surprise, he was not long in establishing the fact that Fairfax had played an important role in the robbery. But when, at his request, a quiet cast of the fine-meshed police dragnet was made, with abortive result, Dolloff savagely reproached himself for allowing that slippery individual to glide through his fingers. Fairfax had apparently disappeared from San Francisco without leaving a trace behind, and Dolloff, for once, was forced to admit himself outwitted.

       His disappointment on this head, however, was partly compensated by his unexpected stumbling upon a clue that led to establishing the fact of the cashier's flight upon the "Mary Jane," disguised as a member of the crew. With professional pride, and the thought of the enticing reward to spur him on, Dolloff's action was immediate and decided. A brief conference with the bank president, a hurry of preparation, and eight days after the vessel upon which the fugitive cashier had taken refuge had dropped the Golden Gate astern, Dolloff was bidding Marie a hurried adieu at their hotel, while a swift steam yacht lay in the harbor with nervously panting engines, only awaiting his appearance on board ere starting in pursuit.

       A stern chase is proverbially a long one, and even with the advantage of steam over canvas, an eight days' handicap is not to be lightly considered. Dolloff, outwardly calm, was inwardly seething with the excitement of the chase, and paced the deck of the yacht by day and by night, anxiously watching for the appearance of the white sails of the "Mary Jane" on the distant horizon. But that craft was a swift sailer, and in ballast only, and with favoring winds to waft her on her way it is small wonder that when Dolloff, from the bow of the yacht, caught his first glimpse of the low-lying shores of Panama, the trim little schooner swinging innocently in the offing should be short one member of her crew.

CHAPTER VII.

       FOR a few days following Dolloff's hurried departure in pursuit of the absconding cashier. Marie remained closely secluded in her room at the hotel, scarcely daring even to venture forth upon the piazza, so great was her fear of encountering the baleful gaze of the man who had wrecked her happiness, and whom unkind fate had thrown once more in her way when she had fondly believed that the unlovely past had been forever buried.

       The problem that confronted her was an agonizing and perplexing one. She had honestly believed Fairfax to be dead, and in that belief had married Dolloff. The latter she had come to love with all the fierce intensity of a woman once betrayed, who finds at last a worthy object for the bestowal of her affections. Contrasted with the cruel, heartless craftiness of Fairfax, who had not scrupled to force her into assuming a most humiliating position, Dolloff's honest love seemed to her a very great boon indeed, and crowned her with a womanly glory that was inexpressibly grateful to her bruised heart.

       Eagerly grasping at proffered happiness, she had striven to banish the memory of other days from her mind, and but for the confounding reappearance of the embodied ghost of her painful recollections, she would in time doubtless have succeeded in so doing. Now, in the measure of her tribulation, she was almost thankful for Dolloff's absence, that she might have opportunity undisturbed to consider her future course of action.

       Knowing Fairfax as she did, she had no hope that he would leave her in peace for long, and at thought of the impending disclosure of her past life to Dolloff, as well as the false, though innocently assumed position she occupied toward him, she grew sick at heart, and felt the impulse for unreasoning flight strong within her.

       For several days she wrestled in solitude with the crisis that confronted her, till her nerves were worn and shattered, and the slightest sudden noise plunged her into the depths of nervous apprehension. The one thing above all else which she most dreaded now was another meeting with Fairfax. In him she felt was embodied all her past trouble and sorrow, her present hopelessness, and the misery that threatened to overshadow her future life.

       At last the suspense became intolerable, and with the one idea of hiding from Fairfax until Dolloff should return, she decided to leave the hotel and seek a refuge in some quiet spot in the outskirts of the city. To that end she cast about for the desired location, and having found it, addressed a brief note to Dolloff, left it in charge of the hotel clerk, and one evening just at dusk, heavily veiled, entered a closed carriage and was driven rapidly away.

       In her agitation Marie failed to notice that beside the driver sat a second figure, with hat drawn down and head averted. A half-hour later, after winding through a maze of streets to a quiet and nearly deserted portion of the city, the carriage suddenly stopped, the door was flung open and a man sprang quickly in beside her. A flickering ray from a nearby street lamp fell for a moment upon his face and revealed to her his identity. With a scream of terror Marie rose, and strove to dash headlong from the carriage; then Fairfax's arms closed about her, she felt a moist cloth pressed against her face, a sweet sickening odor in her nostrils, a sense of suffocation — and then, a blank.

CHAPTER VIII.

       WHEN Dolloff found that his quarry had escaped, his chagrin assumed tragic proportions, for he readily conceived that, with the whole vast expanse of the South American continent to choose from, a man might easily hide beyond the barest possibility of discovery. In the absence of the convenient formality of extradition, the cashier was already legally safe from arrest, but Dolloff was resolved that if he succeeded in overtaking the fugitive he would, if necessary, overpower him by superior force and spirit him on board the yacht.

       Feeling himself safe at last, the pursued one had been at no pains to cover his tracks after landing from the "Mary Jane," and Dolloff easily ascertained that he had purchased some simple necessities, engaged the services of a peon guide, and headed direct for the gold fields of Venezuela.

       When he learned that the chosen route would necessarily lead through a certain mountain pass, Dolloff determined to stake all upon one last bold stroke. The cashier had nearly two days' start, the pass in question was four days' journey distant, and as it was unlikely that he would travel at a more than leisurely rate of speed, Dolloff's one chance plainly lay in overtaking him before he had crossed the mountains.

       With this object in view, Dolloff, accompanied by two sturdy members of the yacht's crew and a peon guide, turned his face to the western slope of the towering Andes and set forth.

       The devious way led through the almost impenetrable fastnesses of the lowlands along the coast, where the tropical verdure, untouched by frost, flourishes in rank profusion; where the deadly miasma risen at nightfall like a funeral pall, and swift death, in hideous guises, lurks beneath the surface of every quiet pool and behind every rotting log.

       With only the briefest pauses for rest and food, they pushed on, until on the morning of the third day the entrance of the mountain pass lay before them. At various places their guide had pointed out traces of the passing of the fugitive, and Dolloff, weary, haggard and worn, had urged his companions to renewed effort. The stiff ascent of the mountain told sharply upon them in their exhausted state, and at the end of an hour's climb they were forced to stop for a brief rest.

       Late in the afternoon they came to the further entrance of the pass, and as they looked forth upon the dense forest in the valley below, Dolloff's heart sank. The man they sought had emerged from the pass before them, and further pursuit would be hopeless.

       Suddenly their guide pointed to a slight column of smoke ascending above the forest some distance away. Evidently some traveler had pitched his camp for the night.

       Carefully taking note of the direction, they descended the mountain side and plunged into the forest, the peon leading the way with unerring instinct. When a considerable distance had been traversed, the ringing blows of an axe came faintly to their ears. Pressing through the dense growth in the direction of the sound, they came at last within sight of a temporary camp, and a moment later, Dolloff, peering cautiously from behind a sheltering tree, beheld at last the man he sought.

[To be continued.]

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS I. To VIII.        ROGER DOLLOFF, a detective, while journeying to San Francisco to investigate the robbery of the Third National Bank, meets with serious injury in the wreck of the Overland Limited, and is nursed back to health by Marie Chartier, a passenger on the same train. He falls in love with, and marries her, and they resume the interrupted journey. The cashier, who has robbed the bank, fears betrayal by his accomplice and secretly and in disguise embarks on a sailing vessel bound for Panama. While Dolloff is conferring with the president of the bank, Marie is confronted by a man at their hotel, and faints from the shock of recognition. It is James Fairfax, her husband, whom she had believed dead when she married Dolloff. He is a gambler and worse, and importunes her to cast in her lot with him again, a proposition which she scorns. Dolloff, entering the hotel as Fairfax leaves it, recognizes the latter, and having his suspicions aroused by this chance meeting with one whom he knows to be a rogue, soon establishes the fact that he had a hand in the bank robbery. Dolloff goes to South America in pursuit of the fleeing cashier, and stumbles upon his camping-place in the forest. In Dolloff's absence Marie is abducted by Fairfax.

CHAPTER IX.

       AT Dolloff's signal the two sailors glided silently from tree to tree until they had assumed positions effectually cutting off the retreat of the man who, startled by a sudden footstep, sprang to his feet and confronted the detective.

       For a moment he glared at Dolloff in silence; then, shrugging his shoulders, said: "Ah, gentlemen, I was not expecting visitors."

       "So it would appear," responded Dolloff; "but our errand can be briefly stated. I have a warrant for your arrest."

       "On what charge, pray?"

       "Robbery of the Third National Bank of San Francisco."

       The man laughed derisively. "Your warrant is worthless here, as perhaps you know."

       "I do know it perfectly well," responded Dolloff; "and that being the case, I must request you to waive formality and accompany me on board my vessel. When we are within the limits of the jurisdiction of American law I will serve the warrant on you in proper form."

       "And what if I refuse to accede to any such unlawful and high-handed proceeding?" queried the cashier.

       "Then I must use force," responded Dolloff grimly; and his captive, glancing about on the three determined faces, made a virtue of necessity and yielded, though not without a vigorous protest at the irregularity of the arrest.

       After a night passed in the forest camp, the return journey to the coast was begun; and four days later, when the yacht's prow turned northward, Dolloff had the satisfaction of knowing that his prisoner was safe on board. No restraint was placed upon him during the voyage until, when within the three-mile limit of San Francisco bay, he was formally placed under arrest. Immediately after landing he was conveyed to the bank for identification by the president of that institution, and thence to a prison cell to await his time of trial.

       Dolloff's first thought, after he had seen his prisoner safely caged, was naturally of Marie, and hastening to the hotel, he was passing through the lobby when the clerk accosted him.

       "A letter for you from your wife, Mr. Dolloff," said that functionary, advancing to meet him.

       "A letter from my wife?" queried Dolloff in amazement.

       "Yes," was the reply. "She left here shortly after your departure, and instructed me to give you this letter immediately upon your return."

       Dolloff took the missive, and with a sense of impending trouble, broke the seal. Its brief contents did not serve to allay his apprehension. It was the letter of a nervous, worried woman, incoherent in places, and hinting at some vague calamity that menaced the writer. It ended with an appeal to him to hasten to the address given, an appeal that he did not disregard.

       Hastily securing a cab, an hour later he stood impatiently waiting at the door of a neat cottage in a quiet suburb of the city.

       In response to his energetic ring a pleasant-faced woman appeared, whose first word in answer to his query plunged him into the deeper depths of his apprehension.

       No, Mrs. Dolloff was not there; had not been there, in fact, since the day when she had engaged a room and board some weeks before.

       Stunned by this information, he re-entered the cab and was driven rapidly back to the hotel. Arrived there, the closest questioning of the clerk was without result. Mrs. Dolloff had settled for her room, had taken her baggage, and departed on a certain evening, without a word as to her intended destination. No, he was very sorry, but he could not describe the driver of the carriage in which she had gone away.

       Utterly at a loss as to what course to pursue, Dolloff left the hotel and walked aimlessly about the streets in a half-distracted state of mind until, overcome with fatigue, the tolling of the midnight hour from a near-by steeple warned him that he must seek rest.

       His after-recollection of the week that followed was as of a lingering nightmare. He haunted the cab stands, the depots and police headquarters. The headlines of murders and suicides in the morning papers danced bewilderingly before his eyes. In the crowds which thronged the sidewalks at night he often fancied he could see a familiar form, and after following for blocks would find that it was not the one he sought.

       As the days wore on he plunged deeper into the city's noisome current. From the cold, dim silence of the morgue he emerged with the sweat of mental agony on his brow. With a shuddering sense of despair tugging at his heart, he roamed through narrow, ill-paved streets, where the babel of low grog-shops smote the ear. Through the length and breadth of the city's under-world, he made his way, all to no purpose. Not the slightest clue to Marie's mysterious disappearance could he discover.

       Entering the hotel one evening, haggard and worn with anxiety and fatigue, a hearty voice greeted him, and he turned to grasp the outstretched hand of a fellow detective whom he had last seen in New York.

       "Heard you were here, so I looked you up," said the newcomer.

       Dolloff, as eager in his desperation to grasp at a friendly straw as a drowning man, led the way to a quiet corner of the lobby, and unburdened himself of his perplexity.

       "H'm, that is a bad state of affairs," said the other when he had finished. "If I can help you in any way I'll gladly do it. By the way, I see by the papers that the Third National case has been worked up. How did you do the trick?"

       Whereupon Dolloff entered briefly into the particulars, ending with the expressed regret that he had allowed Fairfax to slip through his fingers.

       "Was 'Happy Jack' in it? As it happens, I can give you a tip on him. I saw him board a southbound train at New York three weeks ago, with the woman he used to call his wife. It's my opinion they were bound for Georgia. I've heard he has a father back in the mountains — a regular fire-eating, deputy-shooting moonshiner, with more than a local reputation for general cussedness. I believe his stronghold isn't far from Chilhowee. Devilish pretty woman that Fairfax calls his wife. I understand she left him two or three years ago. At any rate, he's been doing business alone for some time. But they left New York on the same train, so they must have patched up their differences."

       "I didn't know he was married," said Dolloff, idly curious. "I've only known him for a year or so."

       "Oh, yes, he's married, or claims to be. I believe the girl comes of a good family, and didn't know his real character when she married him. Her name was Chartier — Marie Chartier."

CHAPTER X.

       SINCE early morn the vibrant heat of a midsummer day in Southern Georgia had rested on the land. Now, at the coming of dusk, a few lingering rays of sunshine fell slantingly athwart the one rambling street of Chilhowee, blotching with vivid coloring the creaking stage as the jaded mules were halted before the alluring shadows of the vine-draped tavern porch. The driver deftly flicked a fly from the near-wheeler's dusty flank with his blacksnake whip, wound the lines about the brake, and leisurely descended from his seat.

       The wide-swung door of the low-roofed, rambling structure revealed a cool vista of semi-darkness, from which floated certain sounds and savory odors which gave inviting promise of hospitable welcome to the weary travelers, who slowly clambered from the stage and shook the choking yellow dust from their garments in little shimmering clouds. They were few in number: a cotton planter returning from a trip up country, a "cracker woman" from the lower valley, then two or three commonplace Southern types. The appearance of the last passenger to descend, whose garb and manner proclaimed him to be a Northerner, caused a little ripple of interest among the group of loungers who had gathered at the advent of the stage.

       The newcomer appeared unconscious of the stir his arrival had created, and included the onlookers in one friendly glance as he mounted the steps of the porch and was met by the genial "Colonel" who presided at the tavern bar.

       When he had done full justice to the bountiful Southern supper the newcomer strolled forth to gaze at the vista of winding valley, with the twilight softening the angularities of the towering mountains stretching away to the sky-line on either hand, one vast expanse of green, broken only by the yellow, twisting thread of the stage-road and a few gray points of rocky peaks, enpurpled in the distance by the setting sun. Later, he found a comfortable seat upon the porch, lighted a cigar, and listened far into the evening to the drawling conversation of the loungers, each of whom in the gathering dusk soon became a mere indistinct bulk, accentuated by the fitful glow from a corncob pipe.

       Silence at last fell upon the little group, and one by one the shadowy forms faded away into the night, till the Colonel and his guest were left alone.

       "You're from th' No'th, I reckon?" queried the Colonel.

       "Yes; from New York," was the reply.

       "'Sposen hit air right smart of a town?"

       "Well, rather," assented the newcomer.

       "Never went projeckin' up thet a'way," continued the Colonel. "I was ter New O'leans quite a spell when I was younger, but Chilhowee's big enough fer me now."

       "Pop," a shrill voice arose from the dim back regions, "thet sow air in th' garden truck agen."

       "Dad blame her onery hide!" ejaculated the Colonel, starting for the spot, whence sounds of scurrying footsteps and a series of racuous grunts floating back from a distance soon announced that the intruder had been routed.

       "Thet pesky razor back air th' meanest varmint 'at ever rooted," said the Colonel, as he resumed his seat in a splint-bottomed chair tilted back against a pillar of the porch. "She'll crawl through th' tightest rail fence 'at ever was built; an' if she can't crawl through, she'll climb plum over hit."

       "It must be very annoying."

       "Hit shorely air," assented the Colonel, relighting his pipe.

       The brilliant Southern moon crept up over the mountain before them, flooding the valley with its mellow radiance. The Northerner lighted a fresh cigar, and leaning back in comfort, watched the shadows of tree and rock grow shorter. Suddenly a long, wailing cry broke the stillness, echoing from peak to peak, rising and falling in shrill cadences and dying away in a lingering sob that startled him to his feet.

       "Hit's only a painter callin' ter hit's mate," said the Colonel. "You'll hear th' answer in a minute," and indeed, as they listened, the same sobbing wail was repeated from a distance.

       "Rather an uncanny sound," observed the stranger. "What is a painter, anyway?"

       "Hit's a cross atween a wild-cat an' a panther," answered the Colonel, "an' worse than both put together. They ain't much bigger'n a good-sized hound, an' they'll lick anythin' twice their size 'at walks. Some calls 'em catamounts, an' some calls 'em Indian devils, but they's pizen bad, whatever you calls 'em."

       With this introduction the Colonel went on to relate several stirring tales of encounters with the wild animals that roamed the mountains or made their lairs in the fastnesses of the swamps in the bottom-lands. He had been a mighty hunter in his youth, and having a fund of dry humor and a certain facility in anecdote, his recital proved highly interesting to the listener.

       At last the Colonel knocked the ashes from his corn-cob, and remarking, "I reckon you 'uns 'll want ter sleep a spell," led the way into the house.

       Chilhowee, at the time of the newcomer's advent, was, to quote one conversant with the facts, "A blame innercent lookin' place, likewise most bodaciously swimmin' in moonshine," an allusion not to the radiance of the heavenly orb, but the fiery water-white liquor surreptitiously distilled by the mountaineers, who held it to be their inalienable right to convert the product of the soil into the most profitable commodity.

       "Big" Bob Reno, the county sheriff, had found Chilhowee a knotty problem for solution. Although the very keystone of the blockading district, various carefully planned raids had resulted in the discomfiture of the officers, and an ambitious gauger who had volunteered to serve as spy was found one morning at the foot of a blasted pine with a neatly perforated bullet-hole in his back.

       A few months of resultless raids and three sudden vacancies in his posse had apparently convinced Bob of the futility of further effort toward the moral betterment of Chilhowee, and the producers and runners of "mountain dew" again pursued their occupation unmolested.

       The Colonel voiced the general sentiment of the community when he spat thoughtfully and copiously at the ear of a sleeping hound and oracularly declared it to be "p'int blank in'terference with Providence, suh, ter deprive yer feller man of th' means of subsistence, suh."

       These little matters, naturally, were beyond the ken of "the stranger," as he was universally referred to, who soon became a familiar sight as he roamed about the little hamlet and over the low hills along the valley, quietly observant of his surroundings and smoking a brand of cigars that caused the Colonel's eyes to moisten with unalloyed delight.

       The tall, gaunt mountaineers who slouched solemnly into the hamlet with their rifles and troops of black and yellow hounds, lean and unkempt as their masters, seemed to possess for "the stranger" a never-ending interest, and while carefully sustaining an appearance of careless good-fellowship, it might have been observed that he allowed no word of their conversation to escape his ears, when chance, or design, threw them in his way.

CHAPTER XI.

       NOT long after "the stranger's" arrival at Chilhowee he expressed a desire to pass a week or two in the home of some mountaineer, where he might hunt and explore the mountains as fancy dictated.

       The Colonel sighed at the prospective loss of a profitable guest, and after some deliberation "reckoned" that "Jim Bludsoe, over on Old Baldy," might be induced to become his host.

       "Hit air plum shore lonesome enough there ter suit anybody," was the ending of the Colonel's description of the locality.

       The very place, "the stranger" declared, that he would have chosen. Accordingly, at an early hour on the following day appeared the tavern equipage, the omnipresent buckboard, drawn by a sleek and solemn mule, with the Colonel as charioteer.

       They forded the yellow water of the "branch" and headed for the frowning side of Old Baldy, following a rude road that soon became little more than a bridle path, where the sure-footed mule plodded placidly along, deprecatingly wagging a tremulous ear when the reluctant buckboard, coyly poised on stump or tussock, plunged abruptly ahead on its erratic course. Conversation languished, as close attention was required to locate approaching obstructions and anticipate the resultant pitches of the unstable vehicle. Their way zigzagged gradually up the mountain side until at last the Colonel drew rein and announced that the balance of the way must be covered on foot.

       They descended from the buckboard and gazed out across the valley. Far below a few toy houses scattered along a narrow ribbon of dusty yellow marked the site of Chilhowee, while a busy little mountain stream, stumbling along among the blackjack roots at their feet, grew in the distance to a sedately flowing river.

       After a short climb up the winding footpath the shrill clamoring of a pack of hounds announced the vicinity of a habitation, and a moment later they emerged on the border of a clearing and beheld a log cabin clinging to the mountain side. A lazy curl of smoke floated from the huge stick-and-mud chimney. A wrinkled, saffron-hued native woman stood in the doorway, languidly chewing a snuff-stick, while a number of tousled, not over-clean children mingled with the dogs that surrounded them. When the object of the visit had been stated the woman said:

       "Jim air over on th' no'th fork, a huntin' squirrels; you all's 'll hev ter wait a spell an' dicker with him."

       It was not long until Bludsoe appeared, crossing the little clearing with the slouching, seemingly sluggish tread of the mountaineer, that easily distances the trained athlete. His would-be guest observed him keenly. Notably tall, even among his kind, his sinewy frame displayed a rude grace. A tuft of coal-black, wiry hair depended from his chin, while an oddly shaped cicatrix, drawing back a corner of his lip, a relic of an old encounter with a catamount, produced at first glance an effect of continual smiling, dissipated at once by the glittering eyes and shaggy brows surmounting the aquiline features. His rifle hung easily in the hollow of his arm, but apparently his hunting had been unsuccessful, a fact upon which the Colonel did not comment.

       Bludsoe at first appeared somewhat sulky and suspicious, but in the end agreed to "the stranger's" proposition, and the Colonel departed with the understanding that he was to return at the end of two weeks and carry him back to Chilhowee.

       A rough ladder, leading to a trap-door, gave access to the room in the upper story where the newcomer's few impedimenta were placed. A cord bedstead with corn-husk mattress and homespun coverings occupied one corner, while a rude stool and a shelf against the wall completed the furnishings. A few pegs had been driven in the hewn rafters upon which to hang clothing, and a heavy shutter, when opened, admitted light.

       Venison steak broiled over the glowing coals in the great open fireplace, sweet potatoes baked in the hot ashes, snowy grits and crisp corn-pone, with strong black coffee, composed his first repast.

       The visitor's unaffected manner and evident interest in his surroundings soon made the entire family his friends, even Bludsoe somewhat abating his surly attitude. To the oldest daughter, Maggie, a timid wild rose with the early-fading bloom of the mountain women, this stranger from the unknown North seemed a wondrous being.

       Day after day he wandered over the mountain, meeting odd bits of scenery at every turn. Occasionally he met a mountaineer, carrying the inevitable rifle, who would briefly salute him with "Howdy," and pass stolidly along.

       Sometimes at night he heard voices near the cabin, and on cautiously opening his shutter a trifle could see in the moon- light men with kegs on their shoulders going down the pathway leading to the settlement.

       One day while seated on a log idly watching an almost imperceptible curl of smoke rising from a spot further up the mountain, Maggie appeared, coming down the winding path with quick, sure tread.

       At "the stranger's" invitation she seated herself on the log beside him and made shy response to his efforts to draw her into conversation. Finally, with an air of mere idle curiosity, he confided to her a desire to see a "moonshine" distillery, which picturesque scene, he declared, he had long wished to observe.

       Maggie, visibly perturbed, gravely asserted that detection in such a project would mean sure death. However, "the stranger's" powers of persuasion were not slight, and in the end she acknowledged that she knew the location of a still, and agreed to guide him to it.

       Leading him in silence by a devious, scarcely discernible trail, gradually ascending a detached peak of the mountain, they came at length to comparatively level ground. Here, leaving the path, she plunged into a dense thicket, through which they slowly and cautiously worked their way. Having progressed in this manner for some distance, Maggie at last motioned a halt, and carefully pushing aside the leaves for a little space allowed him to peer through the opening.

       Before them lay a small clearing, on the opposite side of which was a low-roofed, nondescript structure, half cave, half shed, near the entrance to which stood a stalwart mountaineer, leaning carelessly upon his rifle. Others were busily engaged within the still-house, from which emanated the pungent odor of the boiling mash.

       But it was not on these forms that "the stranger's" gaze was fixed. Seated on a log, with his back turned to the silent watchers, moodily staring at the ground, was a slightly built man whose garb consorted illy with his rurroundings. "The stranger" started violently as another form, that of a woman, emerged from a nearly concealed path into the clearing. At her appearance the man seated on the log sprang to his feet and advanced to meet her.

       Despite the distance that separated them, "the stranger" could see that the woman looked pale and wan, and he noted that at the man's approach she cast on him a glance of mingled fear and aversion, and drew herself up haughtily.

       As Dolloff — for it was none other — gazed from his place of concealment upon the meeting of Fairfax and Marie, there leapt into his eyes the fierce light of love and hate — love, not yet extinguished, for the woman he had believed his wife; hate, deep and bitter, for the scoundrel who had cursed her life.

       When he saw her draw back from Fairfax's touch, Dolloff started impulsively forward, and would inevitably have betrayed their hiding-place had not Maggie, in swift alarm, placed a restraining grasp upon his arm.

[To be continued.]

SYNOPSIS OF CHARTERS I. TO XI.        ROGER DOLLOFF, a detective,while journeying to San Francisco to investigate the robbery of the Third National Bank, meets with serious injury in the wreck of the Overland Limited, and is nursed back to health by Marie Chartier, a passenger on the same train. He falls in love with, and marries her, and they resume the interrupted journey. The cashier, who has robbed the bank, fears betrayal by his accomplice and secretly and in disguise embarks on a sailing vessel bound for Panama. While Dolloff is conferring with the president of the bank, Marie is confronted by a man at their hotel, and faints from the shock of recognition. It is James Fairfax, her husband, whom she had believed dead when she married Dolloff. He is a gambler and worse, and importunes her to cast in her lot with him again, a proposition which she scorns. Dolloff, entering the hotel as Fairfax leaves it, recognizes the latter, and having his suspicions aroused by this chance meeting with one whom he knows to be a rogue, soon establishes the fact that he had a hand in the bank robbery. Dolloff goes to South America in pursuit of the fleeing cashier, and stumbles upon his camping-place in the forest. In Dolloff's absence Marie is abducted by Fairfax. Dolloff captures the cashier, and on his return learns of Marie's disappearance, and that she is the wife of Fairfax. He follows them to Georgia and locates them in the company of a band of moonshiners.

CHAPTER XII.

       MAGGIE'S restraining touch and low-spoken word of warning recalled Dolloff to a realizing sense of the danger of his position, and the utter uselessness of attempting single-handed to interfere between Fairfax and Marie. He turned away, inwardly raging at the position in which he was placed, and followed Maggie's guidance down the mountain side, and an hour later was seated at supper in the cabin.

       On the appointed day the Colonel appeared with his buckboard, and Dolloff, to the crudely expressed but apparently sincere regret of his hosts, departed. On his arrival at the settlement he announced that he must start for the North at once, deploring the necessity that called him from such a delightful spot.

       When the stage bearing him from view had disappeared, leaving in its wake a trail of dust like the smoke from a hull-down ocean racer, the Colonel sought his favorite seat upon the porch, and sighed deeply at the thought of the cigars he had been smoking at Dolloff's expense — the like of which he would never see again.

       One short week later a thunderbolt fell on Chilhowee, when it became noised abroad that a strong force of revenue officers, under the leadership of Bob Reno and "the stranger," had swooped down on the still on Old Baldy, captured the surprised moonshiners after a short struggle, and borne them off to durance vile in the county jail.

       But the importance of the capture counted as nothing in Dolloff's eyes, when he found that the one for whom he had laid the snare had escaped. Fairfax and Marie had vanished in the meantime, and there was left for him nothing but to return to New York and pick up the broken threads of his former existence.

       For the month that followed his arrival there he had nothing to do; then upon a certain morning the papers had flaring headlines announcing a bold diamond robbery. At police headquarters all was bustle and repressed excitement. The chief looked worried, and divided his time between the telephone receiver at his elbow and the reports of the blue-coated guardians of the peace, who came in at short intervals. Special men in plain clothes were watching every avenue of escape from the great city. The depots, the ferries, the docks of outgoing steamers, and the stations of the elevated were all under surveillance. Dolloff, in his room in a quiet house on Fourth Avenue, was awakened from his early morning nap by an impatient rapping at his door. Hastily opening it he admitted a messenger from headquarters, who informed him that the chief wished to see him at once. He dressed hurriedly, and without stopping for breakfast, made his way down town.

       Mrs. Godfrey Morgan, a widow, and one of the richest women in New York, had attended a grand reception the evening before. She was the possessor of a remarkably beautiful and costly collection of precious gems, and on this occasion her hair, her neck and her beautiful arms shone resplendently with glittering diamonds. At twelve o'clock she had entered her carriage to be driven home, with her diamonds safely locked in her jewel case, which lay on the seat beside her. As her carriage turned into the avenue a cab, driven at a rapid rate, came up behind, exempted to pass, and turning too short, locked wheels with the carriage. The driver of the cab, with profuse apologies for the accident, quickly jumped down from his seat to ascertain if any damage had been done. The wheels were so firmly locked that he could not separate them unaided, and Mrs. Morgan's coachman, with dignified displeasure on his countenance, also descended to assist. Hardly had his foot touched the ground when a muscular arm tightly encircled his neck, and a chloroform laden sponge was clapped to his nostrils. Mrs. Morgan, putting out her head to querulously inquire what the trouble was, received the same unceremonious treatment, and dropped back on the seat blissfully unconscious of the occurrences of the next hour or so. The cab-driver quickly clambered to his seat, gathered up his reins, and turning into a side street disappeared, Mrs. Morgan's coachman meanwhile lying in a tumbled heap in the bottom of the cab. Another man mounted the seat of the Morgan carriage, and drove sedately down the avenue. The whole affair had occupied perhaps two minutes, and no outcry had been made. Presently the Morgan carriage turned down a side street and drew up to the curb for a moment, while a man stepped out with a black oblong package under one arm, and walked rapidly away. Then the carriage went on, and Mrs. Godfrey Morgan was poorer to the extent of something like $50,000 worth of gems.

       An hour later a policeman, while passing along his beat, noticed a carriage standing by the curb with no driver in sight. Opening the door he looked in upon Mrs. Morgan, reposing in a most undignified heap upon the cushions. The chloroform soaked sponge in the bottom of the carriage told part of the story to his experienced eye; the rest he learned when he had driven the carriage to the station and its occupant had been resuscitated — and New York had its sensation with the morning coffee.

       Dolloff, closeted with the chief of the detective bureau shortly after daylight, learned these particulars, and also that he was wanted to work upon the case.

       "Mrs. Morgan," said the chief, "is completely prostrated, but wishes the case put in the hands of a competent detective at once, and will go to any expense necessary to recover the gems, many of which are heirlooms. You can probably see her this afternoon, but I doubt if she can tell you anything beyond the information I have already given you. In the meantime, here is a correct list and description of the gems and their settings, and you can see the servants at any time. The coachman is still at the hospital. He was found in an alleyway down by the Battery at four o'clock. The thing was evidently carefully planned by someone who had learned Mrs. Morgan's ways. The police are doing what they can, but I doubt if they can lay their hands on the gems. The robbers had nearly two hours start before the alarm was given, and have probably scattered and gotten safely under cover. They will most likely lay covered for a few weeks, then take the jewels to the continent, unmount them, melt up the settings, have the stones recut in Amsterdam, and attempt to dispose of them in Paris or London. I think the surest way will be to watch for them on the other side. The 'Majestic' sails the first of next week. You had better engage passage, and make your headquarters at Liverpool until we can cable you something definite."

       It was in this wise that Dolloff found himself scheduled for an ocean voyage and a stay of indefinite length upon the continent. In his existing state of mind he welcomed the change of scene gladly, and when he leaned over the rail of the "Majestic" a few days later, and watched New York harbor disappearing in the distance, he felt a certain satisfaction as he looked upon the blue waves that rolled between him and his troubles.

CHAPTER XIII.

       ABOUT a table in a dingy room of a New York tenement in the down-town section sat three men, talking at intervals in low tones. The room was illy lighted by the rays of a flaring kerosene lamp, and on the table stood a tall black bottle flanked by four dubious-looking glasses. By their actions and conversation it seemed that they were awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, and as the minutes slowly passed they grew visibly uneasy. At length one of the trio, a most villainous-looking fellow, drew the bottle towards him, and filling one of the glasses slowly drained it and set it down with a muttered curse.

       At that moment a quick rap was heard at the door, and it swung open to admit a fourth man, who carefully closed it behind him and turned the key in the lock.

       One of the men at the table looked at him with a scowl and said in ill-natured tones: "A devilish pretty time you've kept us waiting, Fairfax. You agreed to be here an hour ago."

       The newcomer, after glancing nervously about the room, took a seat at the table, and as he poured himself a drink from the bottle made answer: "And so I would have been, only I have spent the last hour in trying to shake off someone who has been following me. Just now, if he hasn't got tired of the game, he's cooling his heels in front of Burke's saloon, waiting for me to come out. I went in there, got the crowd between me and the front door, gave Burke the wink, and he let me through the cellar and out the back way. And now for business," drawing an oblong package from concealment beneath his coat, and placing it on the table. "You're sure this place is safe?"

       "Dead sure," responded one. "Scotty's on the outside, and he'll warn us if any danger shows up" ; whereupon the new comer removed the covering from the package, disclosing a black leather jewel-case. A chorus of deep-drawn breaths greeted his opening of the case, wherein lay on a bed of plush a necklace of sparkling diamonds, and many smaller ornaments. Fairfax held up the necklace for a moment, till the glowing gems seemed to fill the sordid room with light. Then he laid it upon the table.

       "It seems a pity," said he with a half sigh, "to destroy that beautiful setting, but it must be done."

       With that one of the other men produced several delicate tools from his pocket, and with deft fingers set about removing the diamonds from their setting. The stones of the necklace having been removed the smaller ornaments were served in like manner, the diamonds being dropped into a chamois bag and the gold piled in a little heap. During the whole operation, which took perhaps half an hour, hardly a word was spoken, every eye being fixed covetously on the sparkling pebbles, and every face distorted by the lust of greed.

       When the last diamond had been dropped in the bag Fairfax placed it carefully in an inner pocket, and drawing the bottle toward him filled a glass and held it aloft, saying: "Here's to success in disposing of the sparklers." The other three silently joined in the toast, and Fairfax buttoned his coat tightly about him and left the room and the building.

       When he emerged on the sidewalk he gave a quick, sharp glance about him, and seeing nothing to arouse a suspicion of being followed, set off briskly in the direction of Broadway.

       A moment later a keen-eyed, sharp-faced man stepped from the shelter of a nearby doorway and followed after, keeping a certain distance between himself and the man he was following. At every corner Fairfax glanced covertly over his shoulder, but the sleuth, seemingly divining the proper instant for concealment, would drop behind another pedestrian or into a convenient doorway, and so remained unobserved by his quarry.

       In this manner the chase continued for some distance, till at last Fairfax turned off on to Fourth Avenue, and ascending an elevated station, boarded an uptown train. When the sleuth divined his purpose he increased his own pace almost to a run, but blocked for a moment by a jam at the gateway, reached the platform only in time to have the gates slammed in his face, and see the train bearing the man he was pursuing disappear up the track.

       A week later a cab drove down to the dock of the trans-Atlantic liner "America," a few moments before the sailing of that craft, and a middle-aged, benevolent-appearing gentleman, apparently an Episcopal minister, stepped out and passed up the gang-plank. Evidently he was near-sighted, judging from the way in which he peered about through his gold-bound spectacles; at least, he seemed not to observe a sharp-faced individual who stood where he could scrutinize everyone who boarded the vessel. On reaching the deck he sought out a steward and asked to be shown to his stateroom.

       When the door had been safely bolted the clerical gentleman removed his spectacles, disclosing a pair of remarkably keen eyes — so keen, indeed, that it seemed strange he should need artificial aid to sight — and presently, opening his handbag, produced a flask of generous dimensions, and after holding it critically to the light, allowed a goodly portion of its contents to flow down his throat. Having in this manner provided against seasickness, he carefully felt of a little chamois bag filled with some hard substances that reposed in an inside pocket, and having lighted a delightfully fragrant cigar, reclined upon his berth and gave himself up to meditation, which, judging from the expression of satisfaction on his face, was far from displeasing.

       A few minutes later the warning bell rang, a fussy little tug began butting away at the "America's" bow, and the stately craft had started upon her voyage.

CHAPTER XIV.

       ON a drearily dismal morning Dolloff found himself in Liverpool, reading the American news in the morning Times over his bacon and eggs in a dingy coffee-house.

       Three weeks of wearying inaction followed, and then came the message he had been awaiting. The cablegram was in cipher, and the translation read:

       "James Fairfax believed to have sailed on 'America,' disguised as Episcopal minister, with stones in his possession."

       Up to this time Dolloff had not harbored the slightest suspicion that Fairfax was in any way connected with the diamond robbery, and was correspondingly amazed by the information the message conveyed. Nevertheless, he experienced a certain savage satisfaction in the thought that once again he was to pit his cunning against that of Fairfax, and grimly resolved that this time he should not escape.

       The message had contained no mention of his having a companion, and Dolloff, quickly grasping this fact, passed many bitter and unprofitable hours during the interim before the vessel's scheduled time of arrival, in vain speculation as to her present fate.

       When the "America" swung slowly around and slid gently up to her berth, Dolloff was waiting on the pier, with every sense alert, in readiness to closely scrutinize each of the passengers as they slowly passed down the gang-plank and were swallowed up in the pushing, shouting throng of cabbies, hotel runners and waiting friends.

       But look as sharply as he might, no person answering the description given in the cablegram passed down the gang-plank, and when the last passenger had left the vessel he went on board and sought out a steward. A modest tip refreshed that worthy's memory to such good purpose that Dolloff soon had opportunity of inspecting the stateroom occupied during the voyage by the clerical gentleman, but not the slightest trace of his presence remained. Evidently he had anticipated surveillance at the end of the voyage, and had taken steps to avoid it.

       Dolloff had felt confident that he would recognize Fairfax under any disguise that he might assume, and was correspondingly cast down by the knowledge that he had again, for the time at least, escaped. Had he been present an hour earlier in the corridor upon which the quondam minister's stateroom opened, he might have seen emerge therefrom a cockney of the most pronounced "sporty" type, who mingled with the second cabin passengers, and went ashore with the utmost nonchalance in due season.

       Fairfax had before now found it convenient to reside for a time in England, and with the knowledge thus gained at his disposal, experienced no difficulty in assuming the disguise that had baffled Dolloff. The latter, after assuring himself that Fairfax had really left the vessel, sought a quiet coffee-house nearby, and retiring to a quiet corner, over a cigar deliberated as to what course he should pursue; and when he had smoked the cigar to the end, rose with a well-defined plan outlined in his mind. Fairfax, to be sure, had the continent to choose from; but, barring unforeseen contingencies, he would in all likelihood choose some one of a certain limited number of cities as his base of operations while endeavoring to dispose of the jewels. Having eliminated the obviously unlikely places, it remained for Dolloff to begin his search at the point that would be most favorable for the prosecution of such an enterprise as Fairfax was embarked upon.

       During his three weeks' wait in Liverpool Dolloff had hobnobbed with certain fellow members of his craft to such good purpose that he had acquired a fairly accurate theoretical knowledge of the haunts of criminals of Fairfax's stamp upon the continent, and this knowledge he now resolved to put to practical test. As the first step in his plan of campaign he took the night mail to London, and on his arrival there proceeded to enlist the assistance of the Bow Street officials. Though it might have appeared to the uninitiated a forlorn hope, the accuracy of Dolloff's judgment was sustained — in part at least. In the criminal world there exists a society with limits as well defined as of that one occupying a higher social grade, and through the subtle freemasonry of this society the accession of a new member is soon known to all the rest. And in all criminal communities are to be found men — and women — who, in consideration of a certain degree of immunity from molestation, stand ready to afford the guardians of the public morals much valuable information.

       It was through this means that Dolloff, in the course of a few days, was put in possession of the knowledge that Fairfax was in London, but to discover his exact whereabouts proved a more difficult matter. He had appeared in certain localities frequented by his kind, enjoyed a brief season of sociability, and disappeared.

       He still, as Dolloff was informed, adhered to the disguise he had assumed before leaving the vessel, and as yet had apparently made no effort to dispose of the diamonds.

       By day and night Dolloff haunted such localities as he conceived Fairfax might appear in, and grew thin and haggard under the loss of sleep and the intense nervous strain.

       Evidently Fairfax surmised that he was being hunted, for after the game of hide-and-seek had consumed a week's time he slipped quietly away to Amsterdam, and his departure would have gone unnoticed but for a fortunate accident. As it was, two days had elapsed before Dolloff learned of his flitting, and followed after.

[To be continued.]

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS I. TO XIV.        ROGER DOLLOFF, a detective, while journeying to San Francisco to investigate the robbery of the Third National Bank, meets with serious injury in the wreck of the Overland Limited, and is nursed back to health by Marie Chartier, a passenger on the same train. He falls in love with, and marries her, and they resume the interrupted journey. The cashier, who has robbed the bank, fears betrayal by his accomplice and secretly and in disguise embarks on a sailing vessel bound for Panama. While Dolloff is conferring with the president of the bank, Marie is confronted by a man at their hotel, and faints from the shock of recognition. It is James Fairfax, her husband, whom she had believed dead when she married Dolloff. He is a gambler and worse, and importunes her to cast in her lot with him again, a proposition which she scorns. Dolloff, entering the hotel as Fairfax leaves it, recognizes the latter, and having his suspicions aroused by this chance meeting with one whom he knows to be a rogue, soon establishes the fact that he had a hand in the bank robbery. Dolloff goes to South America in pursuit of the fleeing cashier, and stumbles upon his camping-place in the forest. In Dolloff's absence Marie is abducted by Fairfax. Dolloff captures the cashier, and on his return learns of Marie's disappearance, and that she is the wife of Fairfax. He follows them to Georgia and locates them in the company of a band of moonshiners, whose apprehension he brings about, only to find that Fairfax and Marie have disappeared. Shortly after his return to New York, Mrs. Godfrey Morgan, a wealthy woman, is robbed of $50,000 worth of diamonds, and Dolloff is engaged to recover them. He goes to Liverpool, and after three weeks of waiting receives a cablegram saying that Fairfax is believed to have sailed with the jewels in his possession. He gets on the track of Fairfax in London, learns that the latter has gone to Amsterdam,and follows him there.

CHAPTER XV.

       TO the quaint old city on the Zuyder Zee there went Dolloff, believing that at last he was drawing the toils about Fairfax beyond the possibility of escape.

       Being himself an excellent sailor, had his mind not been engrossed with weightier matters, he would have found food for much quiet amusement in contemplating the varying degrees of misery to which many of his fellow passengers were reduced during the voyage across the channel. That capricious stretch of water, on the occasion of his crossing, amply sustained its well-established reputation for producing acute discomfort, and stowed away in every available corner of the packet boat were disconsolate passengers in various stages of mal de mer.

       The usual bridal couple were there, paying tribute for the time being to Neptune instead of Hymen; the always in evidence British matron with her rugs, her shawls and woebegone expression; the French maid, all her coquettish airs for the nonce forgotten, huddled in a disconsolate heap on a steamer chair by the rail, with a greenish pallor showing through the rouge; the seasoned traveller, with cigar alight, stalking in lonely state along the deck; and the boat's attendants doing their puny best toward alleviating the universal misery.

       Dolloff, oblivious to his surroundings, took counsel of his cigar and chafed futilely at the slowness of the passage.

       Arrived at Calais, a general scramble for terra firma ensued, and an hour later he found himself the sole occupant of a first-class compartment of a train speeding toward Amsterdam.

       It was late at night when he reached that city, and choosing the hotel nearest at hand retired to rest but not to sleep, save for a brief fitful slumber in the early morning hours.

       Thoughts of Marie came to haunt his pillow, and abandoning the futile wooing of the drowsy god he went over in detail every circumstance of their romantic meeting, her faithful nursing when the railroad wreck had thrown him a helpless charge upon her care, his brief wooing, the unconventional wedding in the hotel parlor, and the few short weeks of happiness that followed.

       Despite the apparent evidence to the contrary he could not convince himself that Marie had been guilty of intentional wrongdoing. Indeed, he did not try, but sought rather to evolve a reasonable explanation of her conduct. But the more he thought, the deeper he became involved in the maze of useless conjecture, and at last, banishing the subject from his mind with a determined effort, he fell asleep.

       Hardly had the slow-moving wheels of business begun to revolve in the morning when Dolloff presented himself at the private office of the leading diamond merchant of the city, and laying his credentials before that deliberately cautious person, he stated the object of his quest.

       "The stones have not been brought to me," said the diamond merchant, when he had compared the list of missing gems with the entries in a leather-covered book that he produced from the massive safe. "And " he continued, "it is not likely that they will be. Stolen jewels are usually taken to the smaller dealers to be quietly disposed of or else to some obscure workman to be recut. In this case, as many of the stones are comparatively small, it is probable that they have been sold in separate parcels outright to some of the smaller dealers, or put in the hands of a diamond broker for negotiation. This list," and he handed his visitor a printed slip, "contains the name of every registered dealer and broker in Amsterdam, and these that I have checked in pencil are the ones that I would advise you to call on first. Leave your address with me, and if I learn anything of the stones I will notify you at once." A few minutes more of conversation, and Dolloff bowed himself from the diamond merchant's presence to continue his search.

       At the second and third places at which he called the stones had not been seen. The fourth place on his list proved to be the shop of an independent cutter on an obscure street to which he found his way with some little difficulty. As he opened the door to enter, a man, apparently a Frenchman of the middle class, walking briskly toward the shop from the opposite direction, stopped suddenly, swore vigorously under his breath in very good English, and when Dolloff had entered the shop and stood waiting at the tiny counter, advanced to the window, cast one quick glance within and hurried quickly away, looking back nervously over his shoulder before turning the first corner.

       Here Dolloff experienced some trouble in making his errand known. The stolid-faced Teuton laid aside his magnifying glass, straightened slowly up from the work in which he was engaged, and replied to his visitor's greeting in a series of gutturals that bore no meaning to Dolloff's ear.

       After gazing helplessly at each other for a moment, the Dutchman, apparently seized by an inspiration, smiled broadly, turned toward an open door at the rear of the shop and lifted up his voice in a call of "Gretchen!"

       A clatter of tinware in the rear room ceased, and a moment later a red-cheeked girl appeared, with two long braids of yellow hair hanging down her back, and wiping her wet hands upon an immense gingham apron that enveloped her in its capacious folds. The diamond cutter beamed broadly upon Dolloff and waved his hand toward the girl as though transferring to her the burden of the business in hand. To her, then, Dolloff turned his attention and made known his errand. The girl's familiarity with English evidently left much to the imagination, but with the assistance of sundry smiles and nods and explanatory motions Dolloff at last made his meaning clear, the diamond-cutter meanwhile gazing proudly upon his offspring, as though he considered her a prodigy of learning.

       Father and daughter then consulted briefly together, and the latter, turning to Dolloff, announced, "Mine Fader, he may haf seen dose jewels, and he may haf not. If you was bring mit you an officer he will show you what he haf," and Dolloff, forced to be content with this, departed in search of an interpreter and a representative of the law. Thus reinforced, an hour later he returned to the little shop, and the diamond-cutter, bringing forth a little leather bag from the stout safe behind his bench, spread its contents upon the counter.

       A hasty inspection showed that the stolen gems were found.

CHAPTER XVI.

       IN the months that had passed since her abduction by Fairfax, life for Marie had seemed one long nightmare. When she had regained consciousness and found herself lying upon a couch in a strange room with Fairfax bending over her she would have welcomed death with resignation. When at last she rose weakly to a sitting position he dropped into a nearby chair and regarded her for a time in silence. "You see," he said finally, "that I keep my word."

       She regarded him with half-dazed eyes and did not answer. The effects of the chloroform had left her weak and dizzy, and a terrible weight seemed to be pressing upon her brain. "You are in my power, now," continued Fairfax, "and I shall take very good care that you do not escape me. If you will be sensible you shall have nothing to complain of. If you try any game on me—" he shrugged his shoulders. "Now, I have a proposition to make to you," he continued. "I am interested in a little matter that requires the presence of a woman. Not to take any active part in the affair, but to act as hostess at a few little dinners that I shall tender to a certain party. The woman must be supposed to be my wife, and must not only be good looking, but irreproachable in manner. Not every woman could assume the part to suit my requirements. I pay you the compliment of saying that none could assume it as well as yourself," and he bowed ironically. "You have, you will remember, played the same role before." She writhed under the taunt and gazed at him with hate and fear flaming in her eyes.

       "The proposition that I have to make," he went on, "is this: for the next three months you will, to outward seeming, appear as my wife, and lend your presence on such occasions as I require. I will ask nothing further from you, and at the expiration of that time you may go your way if you so desire. Wait a moment," he raised a warning hand as Marie was about to scornfully reject his proposition. "You are now completely in my power. That door is locked and the key is in my pocket. The occupants of this house are my friends. You might shriek yourself dumb, and no one would come to your assistance. If your presence was not necessary to my plans I would not offer you these terms. If you do not accept them you will have yourself to thank for what follows. You are legally my wife, and you have been guilty of bigamy in marrying that detective — curse him! If you are sensible you will do what I ask of you. Which is it to be — yes, or no?"

       Marie cast one despairing glance about the room. "I accept," she said at last, "but if you do not carry out your agreement I will kill myself — or you."

       Fairfax arose with a satisfied look on his evil face, unlocked the door and passed out, saying before he closed it: "Make yourself at home. We will stay here to-night, and leave the city in the morning. I'll have your breakfast sent to you at eight o'clock, and you must be ready to leave at nine."

       When the door closed behind him, Marie sprang to it, turned the key, and throwing herself upon the couch, burst into a passion of despairing tears.

       Four days later, accompanied by Fairfax, she found herself in New York, installed in outwardly respectable state in a furnished flat temporarily secured as a setting for Fairfax's latest scheme of villainy. What this scheme was, she did not know. Another man, evidently an accomplice, came often to the flat and was closeted with Fairfax sometimes for hours. In her new surroundings Marie moved about in a half-dazed manner. Some mysterious power seemed to have darkened her faculties, and on the occasions when Fairfax required her to preside as hostess — with but a single guest, a well-dressed young man who grew boisterously talkative over the wine and appeared to look upon Fairfax as a guide, philosopher and friend — she sat at the head of the table in stately silence, dallying with her food and paying but slight attention to the conversation. She knew that some plot of rascality was being worked out before her eyes, but the details and the ultimate object in view escaped her. Sometimes she experienced a vague pity for the young man, who had been introduced to her as a nephew of the wealthy Mrs. Godfrey Morgan. At other times, when he was plainly under the influence of the wine that Fairfax poured for him with lavish hand, her pity turned to disgust. But mostly she went about like a silent ghost, dreaming of Dolloff and trying to picture to herself what he would do when he returned to San Francisco and found that she had disappeared.

       She knew that her slightest act was watched, that nothing she did escaped the eye of Fairfax or the servant who was evidently his tool. Writing materials were kept care fully beyond her reach, and when by subterfuge she succeeded in securing some and wrote a long, impassioned letter to Dolloff, she was at a loss regarding how to send it. Finally, thinking herself unobserved, she bribed a boy to drop it in the nearest box, only to find the letter lying unopened beside her plate at the next meal time.

       Then came the sudden trip to Georgia and the return to the flat in New York after a brief stay.

       When the three months of her semi-captivity were ended, Fairfax had come to her and said, "You are at liberty to go now if you want to, but if you will stick to me, I swear I'll be good to you. Come, Marie, don't be a fool. You know you can't go back to Dolloff now; why not stay with me?"

       She looked up at him with slumberous hatred, too spiritless to do more than answer, "I shall try to get so far from you that you'll never find me again."

       Fairfax looked at her a moment in silence, shrugged his shoulders and turned away. "As you like," said he with apparent carelessness, and Marie had gone forth to take up her life anew.

CHAPTER XVII.

       WHEN the necessary legal formalities had been complied with, Dolloff found himself in possession of the jewels, and having deposited them for the time being in a safe place, cabled the news of their recovery to headquarters; and this much being accomplished, set himself to hunt down the thief.

       But, though he could not know it, the man he sought was already practically safe beyond pursuit. It was Fairfax himself who had chanced to observe Dolloff entering the diamond-cutter's shop, and recognizing the detective at once, had had a brief mental vision of grim stone walls looming up before him. Under the stress of the moral cowardice that at times affects the most hardened rogue, he had instantly taken flight, not caring for the time being whither his path lay, so long as he could put a reassuring distance between himself and his pursuer. Hence it was that the close watch kept upon the diamond-cutter's shop, and the surveillance of every avenue of escape from the city while a careful search for the thief was being made, were alike without results.

       Dolloff had reluctantly acknowledged to himself that Fairfax had again escaped when the answer to his cablegram arrived. It was brief, and the instructions it conveyed did not accord with the impulse that actuated its recipient.

       "Return with stones at once." So it ran, and though at the outset he had been instructed that the recovery of the jewels was the chief point to be considered, he had hoped to apprehend Fairfax as well. But the order was imperative and must be obeyed. So it was with an ill grace that he relinquished the search and started on the return journey.

       At Liverpool he found that he must wait two days for the sailing of the steamer, and after having booked his passage passed the intervening time in roaming about the city.

       Had he known what effect his presence in the booking office produced upon a certain old gentleman with whom he almost touched elbows, he would have been somewhat startled, and more than a little elated. Had he only known it, the man he sought stood by his side for one short second, then slipped quietly away and was lost in the crowd.

       Fairfax, for a brief period of his existence, had aspired to histrionic honors, and had he chosen to continue in the path of rectitude might have risen in time to an eminent place in the profession. As it was, he often applied the experience so gained to great advantage to himself. When it seemed expedient for a time to sink his own individuality he could assume any one of a half dozen characters and play the part with a thoroughness that left slight chance of discovery.

       So it was that the smooth-faced, white-haired old gentleman dressed in rusty black, and wearing a pair of green goggles, the very personification of a German music teacher, attracted the merest passing glance from Dolloff when they came almost face to face in the booking office.

       The old gentleman was booked for the second cabin, and despite his sudden perturbation at Dolloff's advent, heard with a quick sense of relief, the latter's request for a first-class ticket.

       Neither had prefigured the turn of the wheel of chance that should bring them for 6 days within the narrow limits of an ocean steamer. Fairfax, when the first shock of the chance encounter had passed, retired to a nearby coffee house, ordered a pipe and a mug of ale, and with these comforting companions deliberated as to what course he should pursue. The advantage, for the present, was clearly on his side. Forewarned in this case was certainly forearmed. He could of course have his ticket changed for the next sailing, but the more he thought, the more he became impressed with the conviction that it might be a measure of safety to return on the same vessel with the detective, providing he could escape detection during the voyage. Of his ability to do this he felt confident, especially as Dolloff was to go first-class, while he was booked for the second cabin. It was not likely that his presence on the same vessel would be suspected, and there was little chance of their meeting during the voyage. Even then, he felt secure in his disguise, and once past the terrors of the landing stage he would be in comparative safety.

       He knew that there could be no question of getting the gems again into his possession. Dolloff would not be such a fool as to leave any loophole for their disappearance, and if he did the game was too dangerous to play in such close quarters. But — and Fairfax's eyes narrowed to the merest points of vengeful light behind the green goggles — first-class passengers sometimes took a fancy to stray within the limits assigned to their less fortunate brothers, and people had been known to fall overboard on dark nights — with the assistance of a helping hand at the proper moment.

       For a long time Fairfax stared intently into the depths of the empty mug before him. What the picture was that unfolded itself before his mental vision, no one may know, but he rose at last with the determined air of one who has found the solution of a difficult problem.

(To be concluded in the January issue.)

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS I. TO XVII.        ROGER DOLLOFF, a detective, while journeying to San Francisco to investigate the robbery of the Third National Bank, meets with serious injury in the wreck of the Overland Limited, and is nursed back to health by Marie Chartier, a passenger on the same train. He falls in love with, and marries her, and they resume the interrupted journey. The cashier who has robbed the bank fears betrayal by his accomplice, and secretly and in disguise embarks on a sailing vessel bound for Panama. While Dolloff is conferring with the president of the bank, Marie is confronted by a man at their hotel, and faints from the shock of recognition. It is James Fairfax, her husband, whom she had believed dead when she married Dolloff. He is a gambler, and worse, and importunes her to cast in her lot with him again, a proposition which she scorns. Dolloff, entering the hotel as Fairfax leaves it, recognises the latter, and having his suspicions aroused by this chance meeting with one whom he knows to be a rogue, soon establishes the fact that he had a hand in the bank robbery. Dolloff goes to South America in pursuit of the fleeing cashier, and stumbles upon his camping-place in the forest. In Dolloff's absence Marie is abducted by Fairfax. Dolloff captures the cashier, and on his return learns of Marie's disappearance, and that she is the wife of Fairfax. He follows them to Georgia and locates them in the company of a band of moonshiners, whose apprehension he brings about, only to find that Fairfax and Marie have disappeared. Shortly after his return to New York. Mrs. Godfrey Morgan, a wealthy woman, is robbed of $50,000 worth of diamonds, and Dolloff is engaged to recover them. He goes to Liverpool, and after three weeks of waiting receives a cablegram saying that Fairfax is believed to have sailed with the jewels in his possession. He gets on the track of Fairfax in London, learns that the latter has gone to Amsterdam, and follows him there. After some search Dolloff finds the shop where Fairfax has left the jewels to be recut, and having recovered them, is recalled to America by a cablegram. In the booking office at Liverpool he comes face to face with Fairfax, but the latter being disguised, he fails to recognise him. They both engage passage by the same steamer.

CHAPTER XVIII.

       DOLLOFF'S first care on going aboard the steamer that was to carry him back to America was to deposit the jewels in the safe in the captain's cabin. This done, he breathed a sigh of relief, and set about making himself at home in his stateroom for the voyage.

       Fairfax had been among the first of the passengers to come on board, and from a point on the lower deck, well screened from observation, had kept a vigilant watch upon the stream of passengers. When he had seen Dolloff, a half hour before the time of sailing, walk up the gangplank, he turned away, and his eyes glittered ominously behind the blue goggles. In the days that had passed since he had touched elbows with Dolloff in the booking office, he had brooded constantly over the foiling of his villainy, until his chief desire had come to be for revenge. He regarded Dolloff as his Nemesis, and resolved that the detective should never leave the steamer alive.

       But a cause, almost ridiculous in view of the possible tragedy it averted, operated to effectually frustrate any plan that Fairfax might have had. It chanced to be a particularly stormy voyage. By the next morning after sailing, the vessel was pitching on a waste of wildly tossing waters under a leaden sky, and a mere handful of the passengers responded to the breakfast gong. While Dolloff, with the collar of his ulster turned up and his cap set firmly on his head, paced the promenade deck, Fairfax lay in his berth enduring the agonies of a particularly severe attack of seasickness.

       So it happened that on the fourth day out he crawled on deck for the first time, weak and white, and with no thought save an intense longing to set foot on firm land once more. And when the vessel, at the end of the voyage, swung slowly up to the pier head, he waited until he had seen Dolloff disappear in the crowd, then walked down the gangplank and was swallowed up in New York's seething maelstrom.

       Immediately upon landing Dolloff reported at headquarters, turned over the recovered jewels to the chief, and greatly to that individual's surprise, formally tendered his resignation.

       "I don't understand why you should want to leave us, Dolloff," said the chief. "You stand at the head of the profession; there's not a man in it with a better record than you have, and you certainly can't expect to make more money at anything else."

       "No," responded Dolloff; "it's not more money that I'm looking for, but I want to get out of the business. I'm sick of it. I thought it all over coming across on the boat, and decided that I was becoming too much like a human bloodhound. I'm going to throw it all up and try for a place on some newspaper. My experience as a detective ought to help me there, and I'll get to know more honest men and pure women. I haven't quite lost all my faith in the goodness of humanity in general yet, but it has been severely tested, and I want a chance to see the better side for a while."

       "Well, if you must," said the chief; "but I am more than sorry to lose you. If you really want to take up newspaper work, I think I can help you to a position. The city editor of the Express is a friend of mine. If you like, I'll introduce you, and I think he'll give you a chance."

       "I should appreciate it very much," was Dolloff's answer, and so it was settled.

       With Dolloff's introduction to the city editor of the Express there began for him a new life, filled with engrossing interests. The manifold duties of a reporter were alluring to him, and the new phases of life that he constantly observed, each had their charm. The abrupt transition of his occupation afforded him a new perspective of life that quickened his perceptions and broadened his grasp upon material facts. His assignments at first were unimportant — routine work, police-court cases and small fires, accidents and the like, varied occasionally by being detailed to assist a more experienced man on assignments requiring help, were what fell to his lot. But all the time he was learning in the surest of all schools — experience.

       He lived in the newspaper atmosphere, gradually absorbing the tenets of the profession, learning what constituted news, how to set about obtaining it, and how to write it in a way to suit the city editor, who seemed to be a confirmed misanthrope, with a deep-seated grudge toward reporters generally, and green ones particularly.

       At the first he had harbored a dim idea that reporters stood on corners or wandered about the streets waiting for things to happen, and was correspondingly amazed at the prescience of the city editor, who apparently knew everything going on in every quarter of the city, before it had transpired.

       His daily study of the assignment book gave him fresh cause for wonder, and when he found his name set down opposite a drowning case on the river front, or a fight in the tenement district, he felt a sudden sense of importance, and a pleasant little glow of elation would pass over him when he spread open the early edition, damp from the press, and saw one of his items on the first page.

       The fact that the desk-man's blue pencil ruthlessly reduced his half-column story to a paragraph, sometimes caused him a moment's discomfiture, but he reflected that all reporters had the same experience to start with, and bore it philosophically.

       His preconceived ideas of the relative importance of things, too, received a rude shock when he realized that the city editor attached more value to the story of a questionable transaction by the head of the sewer department than to the account of a virtuous young sewing-girl's vain struggle against starvation in a lonely garret.

       As the months slipped away, and Dolloff grew more familiar with the duties of his position, he found that his copy more often escaped the chastening blue pencil, and he began to take his place among the older reporters on equal terms.

       His thoughts dwelt often on Marie, but he had come to believe that she had passed forever out of his life, and tried to resign himself to the inevitable.

CHAPTER XIX.

       ONE winter's night when Dolloff had been two years with the Express he sat in the reporters' room, his day's assignments finished, enjoying the warmth and a cigar, while Blodgett, the police-court man, told of "beats" he had made in days gone by.

       Across the hallway through the open door they could see the night editor at his desk, elbow deep in proofs and copy, and smoke curling from his pipe in a thick blue cloud. Upstairs in the composing room a score of busy workers were rushing five-line takes into type for the first edition.

       The telephone bell over the night editor's desk jangled loudly, and a moment later he swung around in his chair and beckoned to Dolloff.

       "There's an accident case up to the City Hospital," said he, without removing the pipe from his mouth, when Dolloff had crossed the hall. "Get the full particulars for the last edition."

       It was a bitter night. The biting wind swooped down upon him as he emerged in the open air, strove for a moment to drive him back to shelter, and then swirled its boisterous way down the street, whistling around corners, rattling unfastened blinds with its icy fingers, pausing at doorways in search of homeless wanderers, and then on down to the river front, where the storm king held high revel on the frozen waste.

       He bent his head to meet the blast, and made his way along the nearly deserted streets. Twenty minutes of brisk walking and the grim brick front of the hospital loomed before him. He ascended the broad steps leading to the entrance, and a sharp ring at the bell gained him instant admittance.

       The priest who had been sent for to ease the sufferer's last hours was just before him. An attendant relieved them of their overcoats, and led the way in silence to Ward six. As they passed down the space between the rows of cots more than one pain-tortured face strove pathetically to greet the priest's coming with a welcoming smile. He paused once or twice to bestow a low-toned word of comfort, or lay his cool, firm hand for a moment on a fevered brow. The spirit of an universal brotherhood shone from his smoothly shaven face. To him the sufferers lying there were of no creed — only sorely stricken creatures needing help.

       At the last cot he paused and gazed silently and thoughtfully at the blotched and bloated face upon the pillow. The shifting, bloodshot eyes that met his glance for but a moment held in their depths a wild gleam of animal-like terror. The ashen, sensuous lips quivered nervously. One toil-roughened hand clutched at the white coverings, as though its owner strove to draw back from the dark tide that was creeping near. The attendant silently drew a screen about the cot and placed a couple of chairs beside it.

       The priest gently released the clutching fingers from the bedclothes, and took the hot hand in his firm and reassuring grasp. "My poor man," said he, "your pain and toil and trouble is nearly ended. If you have aught upon your mind that gives you fear, let me take the burden from you; and by God's mercy you will find forgiveness for your sins." The wandering glance of the dying man sought the priest's compassionate face.

       "I am afraid to die," he mournfully whispered. "I have sinned so much. There can be no forgiveness for such as me."

       "God's mercy is infinite," replied the priest, gently. "There is no sin that, truly repented of, will not be forgiven."

       The doctor, on his round of the wards, stopped at the cot for a moment, touched the patient's wrist, said a few words to the white-capped nurse; then turned to the priest, saying in a tone too low for the sufferer's ear: "He will last till midnight."

       "I will stay," responded the priest quietly, and the doctor passed on to the next ward.

       The priest sat holding the dying man's hand in a firm clasp, while the clock slowly ticked off the seconds he had yet to live. As the night wore on he dropped into a troubled doze, broken by spasmodic tremors, and muttering broken sentences as his scared brain recalled the past. Once he whispered "mother" in a tone more tender than the rest, and it seemed for an instant that some kindly spirit smoothed the tell-tale seams from the bloated face, making it almost fair to look upon. Then he woke, and glared about like a hunted beast, and hoarsely muttered "Water!" But ere the nurse could place the goblet to his lips delirium seized him and he cowered back in the bed as though to hide from a dreaded presence.

       Dolloff drew forth his watch. Eleven o'clock — the end was very near. The nurse lifted the patient's head and poured a few drops of water in his parched throat. Soon his labored breathing grew easier; the bloodshot eyes sought the priest's face with a calmer gaze; and then he spoke — slowly, and with painful effort, as his strength grew less.

       "There is a woman," said the dying man, "who believes herself to be my wife. I deceived her with a mock marriage and then deserted her. Believing me to be dead she married another man, and when we met by accident the shock nearly drove her crazy. She refused to return to me, though she thought I was her husband, and hid herself from the other man, though she loved him. She has a child — a little girl — and I would die easier if I could know that the tangle would be straightened out."

       He paused and gasped for breath, with his fast-glazing eyes fixed beseechingly upon the kindly face of the priest, who bent over him and said: "Tell me the man's name. I will search him out and see that justice is done."

       Dolloff, with clenched hands and set lips, leaned forward to hear the rest. With one last effort the dying man whispered: "His name is Dolloff — Roger Dolloff," and then his head fell back, and what his staring eyes beheld no man may know.

       "When Dolloff emerged from the hospital the moon was floating in all its radiance above the city. The bell in a distant steeple tolled the midnight hour. His brain was in a whirl with the knowledge that had just come to him. In the disfigured, pain-distorted face of the dying man he had failed to recognize Fairfax, but now that he had learned the truth his first thought was of Marie.

CHAPTER XX.

       DOLLOFF'S sole object in life now was to find Marie, and with no clue to work upon the task bid fair to be a difficult one. Advertisements inserted in the personal columns of the metropolitan dailies brought a number of replies, but in every instance careful investigation disclosed that the writers were either at fault or were seeking to gain reward for knowledge which they did not possess.

       For several weeks Dolloff devoted every waking moment to the problem and grew wan and haggard with suspense. Then, through merest accident he stumbled upon a clue that led him to the belief that in Chicago he would find a relative of Marie who might be able to tell him where she was. He started for that city at once, and within a few days of his arrival there located the person he was seeking, and learned that Marie was living in a small New England town.

       The reaction from the mental strain of the past few weeks, added to a severe cold which he had contracted, brought on a fit of sickness, so that a month later, after battling through an attack of brain fever, he awoke one morning to find himself in a cot in the Chicago General Hospital, with a white-capped nurse by his side.

       Through the weeks of his convalescence he lay and thought of Marie and revolved plans for the future. The thing that worried him the most was the ever-recurring thought of the child that Fairfax had mentioned. Who was its father? At last he was able to leave the hospital, and still white and weak, hurried eastward.

       It was early evening when he reached the little town. He walked rapidly along the quiet street and knocked at the door of the neat cottage to which he had been directed. A dressmaker's sign in the window, thrown into relief by the lamplight from within, announced what means Marie had adopted for a livelihood.

       When the door opened and he stood face to face for the first time in years with the woman he had never ceased to love, he was impressed with a certain new dignity that she seemed to have acquired. Her face showed traces of sorrow and hard experience, but it bore a softened look that beautified her.

       She greeted him simply and without apparent surprise, and motioned for him to enter.

       "I have expected you," she said. She led the way to a little sitting-room, and when they were seated, waited for him to speak. She seemed quite calm, while he strove in vain for composure.

       As the thought came to him of the life she had led, and what the present moment boded for her, a sudden great pity was joined to the love that surged in his heart for her. He forgot for the time what he had suffered through her, and remembered only that she was a woman, and that to her the world had been very hard.

       "Marie," he said at last, "you know why I am here."

       "Yes," she replied in a low voice, "you have come to ask the truth from me — and you shall have it. I have learned that Fairfax is dead — I thought him dead when I married you. I have also learned that I was — not his wife. I know what you must think of me — and it is only just, but" — her voice trembled with emotion, "I am only a woman, after all, and for all I have made you suffer I have suffered tenfold. I lay in the darkness at night thinking — thinking, till it seems as though I must go mad. The ghost of my ruined life rises up in the midnight hours and taunts me with my shame."

       Her calmness was gone. She buried her face in her hands, and long, dry sobs shook her violently. Then she lifted her face and looked at him with eyes that held the agony of a tortured soul.

       "Roger," she said, "you are not a woman, and you cannot know — but when little Mabel puts her soft, dimpled arms around my neck, when I kiss her goodnight and lay her down to sleep, it feels as though a knife was in my heart. I fancy sometimes that the angels will not let her stay with me, and I steal to her little cot and listen for her breathing till my heart stops beating, and kneel there for hours sometimes, praying God that she may never know that her mother has sinned."

       She was weeping unrestrainedly now, and Dolloff was struggling for composure.

       "Marie," he asked gently, "is she — my daughter?"

       She lifted her head and gazed at him with honest eyes.

       "She is," she answered simply.

       He was deeply moved. For a time neither spoke. Then suddenly she fell on her knees before him and gazed imploringly in his face.

       "You will not take her from me?" she begged. "You will not take away the only thing I have to cling to — the only bit of Heaven that I have ever known."

       She was clasping his hands now in an agony of supplication, unmindful of her loosened hair and the tears that streamed down her cheeks.

       At this moment there came to Dolloff an understanding of the depths of a mother's love, and he knew that to the woman before him the child's love meant redemption.

       "I will not part you from her," he said.

       A long sigh parted her lips, and her head fell forward against his knee. She had fainted.

       When, a little later, he stood looking down for the first time on the sweet face of his daughter, her dimpled cheeks flushed with slumber and her lips like crumpled rose-leaves, his eyes were filled with tears. Touching his lips lightly to her golden hair, he turned to the woman who stood, softly weeping, at his side. Their eyes met — his filled with a deep compassion and a dawning sense of the responsibility that rested on him — hers with a mother's love and a humility that spiritually uplifted her.

       He held out his arms.

       "Marie," he said softly, "the past is dead. We will live for our child."

[THE END.]