NICK CARTER STORIES

_Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post
Office, by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Ave., New York. Copyright,
1915, by_ STREET & SMITH. _O. G. Smith and G. C. Smith, Proprietors._


Terms to NICK CARTER STORIES Mail Subscribers.

(_Postage Free._)

Single Copies or Back Numbers, 5c. Each.

  3 months          65c.
  4 months          85c.
  6 months         $1.25
  One year          2.50
  2 copies one year 4.00
  1 copy two years  4.00

=How to Send Money=--By post-office or express money order, registered
letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by
currency, coin, or postage stamps in ordinary letter.

=Receipts=--Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change
of number on your label. If not correct you have not been properly
credited, and should let us know at once.

=No. 143.= NEW YORK, June 5, 1915. =Price Five Cents.=




THE SULTAN’S PEARLS;

Or, NICK CARTER’S PORTO RICO TRAIL.

Edited by CHICKERING CARTER.




CHAPTER I.

THE MAN WHO WAS LOST.


“Man overboard!”

Nick Carter--known to the captain and crew of the tramp steamer
_Cherokee_ as Sykes, the bos’n--heard this shout, taken up by man
after man, as he lay stretched out on the foc’s’le head, in the early
morning, just as the ship nosed her way into San Juan harbor, on the
northern coast of Porto Rico.

The thrilling warning that somebody has fallen into the sea, which
always sends a shock through both crew and passengers whenever heard,
does not permit any ordinary person to remain quietly dozing.

The famous detective was one of the first to rush over to the side of
the ship when the alarm had been given.

Close by him were his two assistants, Chick and Patsy Garvan, who, in
the rôles of common sailors, had come down to Porto Rico to help him
get back the fortune in jewels which had been stolen from Stephen Reed,
the well-known New York millionaire.

“Who is it, chief?” asked Patsy, forcing his way to the front.

“I haven’t heard.”

“One of the crew, I suppose?” hazarded Chick.

“No doubt. There is only one passenger on board now, Paul Clayton. It
isn’t he, for there he is, behind you.”

Meanwhile, under orders from Captain Bill Lawton himself, two life
rings, each with some thirty fathoms of line attached, had been hurled
over in the direction of where the drowning man might be expected to be.

It was too dark to make out plainly anything in the water, but a sharp
lookout was kept for an hour, until the vessel reached her anchorage
and the “mud hooks” were let go.

“Well, we couldn’t do any better,” grunted Captain Lawton, through his
shaggy mustache, as he and his big, two-fisted first mate, Van Cross,
stood together on the bridge. “We might have a roll call of the crew. I
don’t know who it was went over. I reckon it wasn’t anybody who might
have become President of the United States, nor nothing like that.”

The saturnine skipper gave vent to a husky “Haw-haw!” at his own joke,
and Van Cross joined in with an equally raucous guffaw.

Nick Carter was the only person on board the _Cherokee_ who thought of
a certain possibility which would attach more importance to the falling
off the vessel of the man than its commander had supposed.

“Patsy!” whispered Nick. “Go to Mr. Clayton’s cabin and see if that
suit case of his, containing the Reed jewelry, is safe.”

“I can’t see it unless Clayton is there,” objected Patsy.

“Naturally. But he is there. I saw him go down just now. You may tell
him I sent you to inquire.”

“Who shall I say? Sykes?”

“Of course. I have no other name on the _Cherokee_.”

As Patsy Garvan disappeared to obey his chief, although without
understanding what it all meant, Nick Carter beckoned to Chick, and the
two went down a forward hatch.

“What’s the idea, chief?” asked Chick.

“I want to see that the prisoners are secure, Chick. It has always been
difficult to keep John Garrison Rayne behind the bars--except when he
is inside the stone walls of a State’s prison--and I have not much
faith in the place they have him in on the _Cherokee_.”

“The same about his man French, I suppose?”

“French is an insignificant scoundrel,” returned Nick. “He is entirely
under Rayne’s influence. I dare say he regrets that he ever was
persuaded to come on this ship--to act as assistant engineer and to do
what he could toward robbing Clayton of the Reed jewelry.”

“The whole case strikes me as curious,” observed Chick. “To begin
with, the robbery of Stephen Reed was traced directly to Paul Clayton,
the passenger they call Miles.”

“I know, Chick. But I don’t want that talked about.”

“Nobody’s talking about it,” rejoined Chick. “Except to you. Of course,
I think enough of Clayton--and his sweetheart, Lethia Ford--to be glad
you are letting him go. But that isn’t all. If there should be any
hitch about the delivery of the loot to Stephen Reed, it might put you
in a bad position.”

Chick spoke with a gravity and directness that no one else would have
ventured on with Nick Carter. But as the principal assistant of the
great detective he had gained the right to advise with his chief, and
the latter valued his counsel.

“There will not be any hitch,” answered Nick positively. “Paul Clayton
has kept a constant eye on his suit case ever since we got it away from
Rayne the other day.”

“Rayne nearly had it, in the engine room, that time,” remarked Chick,
with a shrug.

“I cannot admit that,” was the detective’s quick negative. “He had
stolen the suit case, jewelry and all, from Clayton’s stateroom, it is
true. Also, he had stowed it away in the engine room. But, unless he
got it off the ship, of what use could it ever have been to him?”

Chick shook his head dubiously.

“He’s as cunning as any old-time Indian, and you can’t tell what he
might have done. No wonder they call him the Apache.”

“He is called the Apache partly because he is so ruthless when pursuing
any object,” said Nick. “Remember that. I don’t believe I ever knew
another white man with quite so cruel a disposition. He neither asks
nor gives quarter. I give him credit for being a fighter. Only, like
the Indian warrior of thirty or forty years ago, he is not satisfied
with merely overcoming his foe. He wants to torture and kill him, too.
But, come on, Chick! We’ll take a look at the door of his glory hole,
anyhow. I don’t suppose it was Rayne who jumped or fell overboard just
now. But I want to make sure.”

Chick was a few paces ahead of his chief as they turned a corner in a
narrow passage, lighted by an oil lantern swinging from the ceiling,
and it was Chick who exploded in a shout of astonishment and dismay.

“Chief! He’s gone!”

“Who?”

“Rayne!”

Nick Carter required only one glance at the open door of the confined
space used as a prison cell on the _Cherokee_ to understand that
the man who had gone overboard was really John Garrison Rayne, the
international crook, known as the Apache.

There were three cells in a row. When not employed as prisons they were
used as storerooms for rope, spare canvas, and similar material. Now
one was full of such stuff, the second was locked, and the third stood
open.

“Well, it doesn’t so much matter,” remarked Nick Carter, when satisfied
that Rayne had got away. “Of course he dived off the ship and swam to
shore. He may hang about San Juan. But most likely he will get away as
soon as there is a ship sailing that suits him. We have the comfort of
knowing that he failed to steal the Reed jewelry, and that is the main
point, after all. Come on, Chick! We’ll go on deck.”

Hardly had they got there when they heard Captain Lawton raging
profanely up and down.

“Six hundred dollars!” howled the skipper. “In good American money!
Took it out of my locker, and had to break a lock that was strong
enough for a jail door! But I’ll get the thief somehow. Mr. Cross!”

Van Cross, who had been enjoying a quiet cigar, looked down from the
bridge, and, in a surly tone, asked what was wanted.

“Line up the whole crew and find out first who it was that went
overboard,” growled Captain Lawton.

“I can tell you that,” put in Nick Carter, in his character of Sykes,
the boatswain.

“Whoever he is, he got six hundred dollars out of my cabin!” roared the
skipper. “I’ll skin him alive when I get my hands on him. Who is he?”

“The passenger you shut up for’ard for trying to steal the property of
the passenger you call Mr. Miles,” replied Nick. “He has got out of the
brig, and he is not on the ship.”

“What?” bellowed the wrathful skipper. “Do you mean to tell me that
lubber has broken out? Who is he, anyhow? He says he is a business man,
and he looks like it. Do you know anything about him?”

“I think I do,” replied the detective. “I believe he is an ex-convict
named John Garrison Rayne.”

“John Garrison Rayne?” shouted Lawton. “I’ve heard of that fellow. He
operates all over this continent.”

“And on others, too,” put in Chick.

“Come down to my cabin with me, Sykes, and help me go through my sea
chest again. Bring your two men with you. Come on, Cross! I’ll rummage
it from top to the very bottom.”

That is exactly what they did do. The locker belonging to Captain
Lawton was an old-fashioned affair, such as seamen were more accustomed
to use fifty years ago than in these days.

They had everything out and in again before the skipper was convinced
that his money really was gone.

“Cross!” he bellowed.

The mate stepped to his side, looking at him questioningly.

“I’m going ashore!” announced Captain Lawton.

“When?”

“Now!” thundered the commander. “I’m going to find that lubber who
dived overboard with my money. And, when I get him, I’ll turn him
inside out. Then I’ll----”

“I wouldn’t,” advised Van Cross. “You have to look after the ship now
we are in port.”

“You can do that,” interrupted Lawton savagely. “A captain can trust
his first mate to do some things, can’t he?”

“Sure!” assented Van Cross. “But I don’t believe you’d ever find that
man if you did go after him. Now, here’s this Sykes, who has just said
he knows the man. Why don’t you let him go?”

“How do I know he’d ever come back?”

“He hasn’t got his wages, has he?” grinned Cross. “Don’t give him
anything to spend, and he’s bound to come back. Besides, he’s got it in
for that tall, gray-haired lubber himself. I know that from some words
he let drop when he didn’t know I was near.”

Nick Carter overheard this confab, notwithstanding that it was
conducted in hoarse whispers, and it coincided with his inclinations
exactly.

He wanted to get ashore, for he was nervous over the way Rayne had left
the ship.

He knew it was not like the Apache to give up a purpose he had nearly
carried to fruition without fighting it to the end, and he believed
something more would be heard of him before they were out of San Juan.

It would suit Nick exactly to go ashore, and, as he did not know just
when he would be back, he resolved that he would take at least one of
his assistants with him.

He was glad when he found that the master of the _Cherokee_ was willing
that he should go.

“Will you go into the town and see if you can get any trace of that
lubber who jumped overboard, Sykes?” asked Captain Lawton, turning to
him with as propitiatory an expression as his rocky face would permit.
“Just loaf around in saloons and places where you’d be likely to pick
up news.”

“And if I find the man?” asked Nick.

“Bring him aboard, and I’ll deal with him,” was the significant answer.
“Once you find him, that will be enough.”

“How many men can I have with me?” asked Nick.

“How many do you want?”

“Two. Give me my two old shipmates. We’ve worked together before, and
I’d rather have them than anybody else.”

The captain gave a growling consent, and Nick Carter went forward to
get his two assistants.

“The suit case is all right,” announced Patsy. “I talked to Clayton,
and he said he would not let it out of his hands until he had taken it
to a bank in San Juan.”

“The wise course!” approved Nick. “We are going ashore--you and
Chick--with me.”

“Bully! To get Rayne?” asked Patsy.

“If we can.”

“Well, you bet we can,” was the confident response, accompanied by a
chuckle of delight at the prospect of some real action.




CHAPTER II.

A HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE.


Nick Carter and his two assistants had been gone since the morning, and
no report had come from them, nor had any one else gone ashore from
the _Cherokee_, when, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, Captain
Lawton told Van Cross he was going to see the agents to whom were
consigned his miscellaneous cargo, so that he could begin to unload in
the morning.

“Those fellows here would never come to me unless I went to them,”
growled the commander. “They think a tramp steamer doesn’t need to be
treated like a ship belonging to a regular line. Well, I’ll make them
pay for that, too. You’ll see. Cross--you’ll see!”

He dressed himself in what he called his shore-going toggery, and gave
orders for a boat to be brought around to the foot of the sea ladder,
with four men.

Captain Bill Lawton had his own little vanities. One of them was to go
ashore in a strange port in state, with four oarsmen to propel him from
his ship to the landing stage.

As the captain prepared to descend to his boat, he turned to Van Cross
and shook his fist at the town across the harbor.

“What are you going to do, cap?” asked Cross carelessly. “What have
the people of San Juan done to you?”

“Done? Some of them have got my six hundred dollars.”

“You mean that high-toned passenger of ours has it?” grinned the mate.
“You can’t blame the people of Porto Rico for that.”

“Can’t I?” yelled Lawton. “Well, I do. When I get ashore the police
have got to get my wad back for me. If they don’t, by Cæsar, I’ll raise
a revolution in politics in the town that will put half of ’em out of a
job.”

It was at this moment that he saw a boat coming up to the _Cherokee_
in a businesslike way, with a frowning, dignified man in some sort of
uniform cap in the stern, while two fellows, who looked like ordinary
dock wallopers, plied the oars.

The official in the stern was dark-haired, and wore a heavy black
mustache. He had eyes that seemed to pierce anything at which they
looked. It was not easy to say just what color they were. In some
lights they seemed to be a yellowish green, like an angry cat’s.

“Hello!” he shouted, in a gruff voice, as he saw Lawton.

“Hello!” replied Lawton, equally gruff.

“This the _Cherokee_, from New York?”

“Yes.”

“Captain William Lawton in command?”

“That’s my name.”

The captain had had an occasional argument with the police of San Juan,
as he had in many other ports, on account of doubtful cargoes. He did
not care for the police on general principles, therefore.

As this man in the boat, who looked like a lieutenant in undress
uniform, questioned him, he tried to think of anything he had done
against the law in Porto Rico the last time he had been there.

The man in the boat did not give him much time to think, however. He
told his men to row up to the ladder and make fast.

They hardly had had time to obey, when he stepped out of the boat, and
with one hand touching the hand rope lightly, as if he did not need its
help, mounted to the deck.

His eyes seemed to take in everything at a glance, including the crew
and captain. He touched Lawton on the elbow in a peremptory way.

“Take me to your cabin. I want a word with you,” he snapped. “There is
my card.”

He thrust the card into Lawton’s hand, and pointed, with an offhand
gesture, to the companionway. The captain read the words on the card
with anything but a comfortable feeling. They were:

“Detective Lieutenant Sawyer, New York City.”

That was all, but it was more than enough for the skipper of the
_Cherokee_. He did not know that he ever had seen a detective’s card
before, but he supposed this was the regular formula.

Only a few moments previously, Captain Lawton had been anxious to get
to the police, to complain about the loss of his six hundred dollars.
Now that there was a detective at his elbow--probably a good one--he
felt nervous. His own record was not clean, and he feared that this
stern-mannered Sawyer might know more than would be healthful for him.

When they reached the cabin, the detective shrugged his shoulders as he
glanced about him.

“Lost anything?” he snapped. “Looks as if you’d been making a search
down here.”

“I’ve lost six hundred dollars.”

“Stolen?”

“Yes.”

“Some of the crew?”

“One of ’em. A man I signed on in New York, just to help him out. He
was flat broke. This is what he did to me in return. Came down here and
looted the cabin. But I’ll get him! I’ll sure get him! If he’s anywhere
in Porto Rico, I’ll get him.”

“Don’t you think he was drowned?”

“No. Some of the crew saw him swimming, and he was headed for shore. It
was early morning, and not light. That gave him a chance to get away,
and he made the shore all right, no doubt.”

“You only think that, don’t you? You are not sure?”

“Sure enough to satisfy me,” growled Lawton. “In fact----”

“Well, that’s no business of mine,” interrupted Sawyer. “I want you to
answer a few questions.”

The imperative manner of this man from police headquarters, New York,
awed Captain Bill Lawton, in spite of himself, and he prepared to tell
anything that might be asked of him.

“All right, lieutenant,” he grunted.

“Have you a passenger on board named Miles?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“In his stateroom, I believe. He went in there a while ago, and I have
not seen him on deck since.”

“Is he a young man, who looks as if he might be a sort of society
darling--plenty of money and nothing to do but to blow it in?”

“That fits him.”

“Tall, rather light-brown hair, gray eyes, and straight nose?”

“That’s a photograph of him,” replied Lawton. “You’ve got his
description all right. What about him?”

“Nothing much.”

As the detective lieutenant said this carelessly, he took a pair of
handcuffs from the left-hand pocket of his coat and placed them in one
on the right.

The captain started. This looked like serious business for somebody. So
long as it was not for himself, however, he did not care. Excitement
was pleasant to him, as a rule.

“What do you want him for?” he asked, in a low tone. “He has kept
himself away from me and the other officers all through the trip. I
didn’t think much about it, but I can see now why it was.”

“That was the reason,” remarked Sawyer dryly. “He’s charged with
stealing about eighty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds and other
jewelry from Mr. Stephen Reed, of New York.”

“What, the multimillionaire?” exclaimed the captain.

Sawyer nodded.

“Holy smoke!” ejaculated Lawton. “I heard of that job before I left New
York. But it never struck me that I had the man who did it right on my
ship. Why, say!” he added eagerly, moved by a sudden thought.

“Well?”

“I’ll bet it was he who took my six hundred dollars! I’ll----”

Captain Lawton made a dive across the saloon toward the door of a
stateroom. Sawyer grinned momentarily, straightening his face before
the other could look around.

“Wait a minute, captain!” he ordered. “Don’t ask him anything about
your six hundred. Leave that to me.”

“I’d like to take him by the throat and throttle the money out of him,”
hissed Lawton.

“I dare say. But that wouldn’t be according to law. Let me handle him.
If he has your money, I’ll guarantee that you’ll get it back.”

“All right!” answered the captain reluctantly. “If I have your word,
why----”

“Well, you have my word,” was the quick assurance. “I’ll hide behind
this curtain at the foot of the companionway until you bring him out of
his stateroom. He’s a desperate man, for all that he looks so meek in
general, and I don’t want to have a fight here. It isn’t necessary, and
I always like to do my work in a quiet way--when I can.”

“What shall I say he is wanted for?” asked Lawton, hesitating.

“Tell him he has to sign a declaration for the customs department. Be
sure you don’t give him a hint that there is anything wrong.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” snapped the captain.

“Of course you’re not. I don’t mean that he would hurt you--or me,
either. But he might have a gun handy, and send a bullet through his
own head. That’s all.”

“I’ll be careful,” promised Lawton, as he went to the door of the
stateroom and knocked.

Sawyer was behind the sailcloth curtain that protected the saloon from
the wind in bad weather, but he could see everything done from a narrow
chink.

The door of the stateroom was flung open, and Paul Clayton stood in the
opening, his figure silhouetted against the light that streamed through
the porthole behind him.

“Custom officer on board, Mr. Miles,” announced the captain gruffly.
“You’ll have to declare any baggage you have. They are particular here
in San Juan.”

“I don’t see why,” objected Clayton. “We have come from one American
port to another, and have not touched anywhere. It seems strange to me.”

“It’s the regular thing. That’s all I know. I’ll call the custom
officer. He’ll come down to see you.”

Paul Clayton turned back into his little cabin, and cast a rather
anxious glance at the suit case on a chair at the back.

“Very well!” he said, at last. “I’ll stay right here till he comes.”

Captain Bill Lawton went to the companionway, and, as he ascended, he
whispered to the officer from police headquarters:

“There’s your man. I’m going on deck.”

“All right!”

For a minute--or a fraction of one--during which the still-puzzled
skipper ascended to the deck, Sawyer stood behind the sailcloth
portière. Then he swung out and strode down the saloon with an official
step that no one could mistake.

He stopped opposite Clayton and looked him steadily in the eye. Placing
a hand on the young man’s shoulder, he said coldly:

“Paul Clayton! That is your name?”

“Yes.”

“I am from police headquarters, New York. You are under arrest.”




CHAPTER III.

A POINT FOR THE ARCHCROOK.


For the merest part of a second Paul Clayton neither moved nor spoke.
Then his hand shot down to a side pocket and came up with a heavy
revolver.

The officer had been looking for some such move. He seized the young
man’s wrist and gave it a wrench that caused the weapon to fall
clattering to the floor.

“That won’t help you,” was the quiet warning. “Don’t resist, because
you will be the person to suffer if you do.”

“What am I arrested for?” asked Clayton, composing himself with a
tremendous effort.

“Stealing jewels estimated at about eighty thousand dollars from Mr.
Stephen Reed, of New York City. He is said to be your uncle. We think
we have the goods on you, too.”

Paul Clayton dropped his head despairingly. To think that, just when
he had been so sure that he could return to his uncle the jewels he
knew now he never had meant to keep, and begin life anew, with no stain
on his name, he had to be arrested by this strange detective, who had
followed him all this way, and seemed to have got to San Juan before
him!

“Very well!” he sighed. “I’ll go with you quietly. There is nothing
else I can do. I only want to say that Mr. Reed would have had all his
property back as soon as it could reach him by express, and that there
would have been no need for this arrest.”

“I guess so!” remarked the detective, with an incredulous shrug. “But
I caution you that anything you say may be used against you at your
trial. My advice to you is not to talk.”

“I have been a fool, I know,” went on Clayton, seemingly unable to keep
his tongue quiet. “But I meant to make good.”

“Be careful.”

“I am careful. I have nothing to hide. The suit case holding the
property is over on that chair, in my cabin. On the table is a letter I
have written to Mr. Reed, and which would have been mailed as soon as I
could get ashore. You can read it, and it will convince you that I have
been telling the truth.”

“You’d better tell that to the judge,” interrupted the officer.

“I want to tell it to you. I wish you’d look at that letter.”

“It isn’t necessary. Hold out your hands.”

In another second the handcuffs were clapped on the wrists of Paul
Clayton.

For the first time in his life he was a manacled prisoner. A dry sob
broke from his throat.

It was then, as the officer stepped behind him and placed a hand on the
precious suit case, that a curious change came over the face of the man
from headquarters.

He bent over the suit case and a grin widened his mouth in so
extraordinary a way that, if anybody who knew him had seen him at that
instant, he would have declared that this detective lieutenant from
New York was none other than John Garrison Rayne, the Apache!

“This is dead easy!” he muttered. “And it’s good that Nick Carter has
gone off the ship. I’ll take these few things from my innocent young
friend here, and he can get the handcuffs off when Carter comes back.”

How the scoundrel had contrived to get hold of the semiofficial uniform
he wore in so short a time was his own secret.

It need only be said that when a man has six hundred dollars in cash
in his pocket, he can get most things he wants, up to the value of his
pile, in San Juan, just as he can in any other busy center.

At all events, here was John Garrison Rayne on the _Cherokee_, in the
guise of a detective, seemingly carrying everything before him.

He had completely fooled Captain Bill Lawton, and Paul Clayton had not
the least suspicion that he was anything but what he pretended to be.

“You will remain in this cabin a prisoner for the present,” he said
shortly, turning to Clayton. “I shall have to go ashore and telegraph
to New York for instructions. Ah, here’s Captain Lawton!”

The skipper was coming down the companionway. He raised his eyebrows
as he saw that Paul Clayton was standing at the stateroom door, with
handcuffs on his wrists.

“Nabbed him, eh?” he growled.

“I have him under arrest,” replied Rayne, with dignity. “If you will
bring a couple of your men to guard the prisoner, I will stay till you
come back.”

“All right! I’ll get my bos’n, Clegg, and another man,” replied the
captain. “Clegg is the sort of fellow who won’t take any funny business
from anybody. With him and another, your prisoner will be as safe as if
he was in jail ashore.”

The captain hurried away to get Clegg--who, in the absence of Joe
Sykes, was acting as bos’n. He was glad to do anything he could to help
the officer from New York.

John Garrison Rayne watched the captain till he disappeared up the
stairway. Then he stooped and picked up the revolver Clayton had
dropped, putting it into his pocket.

The young man had fallen into a chair at the big table in the middle of
the saloon, and was sitting there, his head resting upon his arms, the
picture of despair.

The Apache strode deliberately into the stateroom--for he was afraid to
hurry or show any eagerness, lest he should be suspected--and picked up
the suit case.

As he brought it to the table, he was surprised to find that it was not
locked.

He opened it and turned out its contents upon the table as if they had
been a heap of pebbles. It was his way of showing that he regarded the
booty from a purely official point of view.

Paul Clayton did not look up. He seemed to have lost interest in
everything in the world just then.

Rayne had seen the jewels before. But he could not keep the glint out
of his eyes as they fell upon the glittering stones and gold settings
which would mean a fortune to him.

He had been at his last gasp financially when he had come on board
the old tramp steamer. He had had enough to pay his fare and provide
himself with cigars, and that was about all. He felt that he must make
a killing now, no matter at what risk.

It was just as Rayne had the jewels spread out on the table that
Captain Bill Lawton came down again. His eyes fell upon the display,
and he could not get his breath.

The genial skipper did not know much about the value of gems and richly
chased gold ornaments. But he felt sure this heap must be worth a great
deal of money. He found himself regretting that he had not known what
this young man had in his cabin.

How easy it would have been for the captain to get hold of the suit
case, empty it into a bag of his own, and go ashore, saying good-by to
the sea forever!

Captain Lawton might not have been guilty of this bit of villainy, even
if he had had the opportunity. But certainly he allowed his thoughts to
roam in this way, while a ruminative smile moved his hard lips.

John Garrison Rayne, familiar with the look of cupidity that steals
over the faces of some men, divined pretty well what was passing in
Captain Lawton’s mind. He brought the commander to himself sharply, by
remarking, in a matter-of-fact tone:

“This stuff seems to be all right. I don’t see that anything is
missing. But I’ll have to compare them with my list before I can be
sure.”

He shoveled the jewelry back into the suit case as if he had no
personal interest in the valuables, and shut the case with a snap.

“You will have two men to guard my prisoner, Captain Lawton,” he said
shortly. “I shall have to hold you responsible for his safe-keeping.
But I am not afraid that he will get away. I don’t see how he can,
so long as he is kept down here. He couldn’t get out of any of the
portholes.”

“He won’t get away!” grunted Captain Lawton. “I’ll answer for that.”

“All right! You’ll be paid for any trouble you have to take, of course.
I’ll take this stuff ashore to my hotel, and keep it until I get
instructions from New York.”

“I’ll be glad to see it off my ship,” declared Captain Lawton. “If you
like, I’ll send a couple of men ashore with you, to help you guard the
stuff till you put it away. I suppose you’ll stow it in the hotel safe.”

“Yes,” answered Rayne carelessly. “That will be the best place for it.
Meantime, I can look after it myself. You will hear from me some time
during the day.”

He took the suit case in his hand, and, with a grim smile under his
heavy mustache, walked to the companionway and up to the deck.

His impulse was to make a rush for his boat. But the Apache had too
much control of himself to yield to such an inclination. Instead, he
sauntered over to the head of the sea ladder and shouted to his two
oarsmen.

“Aye, aye, sir!” responded one of them, as they brought the craft up to
the small platform at the foot of the ladder. “All right, sir!”

With a slow and dignified step, John Garrison Rayne went down the
ladder. At the foot of it he stopped to wave a farewell to Captain
Lawton, who, with his first mate, Van Cross, was at the top. Then he
stepped into his boat and sat down in the stern, the valuable suit case
between his knees.

No sooner had the men got the boat clear of the steamer than Rayne
leaned forward and told them to hurry with all their might.

“It will be half a dollar extra for each of you if you put me ashore
inside of fifteen minutes,” he told them. “I have to meet a gentleman
who is going away on the train. Hurry!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” came in chorus from both of the oarsmen.

The promise of a tip has just as potent an effect in Porto Rico as it
has in any other part of the world. They rowed with savage eagerness,
and promised to get to shore in twelve minutes.

As the yawl cut its way through the heaving waters, John Garrison Rayne
mused over his good luck. He hugged the suit case between his knees,
and tried to decide on his next move.

“It was dead easy!” he muttered. “All I had to do was to get rid of
that gray wig, put on the mustache, and buy the clothes I wanted out
of the captain’s six hundred. Then I stepped into this boat, went up
to the _Cherokee_, clapped handcuffs on Paul Clayton, picked up the
suit case--after making sure it had the things in it--and quietly rowed
away. Why, it was like taking candy from a baby.”

He chuckled so loudly that both of his oarsmen looked quickly at him in
astonishment. He recovered himself immediately, and frowning severely
at them, told them to pull harder.

It was just as he administered this rebuke to his men that he glanced
over to the left, where a motor boat was chugging its way across the
harbor.

There were three men in it.

At first they were too far away for him to make out who they were.
Then, as the morning sun fell full upon their faces, he recognized them.

They were Nick Carter, Chick, and Patsy Garvan!

The motor boat swept past, causing the yawl to rock violently in its
back wash.

Rayne bent over and appeared to be tying the lace of his shoe. His face
was thus entirely concealed from the occupants of the motor boat.

When the danger of recognition was past, he hissed to his two
perspiring oarsmen:

“Make it in eight minutes, and I’ll give you a dollar apiece!”

The little yawl fairly leaped through the water, as the men put in all
the strength and activity they could muster.

“They’re going to the ship,” muttered Rayne. “I’ve got to be out of
the way quickly. There may be a way of signaling shore. If there is
anything like that to be done, that infernal Nick Carter will know how
to do it.”




CHAPTER IV.

A PUZZLE FOR THE SKIPPER.


It was not without thoroughly understanding the situation that John
Garrison Rayne told himself he would be in danger if he did not get
away before Nick Carter could communicate with the shore.

Even if it should be impossible to telegraph, that motor boat was a
swift-moving craft, and it would take very little time for it to get to
the wharf from the _Cherokee_, if the famous detective should determine
to go, instead of trying to signal.

It happened that Rayne was just stepping on the quay as the motor boat
swirled alongside of the steamer.

Nick Carter, no longer dressed as a sailor, but in a neat, light,
business suit, stepped upon the platform at the foot of the sea ladder,
while his two assistants--who also had changed their attire--followed
him closely.

Nick had removed the heavy beard he had worn as Joe Sykes, the
boatswain, and there was little in his face to remind one of the sailor
except his penetrating dark eyes.

Patsy and Chick, too, had changed their faces, so that no one on board
the steamer would be likely to suspect that they ever had been members
of the crew, taking the hard work, and the equally hard language of the
bullying mate, all as part of the day’s work.

Captain Lawton was worried over the taking away of the suit case. He
had begun to feel misgivings, and it had disturbed his nerves. So he
scowled when he saw three strangers boarding his ship.

“What do you want?” was his inhospitable greeting, as Nick gained the
top of the ladder.

“I am a detective, and I’ve come to see your passenger, Paul Clayton,”
replied Nick Carter, as he looked the skipper up and down. “He took
passage with you under the name of Miles. Where is he?”

“Search me,” grinned the captain.

“He’s on board your vessel, isn’t he?” demanded Nick sternly. “A
passenger of yours?”

“No. He ain’t nothing of the kind. You say you’re a detective. Well,
you’re a little late. Another detective, from New York, has been here
and arrested him. So he isn’t a passenger. He’s a prisoner.”

“Impossible!” ejaculated Nick Carter.

“Nothing impossible about it,” sneered the captain. “He’s down in the
cabin he’s had since we left New York. Only now it’s a cell, instead of
a stateroom, and I have two of my men watching to see that he doesn’t
get away. That’s all there is to it.”

“How do you know this man who arrested Paul Clayton--or Miles--is a
detective?”

The captain held out a card, which Nick Carter took and scanned hastily.

“Detective Lieutenant Sawyer!” murmured Nick, reading from the card. “I
don’t know of any New York detective by that name.”

“Well, anyhow, he was here, and he’s gone ashore with the stolen
property, in a suit case. If you look over there, you can just make him
out, landing on the wharf from a yawl.”

“Gee!” whispered Patsy. “I believe that’s right. Eh, Chick?”

“Looks like his walk,” returned Chick.

“I wish we could make out his face. What kind of clothes do you suppose
he has on? We’re going to have a fine time running him down,” was
Patsy’s low-toned remark--in which there was plenty of confidence,
however.

Nick Carter was thinking quickly. He had seen the man getting out
of the rowboat at the wharf. But it was too far to make him out for
certain, and Nick had very little faith in Captain Lawton’s integrity.

“I’ll go down and see the prisoner, anyhow,” he said sharply.

“I don’t know whether you can,” hesitated Captain Lawton. “I have
orders to keep the man safe, but nothing was said to me about allowing
any one to see him.”

Nick Carter turned back the lapel of his waistcoat and showed a jeweled
badge. It was very seldom that he exhibited this insignia. But there
were occasionally times, like the present, when it was desirable that
he should prove his identity.

Captain Lawton leaned forward to scan the badge. He saw that it bore
the arms of New York State, and that in the center was a medallion
portrait of the man who wore it.

But the skipper was naturally suspicious, and he did not accept even
this proof immediately--or pretended he did not. As a matter of fact,
he had seen Nick Carter before, in his proper person, and he was
obliged to admit to himself that this calm, self-possessed man seemed
to be the same.

“If that badge is straight, it is all right,” he growled. “Only I do
not know that.”

“Here’s my card,” said Nick impatiently, as he took one of his cards
from its case. “You may see my name and address there.”

“‘Nicholas Carter, Madison Avenue, New York City,’” read the captain.
“It looks as if you might be the man you say you are.”

“You say that this other man, who pretended he was a detective, has
taken the jewels stolen from Stephen Reed, and that it was he we just
now saw climbing out of a small boat at the wharf?” demanded Nick, who
was tired of arguing about his own identity.

“He took the jewelry,” replied, Lawton, more surly than ever. “I have
not had proof that he was a fake detective any more than I know you’re
a real one.”

“We’ll prove who I am by the chief of police of San Juan,” interrupted
Nick sharply. “But there is no time to argue longer about that. I’ll
send my men ashore, and I dare say they will round up this man. He
seems to have fooled you completely.”

“There ain’t nobody can fool me!” grunted the captain indignantly.

“Chick!” called out Nick, turning his back on the wrathful Lawton. “You
and Patsy go and see the chief of police, give him my compliments, and
tell him to look out for this man. Most likely the rascal will try to
get out of town right away.”

“Who are we to look for?” asked Chick.

“The Apache.”

“Who’s that?” asked the captain.

“Gee! You don’t want to get in his way. That’s all!” grinned Patsy.
“He’d steal the ship from under you while you was giving orders to stop
him.”

Patsy said this with so much earnestness, even though he grinned, that
Captain Lawton was visibly impressed, while Nick Carter frowned at his
irrepressible assistant.

“You don’t want me to tell the chief of police why we want the Apache,
do you?” whispered Chick in Nick Carter’s ear.

“No. Let him think it is a smuggling case. Anyhow, he won’t ask too
many questions if you tell him it is my case. He knows me.”

“What’s his name? Douglas, isn’t it?”

“Yes. He knows you as well as me.”

By this time Captain Lawton had come to the conclusion that it was
the real Nick Carter who stood before him, and he desired to give so
eminent a crime detector all the aid he could. But it never entered his
head that this well-groomed man could be the sloppy-looking Joe Sykes,
who had sailed in the _Cherokee_ as a boatswain.

“This man who took the jewelry was about the same height as yourself,
Mr. Carter,” he volunteered. “He wore a blue suit of clothes, that
didn’t fit any too well, and his cap had a gold band around it, as if
he might be an officer of some kind.”

“Thank you,” responded Nick. “I dare say we shall get him before we are
much older. But we’ll talk more about that after I’ve got my men here
away.”

“All right, Mr. Carter! Anything you say.”

“Look here, Chick!”

“Well, chief?”

“When you have finished your work--seen the chief of police, and made
any inquiries you can, come to the Ionic Hotel. I’ll go there when I
get through on the ship. Now hustle, boys!”

“All right!” grinned Patsy. “We’ll round up this citizen we’re after
before he knows whether he’s afloat or ashore. Eh, Chick?”

“We’ll do our best,” was Chick’s earnest response.

The two assistants went down the ladder, and Nick Carter leaned over
the side of the steamer, watching them make good time to the shore.

Even when the motor boat had almost covered the expanse of water
between the _Cherokee_ and the wharf, the detective remained in the
same position. He was reflecting. He had the faculty of being able to
do that anywhere, even with all kinds of confusion around him.

The new complication of the theft of the Stephen Reed jewelry just when
it seemed as if the troubles of Paul Clayton might be over, was bad
enough. But the added fact that the Apache was posing as a detective,
and might even get the police to help him, unwittingly, to get away,
made it worse.

Nick had gone ashore originally to look for Rayne, but had not been
able to hear anything about a man answering the description of the
cunning rascal. Then he had decided that he could do more effective
work in behalf of Paul Clayton by dropping his disguise of Joe Sykes
and cutting off all connection with the _Cherokee_ as a member of its
crew.

There would be nothing gained by continuing on board as a boatswain,
with Captain Lawton and Van Cross giving him orders. Neither was it
desirable that Chick and Patsy should be sailors, either.

Having come to this decision, it had not been difficult for all three
to get rid of their make-ups, and so well did they accomplish this that
Captain Lawton had not the slightest suspicion they ever had been on
his ship before.

“Do you want to see the prisoner, Mr. Carter?” asked the captain, in
a tone of respect that was rather amusing, considering how surly and
insolent he had been at first.

“Yes. Take me to him, please,” answered Nick. “And I should be glad if
you will have a boat ready to put me ashore when I have looked over
things below.”

“Sure you shall have a boat,” assented the captain promptly.




CHAPTER V.

NICK HAS HIS OWN WAY.


Two men were guarding the top of the companionway during the colloquy
between Nick Carter and the captain, but, at a signal from the latter,
they drew aside to allow the detective to go down to the prisoner.

The man at the cabin door opened it as Nick Carter stepped forward,
for he knew the detective could not have got below without special
permission from the captain. Besides, he had heard enough of the
argument on deck to know pretty nearly all that had taken place.

Paul Clayton was sitting on the edge of his berth, his chin on his
breast, and evidently in deep thought. He looked up sharply as Nick
Carter went into the cabin, a question in his glance.

Instinctively, he made an effort to hide the handcuffs under a blanket
on the berth. Then he laughed bitterly and brought his hands forward to
rest on his knees, as if defying the opinion of his visitor, whatever
it might be.

“I beg your pardon,” said Nick, with a smile. “I don’t suppose you want
to wear these decorations any longer than you are obliged. Let me see
if I can take them off.”

Paul Clayton stared hard at the detective. He did not know him, now
that he had removed the clothing and beard of Joe Sykes, the boatswain.
But it seemed as if there were a familiar note in his voice.

“May I ask----” he began.

“Not just now,” interrupted Nick. “Let me look at these bracelets of
yours.”

One close look at the handcuffs was enough for Nick Carter.

Taking from his pocket a jackknife, he pressed a spring, and a steel
rod shot forth. With this he opened the handcuffs so quickly and easily
that the sailor at the door, who had been watching him, gave vent to an
involuntary grunt of admiration.

“I’m responsible for this,” remarked Nick, looking at the sailor.
“Captain Lawton will tell you.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” returned the man, as he moved away from the door.

“Now we can talk more comfortably,” was the detective’s smiling
suggestion. “No sense in wearing those things that I can see.”

“Who are you?” faltered Paul Clayton.

“You ought to know me,” returned Nick lightly. “We sailed from New York
together.”

He said this with the drawl he had used as Joe Sykes, and Clayton
started up from the bunk in astonishment.

“The bos’n?”

“Exactly! But, when I use my own name, I am Nicholas Carter.”

“The detective?”

“Yes. But you need not speak so loudly. Don’t let us talk about that.”

“But,” protested Clayton, “this is amazing.”

“Never mind. Tell me what this man said who came and got the jewelry
away from you.”

“The New York detective?”

“Yes.”

Paul Clayton--still wondering, as he looked at his visitor--went over
in detail all that had passed between him and John Garrison Rayne.

Nick Carter compressed his lips and his brows came together over his
eyes as he listened.

“What a scoundrel the fellow is!” was the detective’s comment at the
end. “Well, Clayton, that means that we have to go after him.”

Clayton got to his feet and seemed eager to move out of the cabin
without delay.

“To think that I was so easily cheated of the jewels I stole----”

“Not that you stole, Mr. Clayton,” interrupted Nick. “Let us say ‘the
jewels you were minding for Mr. Reed.’ That sounds much better, and it
is the truth, isn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed it is,” assented the young man, with a wan smile of
gratitude. “I took the jewelry. But I did not use any of it, and when
I had got over the first madness that made me take it from my uncle’s
room, I never had a thought but to return it as soon as possible.”

“But you came to Porto Rico to do it?”

“Because I was afraid that, if I sent the jewels back from New York,
Stephen Reed would put the police on my heels. I did want a chance to
begin life over again and prove that I am honest at heart,” replied
Clayton pathetically. “If I were once sent to prison, I never could
hold up my head again.”

“Well, we will get the jewelry, and back it will go to Mr. Reed. It may
be some little trouble, but I believe I can rely on you to keep at it
till we round up this blackguard who has tried to fool us all.”

“You are quite sure this detective was not really a detective,” asked
Clayton. “He did not look to me at all like the man I knew as James
Boris on this ship.”

“Nevertheless, he is the same. He took the name of James Boris on this
vessel. He is John Garrison Rayne, the Apache. I _know_ that.”

“If there were any mistake, and he really represented the police, he
would have me arrested----”

“My dear Clayton!” interrupted Nick. “Why will you harp on that? You
and I both know that we had him a prisoner on this ship, after taking
the suit case away from him in the engine room. Then he managed to get
free and dive overboard.”

“I suppose it was this Boris who fell or jumped off the ship in the
early morning,” murmured Paul.

“Beyond all question. He swam to shore, got a new suit of clothes,
altered the look of his face, and came back, in the guise of a
detective, to steal the jewelry for the second time. There is only one
man I know of who could carry out such a trick successfully, and that
is the man I am going to find--John Garrison Rayne--the fellow you know
as James Boris.”

“Can I go with you? Or shall I have to stay here?” asked Clayton.
“Remember, you found me a handcuffed prisoner, and the captain promised
that I should not get away.”

“I’ll attend to that,” replied Nick briefly. “Come with me.”

The sailor who had been at the door of the cabin was on the
companionway, talking to the two men at the top, one of whom was Clegg,
the boatswain. He was telling of what had happened in Paul Clayton’s
stateroom.

“I don’t know anything about it,” rumbled Clegg. “But there’s Captain
Lawton. We can ask him.”

It was at this moment that Nick Carter pushed Clayton ahead of him up
the stairs, and led him to the deck.

Clegg stepped aside involuntarily before Nick Carter’s masterful
manner, although not without glancing at the captain, to see what he
would do in such a strange situation.

“Is the boat ready?” asked Nick, stepping up to Lawton.

“I’ll have it ready in a brace of shakes.”

The captain turned to give an order to Clegg, who passed it forward,
and the activity of half a dozen sailors gave promise that the boat
would be at the ladder in a few moments.

“I am going ashore--with Mr.--er--Miles,” announced Nick carelessly.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” hesitated the captain. “I don’t feel
as if this passenger ought to go without something more being known
about him. I believe you are really Nicholas Carter, and that the other
detective is a fraud. Still, if he should turn out to be the genuine
article, where would I be?”

“He is not the genuine article,” returned Nick. “So you need not
speculate on that.”

“But, if he _should_ be, you see, I’d be on the rocks--piled up, with
my back broke and out of the game for good.”

Captain Lawton shook his head with an air of ponderous wisdom that
tried Nick Carter’s patience sorely.

“You have my word that he’s a fraud,” the detective reminded him
sternly. “I thought that would be enough. If you like, I’ll sign a
paper taking all the responsibility. Only, let’s have that boat!”

“Well, all right! Let it go at that!” grumbled the captain; “I guess
I’m going to get the worst of it. I always do. Boat, there!”

He bellowed this last at his men, and Nick Carter went down the ladder,
with Paul Clayton following him into the boat.

Four sailors rowed them to shore, and it seemed to the detective as if
they were trying to move as lazily as they possibly could.

“Pity they don’t hurry!” broke out Clayton impatiently.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” returned Nick. “Our man has got a good
start, and a few minutes more or less in crossing the harbor won’t make
much difference. When we get ashore we can hustle. Meanwhile, we shall
have to take it philosophically.”

The boat trip was over at last, and Nick Carter, who was familiar with
the beautiful city of San Juan, walked with Paul Clayton along the
shaded avenues until he got to the Ionic Hotel.

Situated on the side of a hill, and overlooking the harbor, the hotel
was a favorite stopping place for visitors, and one could be sure of
hearing most of the gossip of Porto Rico if he lounged about the lobby
for an hour or so.

This was one of the reasons that Nick Carter had taken up his abode
there. Another was that he knew John Garrison Rayne’s love of luxury,
and he felt pretty sure that the Apache would be at the Ionic if he
thought it safe.

“It ought to be easy to catch him, I should think,” observed Paul
Clayton, as Nick Carter said this.

“Can’t tell,” answered the detective. “I have had dealings with this
scoundrel before, and he is as cunning as a rat. However, we’ll go into
the grill room and have a good meal, anyhow. I expect my two men here
soon.”

The anticipation of the detective proved to be correct. He and Paul
Clayton had not yet begun on the luncheon Nick Carter had ordered,
when his quick eye made out Chick and Patsy strolling along the big
lobby, looking in every direction, but in a careless way that disarmed
suspicion.

Suddenly Chick caught sight of his chief, and whispered to Patsy to
stay behind for a moment or two.

“All right, Chick!” responded Patsy. “I see what you mean. There’s the
chief over there. You go slowly to him, and I’ll join you afterward.”

These precautions were rather elaborate, perhaps. But the two
assistants knew that they were dealing with a dangerous man in Rayne,
and that he was quite likely to have some spies at work in the hotel,
even if he should not be there himself.

“What do you know?” asked Nick casually, as he bent over his plate,
when Chick and Patsy were both seated at the table. “Have some luncheon
and answer me cautiously.”

“We haven’t found out a thing,” acknowledged Chick.

“Haven’t seen or heard anything about him,” added Patsy.

“Exactly! Just what I expected,” returned Nick Carter coolly. “Let me
help you to some salad, Mr. Clayton.”

The detective did the honors of the table with as calm and smiling an
air as if there were not a thing on his mind. But his brain was working
busily.




CHAPTER VI.

HOW NICK GOT A LIGHT.


It was two days later. Nick Carter, his two assistants, and Paul
Clayton were in the bedroom of Nick in the Ionic Hotel.

All four looked perplexed and disgusted. Patsy Garvan, who was standing
at the window, gazing moodily across the harbor, indulged in various
expletives in an undertone, and wished he had somebody whose head it
would be permissible to punch.

“If I don’t get a chance to lick somebody soon,” he muttered, “I’ll get
a cramp in my elbow. This case is the kind of thing that makes a man go
stale. Gee! To think that a dub like John Garrison Rayne can keep out
of our way on an island that you can almost spit across! Jumping cats!
I’d rather go out and----”

“Patsy!”

It was the voice of Nick Carter. Garvan swung around.

“What is it, chief? Anything I can do?”

“Only stop your growling over there,” answered the detective,
good-humoredly. “It’s got on your nerves, I dare say. But so it has on
those of the rest of us. Grumbling and complaining never moved even
a pebble out of the road yet. Brace up, and let’s talk about it in a
sensible way.”

Nick Carter was not obliged to mollify his younger assistant in this
way. A gruff order would have quieted Patsy Garvan just as effectively.
But it was a principle with the eminent detective to make his
subordinates feel that they were his partners, rather than just his
employees, and he had found that it paid.

“We’ve been pretty nearly all over Porto Rico, looking for this
fellow,” returned Patsy. “I was thinking we might as well try somewhere
else.”

“We’ve only looked through San Juan,” corrected Chick. “Even in a city
of some fifty thousand people, it is not easy to get into every nook
and cranny. Besides, there isn’t any doubt that Rayne has changed his
appearance since he left the _Cherokee_.”

Nick Carter nodded approvingly.

“That is as certain as that he stole that suit case,” he declared. “It
is possible that we pass him several times a day without knowing him.”

“Oh, chief! Come off!” exclaimed Patsy. “That couldn’t be. I never saw
the make-up that would fool you.”

“That’s because you don’t know,” rejoined Nick Carter. “Don’t think you
or I know it all, Patsy. The men who do things are those who think they
may still learn. What you all need now is a little rest.”

“That’s so!” yawned Chick. “We are about all in, it seems to me. Still,
if there is anything we can do, we ought not to waste time resting.”

Nick Carter smiled and slapped Chick on the back, in appreciation of
his pluck, as he answered:

“Go to bed, Chick. And you, Patsy. It won’t be dark for another hour.
But you are so tired that you need not wait for that.”

“And what about yourself?” asked Patsy. “Are you going to sit up?”

“Indeed I’m not,” was the quick reply. “I’m going to tumble into this
bed as soon as you get out.”

“There doesn’t seem anything for me to do to-night, either,” remarked
Paul Clayton. “But I do not feel as if I ought to sleep until I have
got back the Stephen Reed jewelry.”

“That may be a matter of days--or weeks--yet, Clayton,” the detective
warned him. “You must try to forget it sometimes.”

“How can I?” was the dejected response. “If I had never touched it,
nothing of this would have happened. I am the person responsible, and
it is I who must make good.”

For three hours all four of the men who were trying to hunt down John
Garrison Rayne lay quietly in their respective bedrooms in the Ionic
Hotel.

Nick Carter was the only one of the three who did not undress entirely.
He contented himself with removing part of his clothing and taking off
his shoes.

Lying on the outside of the bed, he slept as soundly as any of his
associates.

It was about eleven o’clock when he awoke. Immediately he sat up, with
all his faculties about him.

The famous detective had long before trained himself to wake at the
very instant he desired, without any outside help. When he lay down he
impressed it on his mind that he must arouse at a certain time. Never
yet had he failed to do so.

So, when he woke up now in the darkness, he knew, before he turned his
pocket flash lamp on his watch, what the time would be.

Pulling down the window shade in the darkness, he switched on two
electric lights at the dresser and smiled at his own reflection.

“I’ll have to change this a little,” he muttered. “Just a gray
mustache and goatee, with a few lines on my face, will make me safe. My
clothes will do, I think.”

Porto Rico is one of the most healthful climates on the American side
of the world. The mean temperature in San Juan is officially a little
over eighty degrees, and it never goes above ninety-five at any time.
So the costume worn by Nick Carter was a business suit of light cloth,
such as might be suitable for New York or Chicago in the summer.

The detective was careful in making up his face to represent a man in
his sixties.

Crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes, a deep line on either side
from the nose to the corner of the mouth, and gray brows, as well as
mustache and beard, made him look the part.

He topped it off by adjusting a well-made gray wig, which fitted so
well that it appeared actually to grow on his head.

When he put on his broad-brimmed panama hat, so that it shaded his
eyes, he was a typical Porto Rican, and nothing at all like the Nick
Carter familiar to so many people in New York.

He moved about very quietly, for he did not want to disturb either of
his assistants, who occupied a double-bedded room adjoining his own.

When he was ready to depart, he listened, for an instant, at the
communicating door. Then, satisfied that nobody was stirring within,
he went down the stairs to the office of the hotel, and out to the
beautiful, verdure-scented avenue.

He had gone two blocks along the avenue on which the hotel stood, and
was turning a corner, when he noticed two persons walking slowly along
the other side, shadowed by the trees.

“Taking an evening stroll for their health, I reckon,” he thought.

He turned to see what had become of them when he had gone down the side
street some distance. As they were not in sight, he decided that they
had kept along the main avenue, to enjoy the breeze from the sea that
swept gustily across the thoroughfare at intervals.

In all cities, no matter how well regulated, there are drinking resorts
that have not the entire approval of the police.

It was into one of these that Nick Carter stepped at last. The place
was not far from the water front, but the patrons were not of the rough
class one so often finds in saloons near the wharves in larger cities.
It is doubtful whether they were so good at heart, however.

There was a porch in front of the place. Several men were sitting
there, lazily tilted back in their chairs, with cigarettes in their
teeth and a cool drink at their elbows on the small tables.

Nick seated himself on the porch, and told the waiter to bring him a
lemonade.

In the absence of the serving man to get the drink, Nick looked about
him casually.

The half dozen men on the porch beside himself all appeared to be
giving themselves up to the enjoyment of the hour. Tobacco and drinks
kept them mildly amused, it seemed.

Every lounger looked as if he might be in fairly comfortable
circumstances. The detective put them down as storekeepers,
mechanics--cigarmakers, probably--and men connected with the shipping
of the harbor.

Next to him was a dark-complexioned individual, who looked like a
Cuban, with a mixture of West Indian negro blood. Such persons are
rather frequent in Porto Rico.

He was dressed in a linen suit, with a panama hat and white shoes.
There was a diamond ring on one of his brown fingers, and another
diamond sparkled in the bosom of his narrow-plaited, soft, white shirt
bosom. Prosperity oozed from him.

He had just lighted a long cigar as Nick Carter sat down by his side.

The Cuban did not look up. As he smoked, he seemed to have enough
affairs of his own to occupy his mind, without wasting any time on a
stranger.

Nick Carter took one of his own favorite perfectos from a cigar case
and bit off the end with a snap of his even, white teeth. Then he felt
in his pockets for a match.

He brought out a silver match box first, and, finding it empty,
explored his clothing with what appeared to be rapidly increasing
vexation. Not a match could he find.

He looked on the tables, but no matches were there.

“Deuce take it! I wish I had a match!” he muttered, in a carefully
disguised tone. “Where’s that confounded waiter?”

The Cuban turned and looked Nick Carter over with a gaze that took him
in from head to foot. Then, moved by a sudden impulse, he said, in a
voice with a strong Spanish accent:

“May I give you a light?”

“Thanks!” answered Nick.

“I am sorry I have no match,” went on the Cuban. “Will you honor me by
taking a light from my cigarro?”

“If you will favor me.”

The little dialogue had been carried on with the punctilious politeness
that usually distinguishes the intercourse of Latin peoples.

The detective fell easily into it, while to the Cuban it appeared to be
entirely natural.

Both men arose from their chairs, and the Cuban drew up his cigar with
several strong inhalations. Then he bowed, as a signal that he was
ready.

Nick Carter stepped in front of him, and, while the Cuban held his
cigar between his teeth, the detective, perfecto in mouth, came close.

“Now!” smiled the Cuban.

“Thanks!”

“I’ll draw up a little more.”

“All right! I can get it,” replied Nick.

With the ends of their cigars touching, as the detective drew some of
the fire from the Cuban’s to his own, the two men stared directly into
each other’s eyes.

The glow of the cigars lighted up their faces, and each had an
opportunity to study the other at very close range.

Somehow, it was difficult for Nick Carter to get his cigar alight.
Once, when he thought he had it, he was obliged to go back again.

The Cuban did not show or express any impatience, however. He seemed to
be desirous only to oblige his casual acquaintance.

For more than half a minute they stood with their faces only the
combined length of the two cigars apart--that is to say, about six
inches.

Then, as Nick Carter slowly drew back, his cigar burning brightly, he
suddenly shot out both hands and gripped the Cuban by the shoulders!

“What does this mean?” hissed the dark-visaged stranger indignantly.

“Only that I want a little conversation with you, John Garrison Rayne,”
replied Nick Carter.




CHAPTER VII.

THE SLIPPERY APACHE.


The words were hardly out of the detective’s mouth, when the Cuban,
with a snarl of rage, tore the cigar from Nick’s teeth and pressed the
burning end upon the bare hand of his captor.

There were few things that would have made Nick Carter loosen his hold.
The exquisite pain of the burning cigar was one of them, however.

Anybody who ever has been hurt in this way can testify that the red-hot
ash sticks to the flesh in a cruel fashion, causing excruciating agony.

As Nick took away one hand, John Garrison Rayne pulled the other loose.
Then, hissing defiance between his set teeth, he dragged a long knife
from inside his coat and aimed a blow at the detective’s heart.

Nick Carter was unable to ward off the blow entirely, but it only cut
a long slit in his sleeve. The next moment he had seized the rascal
around the waist and slammed him down upon the table by his side.

The table never was meant to stand such a shock. Down it went, in a
muddle of broken legs and splintered top, with the Cuban and Nick in
the ruins, for the Cuban had pulled his assailant down with him.

“Thieves!” roared the Cuban. “Look out! Grab him before he can get
away!”

Four big men piled on top of Nick behind, and, under their combined
weight, down he went, flat upon the floor, while the cunning rascal,
who had incited the attack, slipped away in the darkness.

“Let me get up!” shouted Nick. “The thief has got away.”

“Oh, I guess not!” came from one of the men holding him down. “I saw
the whole thing. This man asked for a light, and when he had it, he
tried to go through the other man’s pockets for his roll. Where are the
police? This is the worst holdup I ever saw.”

“You idiot!” exploded Nick.

He was enraged at seeing Rayne get away when so nearly caught. So
exerting all his enormous strength, he threw the four men off, and,
picking up a chair, swung it around his head to hold them back.

By this time there was a full-sized riot on the porch and in the café.
But the detective’s blood was up, and he cared nothing for that.

It was seldom he allowed his anger to make him lose sight of the main
purpose in view. But he was so disgusted with the interference of these
men, at such a critical moment, that he was determined to make them pay.

He dropped the chair and shot out his two fists, sending the talkative
individual, who had called for the police, one way, and another busy
person another.

He was setting himself for an onslaught on three others who were
coming toward him, when suddenly two men he had not seen before
ranged themselves on his side. They disposed of four of the foes with
well-directed blows.

Before Nick could look around to see who his unexpected reënforcements
were, Patsy Garvan whispered in his ear:

“Break away, chief! The fellow you knocked down is hustling along the
avenue. Let’s get after him.”

A hand was laid on each of his arms, and, as he was drawn away into
the shadows, where the people on the porch could not see him, he found
Chick on one side of him and Patsy on the other.

“Do you know who he was?” asked Nick.

“I didn’t see,” replied Patsy. “I only made out that he was dark, and
that he had on light clothes. I’ll know him again, though. Come on!”

“Who was he, chief?” asked Chick.

“John Garrison Rayne,” replied Nick Carter shortly.

“Wha-at?”

His two assistants delivered themselves of this interrogative
monosyllable together, and with enough astonishment to make it seem ten
times as strong a word as it was.

“Get after him!” replied Nick, as he hustled along the dark
thoroughfare. “He can’t have got far.”

But if Rayne had not got far, at least he had managed to elude his
pursuers on this occasion.

He laughed silently, as, standing in the shadow of a tree, he saw Nick
Carter and his two men go past. He watched them till they were out of
sight.

“That settles it,” he muttered. “I’ve got to get this coat of chocolate
off my face and hands, and tackle something else. It will be a bold
thing, but I guess I can put it over. It seems to be about my only
chance, for that cursed Carter has every part of the wharf and all the
roads guarded. He thinks I don’t know, perhaps--but I do.”

He walked slowly on until he stood in front of the handsome “palace,”
which was at one time the residence of the Spanish captain general, but
is now the home of the governor.

This building is one of the finest in a city of imposing edifices, and
as John Garrison Rayne gazed at it, his busy brain worked with a scheme
that, as he had confessed to himself, was decidedly bold, to say the
least.

“It is the one best bet for me,” he muttered. “It is something that
Carter never would suspect, and for that reason I feel sure I can carry
it out as smoothly as anything of that kind could be done.”

He grinned as he moved away, and the grin was still on his dark face
when he reached the obscure house in which he had engaged a room--a
house where the people never asked questions so long as the rent was
paid promptly.

Once in his bedchamber, he locked the door and made sure the window
shade was adjusted so that no glimmer of light could show outside. Then
he took from his pockets two bags and emptied their contents upon the
bed.

The bags had contained some of the jewelry stolen from Stephen Reed,
including a string of magnificent pearls which he prized more than
anything else he had. The pearls had been the property of Abdul Hamid,
Sultan of Turkey, and were regarded by experts as unique in their
beauty.

“If I could only sell those sultan pearls,” thought Rayne, “I should
have enough cash to do anything. But I daren’t try to work them off in
San Juan. I’ll have to get along the best way I can on the balance of
Captain Lawton’s six hundred dollars.”

He lighted a cigar--one of the long, slim rolls of tobacco that are so
common in Porto Rico--and sat down on the bed to meditate.

“I may as well see that the others are all right,” he said, half aloud.
“Though, so long as I can feel the package under my clothes, there is
no likelihood of anything having happened to them.”

He opened the front of his soft shirt and revealed a flat bag, hanging
to a string around his neck, and which showed no bulkiness from the
outside.

He opened the top of this bag and pulled from it a flat package in
tissue paper. This he emptied out on the bed, apart from the other
jewels. The paper had contained several unset diamonds.

He sifted these through his fingers for a few moments, his eyes
glittering with avaricious triumph. Then he put them back and fastened
the bag. As he buttoned the front of the shirt over it, he muttered:

“Eighty thousand dollars, eh? I’m sure I can raise at least a hundred
on all these. There are stones worth a great deal more than the price
the old man put on them. All I want is to get to some place where I can
market them. And that market is New York. Even if I could not turn them
into cash there, it is so easy to slip across to Europe. Yes, I must
get to New York as quickly as I can. I must.”

He restored the Abdul Hamid pearls and the other glittering gewgaws to
their two bags and placed them both under the pillow on the bed.

“I’ll have a busy, hard day to-morrow,” he told himself, with a grin,
as he began to undress. “I must get a good sleep to-night. I wonder
whether Carter is still looking for me.”

He repeated this last sentence as he turned out the lights and got into
bed. His thoughts were very much on the detective and his doings.

Nick Carter had got the better of him on more than one occasion, and,
in spite of his boastful promise to himself that this was the time when
he would win, John Garrison Rayne did not feel any too sure.




CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE SOUNDPROOF ROOM.


It was evening of the day after Nick Carter’s encounter with the Cuban
whom he had recognized as John Garrison Rayne, and Acting Governor
Portersham, who temporarily represented the United States in San Juan,
had just finished dinner.

Jabez Portersham was a young man, considering the importance of the
office he held, and, as he was a bachelor, he had taken dinner alone.
Afterward he had strolled into his library, lighted a cigar, and sat
himself down for an hour or two of reading.

The palace, which was the governor’s official residence, was well
supplied with books, so that it would be easy for Mr. Portersham to
find something that would interest him.

He could have gone into the billiard room if he had cared for a game,
and a touch of his electric bell would have brought somebody to play
with him.

His official family included several bright, companionable men of
about his own age, somewhere in the thirties, and very often he had
one of the heads of departments to dine with him and spend the evening
afterward.

This happened to be an evening when he was disinclined for society, and
he was quite alone when he sank into a well-cushioned rocker, with a
novel in his hand.

Jabez Portersham had lived in a Middle State, and had been prominent
in the affairs of his own city. Also, he had had experience in the
government service in Washington. Natural ability, plus some influence,
had put him where he was.

He had hardly got well into the first page of his book, when there was
a discreet tap at the door, followed by the entrance of a soft-footed
butler, who had a card on a salver.

The acting governor took up the card, with a slight frown at being
interrupted at this hour of privacy, but with the knowledge that Briggs
would not have come unless he had felt sure that he had a sound excuse.

“Senator Micah Garnford” was the name on the card.

Portersham threw his book on the table at his elbow and sat up in his
chair, as he told the butler, in a sharp, businesslike tone, to “Show
the senator in.”

Senator Garnford was an influential man. Portersham had met him only
once, and then but for a minute or two, in company with many other
people, at a reception at the senator’s house in Washington, but
he knew that he was largely indebted to Garnford for his present
appointment.

It must be urgent business of some sort that had induced the senator to
come to the palace at this hour.

The acting governor had not known that he was even in Porto Rico. The
last he had heard of Senator Garnford, he was taking an active part in
the deliberations of the distinguished body of which he was a member in
the Capitol at Washington.

Briggs was not long in bringing the visitor into the library.

Portersham got up and shook hands heartily with the ruddy, white-haired
man who came forward with a springy step that was much younger than his
appearance.

“Your cigar smells good,” laughed the senator. “May I have one?”

He took a cigar from the open humidor on the table, and, as he lighted
it by the wax candle that burned beside it, remarked:

“Two things I have a weakness for--a good horse and a good cigar.”

Portersham nodded and smiled. He liked the free-and-easy manner of this
important lawmaker, and he was glad he had come.

“What about a motor car, senator?” he asked, as his visitor took a
chair. “It hasn’t knocked out the horse for you altogether, eh?”

“Not in the least,” was the positive reply. “You can’t pat the neck of
a motor car. At least, unless you call the hood its neck. You can pat
that, if you like. And, even then, the pesky thing does not acknowledge
the caress. Now, a horse----”

At that moment the door clicked behind the retiring Briggs. The noise
was slight, but a curious change came over Senator Garnford as he heard
it. The smile left his face, his rather big body seemed to stiffen in
his white suit, and his strong, white teeth bit into his cigar.

“No chance of our being overheard in this room, is there?” he asked, in
a grave, sharp tone.

“Not the slightest,” replied the acting governor. “It was made
soundproof when the palace was built. Many a secret meeting was held
here in the days of the Spanish sovereignty of San Juan.”

“I suppose so. Only right, too.”

“I’ve looked into it since I’ve been here,” went on Portersham. “The
walls, ceiling, and floor are lined with felt. You might shoot off a
gun in here without its being heard inside.”

“Fine!” smiled the senator. “How about the door?”

“That is so thick that a person on the other side could not hear
anything--even a very loud noise. The keyhole is blinded, of course,
and I can slip the deadlatch with a touch of my finger. See!”

He walked over to the door and touched a spring, which clicked rather
loudly in response.

“That makes it safe for anything you might have to say that must not be
heard outside--state secrets, I mean?” remarked the senator.

“Yes. You could commit a murder in here without any one knowing
it--until the door was broken open.”

Portersham said this a little impatiently. He was curious to hear what
Senator Micah Garnford had to say to him. It was not often that so
important a personage came with a special message from Washington.

“I am glad to know that the room is so well protected,” observed
the senator. “Just draw a little closer to the table, will you? I
want to show you the papers that have brought me all the way from
Washington--and at a time when I really ought not to have left the
Senate.”

He got up from his own chair, as if to move it, and, as Portersham
hitched nearer the table, the senator managed to get right behind him.

At the same instant he thrust his hand into an inside pocket.

If the acting governor had chanced to turn, he would have observed that
the good-humored expression had entirely left his visitor’s face. His
lips had drawn down at the corners, while his eyes seemed to narrow and
come closer together.

There was a strange ferocity in the whole countenance, curiously at
variance with the light and pleasant words with which he had entered
the room.

When Senator Garnford’s hand came out of his pocket, it did not hold
papers. Instead, he brought forth a small bottle and a folded pad of
white cloth.

Keeping a wary eye on Portersham, who was trying to get his chair into
a convenient position at the table, the senator gently drew the cork
from the bottle in his hand.

He placed the pad of cloth over the neck of the bottle and let the
contents saturate it through and through.

“What’s that?” exclaimed the acting governor, as he began to turn in
his chair. “I thought I smelled a strange----”

He did not get any further. Senator Garnford seized him around the
throat in an iron grip and pulled his head back.

“Let go!” gasped Portersham. “What the----”

The pad, reeking with the sickly smelling stuff, was jammed over his
mouth and nostrils and held there.

The acting governor was a sturdy fellow, and if he had not been taken
so entirely by surprise, might have given this steel-muscled senator
a hard tussle. As it was, he could only struggle feebly, while vainly
endeavoring to shout for help.

Not that it would have done him any good. He had spoken truly when he
said that any sort of disturbance might take place in this felt-lined
room without its being heard outside.

But it was only natural for him to endeavor to cry out. It was the
involuntary act of an animal in extreme peril or pain, when a human
being does not reason any more than a dog.

The chloroform worked rapidly. Moreover, the senator had jerked his
head against the back of the chair with a force that would have half
stunned him, even without the anæsthetic.

Jabez Portersham managed to emit a gurgling cry. But the arm around his
throat pressed more tightly, while the fumes of the drug crept upward
and gripped his brain.

Vainly the acting governor tried to get out of the chair, with only a
vague consciousness of what was happening.

In the few seconds during which he tried to fight off the effect of the
deadly, nauseating fumes, he half realized that he actually was being
drugged by one of the most prominent men in the United States--one who
might have been supposed absolutely incapable of such a crime--or of
any crime, for that matter.

That was his last incoherent thought. Then everything became blank to
him.

The senator stepped back when he saw that his victim was thoroughly
overcome, and an evil grin spread over his face.

“It would be possible to commit a murder in this room without any one
knowing it!” he muttered. “If you had known just who Senator Garnford
was, my trusting friend, I guess you wouldn’t have said that.”

He snatched from his face the gray mustache and beard he had worn, and,
if Nick Carter had been in the room, he would have known that the real
name of this Senator Micah Garnford was none other than John Garrison
Rayne, alias the Apache!




CHAPTER IX.

BLUFFING IT THROUGH.


Rayne stood looking steadily into the still face of the acting governor
for a few moments, as if studying the features.

“Not a difficult face to make, I think,” he muttered.

He stepped lightly across the room to make sure that the door was
secure. Inspecting the deadlatch sharply, he decided that it would hold
the door against any possible interruption.

“When I get ready to go, I shall have to leave that unfastened,” he
muttered. “But I dare say I can make it secure enough on the outside to
suit my purpose. So long as I make my get-away, I need not care what
they do here afterward.”

He took off his gray wig, and stuffed it into a pocket, in company with
the mustache and beard.

“If I hadn’t had so much experience in making up, I should be a little
nervous over this thing,” he murmured. “As it is, I dare say I can make
myself into a Portersham that will pass muster.”

From one of his pockets he drew a small leather case, which contained
sticks of grease paint in tin foil, with other articles that he might
require in making up his face.

First of all, he had to take the Garnford red out of his cheeks. Then
he carefully imitated the complexion of the acting governor, being
particular to put on two small moles that he observed on the cheek and
chin respectively of the unconscious man.

In the course of ten minutes he had almost completely reproduced the
features of Jabez Portersham on his own countenance.

Line by line he brought out the contour of the young man’s face, with
every light wrinkle, every depression, every rounded part, and every
turn of expression that was part of the original, no matter how elusive
and slight it might be.

The first thing he did was to put on a wig of light hair, so near
the hue of Portersham’s that it might almost have been made from the
original. It had a touch of gray at the temples, which was so exactly
like that on the sides of the acting governor’s head that it might have
deceived his most intimate acquaintance.

“Good!” chuckled Rayne softly. “I’m glad I managed to have a good
squint at him on the street to-day. I reckon I’m getting it about as
close as any one could hope to do it.”

Actors, in making up, always put the wig on first, building up the face
afterward, and Rayne did the work in the approved professional way.

When everything seemed to be done, Rayne took a small mirror from
his pocket and examined himself critically under the strong, shaded
electric light. Then he walked over to a large mirror on the mantel and
took a general view.

He was entirely satisfied with himself in the large mirror, as well as
in the small one.

The nature of the Apache was so strange, and he had so much vanity in
his composition, stern as he was, that just then he thought much more
of the skill he had displayed in the art of make-up than of the fortune
in gems he was fighting so hard to retain, in the very teeth of the
detective who always had overcome him heretofore, Nick Carter.

“I reckon I’m going to show my friend Carter that his luck has changed,
so far as I am concerned,” he muttered. “If those men of his hadn’t
turned up at that café last night, I’d have put him in such a condition
that he would not have troubled me for a while, anyhow. I’m sorry my
knife missed him.”

There was a demoniacal snarl on the scoundrel’s lips. He was truly
sorry that he had not been able to commit a foul murder when he aimed
that stroke at the detective. As for compunction, that was a sentiment
that never troubled him.

“Well, my face is all right! Now for the clothes.”

His tone was businesslike. He might have been engaged in an entirely
legitimate task, so far as that was concerned.

“I’ll have to hurry,” he went on. “There is always the off chance of
somebody trying to get into this room. Even if I didn’t open the
door--which I certainly would not do--that very fact might stir up
suspicion. One never knows.”

He bent over the supine figure of Jabez Portersham, huddled in the
chair, and, deftly as a well-trained valet, took off the acting
governor’s outer garments, leaving him in his underclothing.

Deliberately, but without any waste of time, he put the suit of clothes
on himself, finishing off with the collar and necktie, and wearing the
watch and fob that was part of Portersham’s ordinary costume.

“By Jove!” he chuckled, as he surveyed himself in the large mirror.
“I am Jabez Portersham to the life. I don’t think I’ve overlooked
anything. Oh, yes! Here’s something.”

On the little finger of the unconscious man’s left hand was a large
diamond solitaire ring.

Rayne slipped it off and put it on his own little finger. It was loose
for him, but he decided that it would stay on, and that no one would
notice its being a little large.

“These details are important, sometimes,” he muttered. “Everybody who
knows this chap must have observed the ring. Besides, it is worth about
a thousand dollars, I should think. I should be a fool not to take it
with me.”

Now came the next move, which he had had in mind from the first, and
for which he had come fully prepared.

He took from his pockets a coil of thin wire and a small pad of cloth
like that with which he had administered the chloroform.

The pad he put in Portersham’s mouth, fastening it with a twist of the
wire around his head. Then he secured the arms and legs with the wire,
making sure that the acting governor would not be able to get free,
even if he should come to his senses.

“So far, good!” was his savage comment. “I shall have to put him where
he won’t be seen too quickly if any one comes in.”

It was easy for the athletic Apache to lift the young man from the
chair and stow him under the large library table.

“I’ll pile up these magazines and papers in front of him. Then he will
be masked in. I hope he’ll be comfortable under there, too.”

He grinned at this brutal jest, and heaped a few more papers under the
table, hiding his victim completely.

“With the wires on him, and the dose of dope he has in his system, he
will be safe enough for a while,” he reflected. “Now I come to the real
risk of the job. I’m glad I’m not deficient in nerve.”

He looked around him, felt in all the pockets of the clothing he had
taken off to make sure he had everything out--including the bags of
jewelry--patted his chest to assure himself that the flat bag was in
its place under his shirt, and pushed his discarded garments under the
table with the senseless Portersham.

“Now for it!” he breathed softly.

He opened the door without any noise and stepped into the hallway. His
heart beat a little faster than usual, but he never faltered in what
he had set himself to do. Neither did he show in his demeanor what a
strain there was upon even his steely nerves.

Briggs was sitting inside a small room off the hall that was his
particular domain. The door was open, so that the butler could see
everybody who might pass up and down.

His orders were to make sure no one loafed about the palace unless he
had business there.

As a public building, many strangers were in the palace during the
day. But in the late afternoon and evening, when official business was
suspended for the day, only those living in the house, or authorized
visitors, could be permitted to remain.

Briggs jumped to his feet and stood in the hall, waiting for orders, as
he saw the supposed acting governor coming along from his room.

Rayne was obliged to grip himself as he came face to face with Briggs.
This butler was more than a mere servant. He was expected to take on
himself the duties of a detective, and, naturally, he was disposed to
be suspicious.

The Apache took the bull by the horns.

“Is my secretary in?” he asked sharply--and his imitation of the tones
of Jabez Portersham was marvelous.

“Yes, sir,” answered Briggs. “Mr. Morlein is in his office. Shall I
send him to you?”

Rayne smiled inwardly. He had not known the name of the private
secretary, but he had learned it now, and without difficulty. The game
was playing into his hands.

The butler walked a little way down the hallway--it was on the second
floor of the building--and was about to knock on a door.

“Never mind!” interrupted Rayne. “I’ll go in and see him. You need not
knock.”

The Apache had found out where Morlein’s room was. This, also, was a
piece of information that had not been in his possession before. He did
not know the way of the palace. In fact, this was the first time he
ever had been within its walls.

Again getting a firm grip on his nerves, Rayne opened the door of the
secretary’s room and walked in with the authoritative manner of a chief
visiting a subordinate.

Henry Morlein was a tail, athletic young fellow, whose greeting
indicated that he was on very friendly terms with his chief.

His feet were on the edge of his desk, and though he took them down
when the supposed acting governor entered, he did it languidly, as if
it were not an unusual thing for him to be caught in this careless
attitude.

“Hello, chief!” he drawled, as he removed a cigar from his mouth. “I
thought you’d gone to the theater. They’re doing opera, I’m told--and
rather well, at that.”

“I was going, but I changed my mind.”

Rayne said this carelessly, but he trembled lest his imitation of Jabez
Portersham’s tones should fail to deceive this wide-awake young man.

He reflected that Henry Morlein was accustomed to the sound of the
acting governor’s voice every day, and should be able to detect an
imitation where many others might fail.

But Morlein did not appear to observe anything unusual in the accent
and inflection, and Rayne went on calmly:

“It’s just as well that I didn’t go. Did you know that Senator Micah
Garnford was in to see me a little while ago?”

“Senator Garnford?” ejaculated Morlein, in surprise. “Why, I thought
he was in Washington. Seems to me I was reading in the paper that he
made a great speech on the tariff the day before yesterday.”

“That was last week,” declared Rayne. “He’s in San Juan now. Do you
know the senator personally, Morlein?”

“Never saw him in my life,” was the prompt reply. “I never even saw his
picture. Rather a fine man, I’ve been told.”

“I think so. But that isn’t the point. I’ve got to go to Washington
right away--on official business.”

Henry Morlein threw the end of his cigar into a cuspidor and looked up
in astonishment.

“Geewhillikins! That’s sudden, isn’t it?”

“Government business is often sudden, Morlein,” replied Rayne gravely.
“I wish you would telephone the wharf where the steamer _Spangled Star_
lies, and tell the agent to hold a deck stateroom for Mr. Portersham,
will you?”

“She is to sail at ten o’clock,” remarked Morlein. “It’s half past nine
now. There won’t be much time.”

“Of course not. That’s why I want you to phone without delay. Tell them
I will try to be there at ten o’clock. If I am a little late, they are
to hold the ship for me.”

“All right, sir,” replied Morlein, as he turned to the telephone on his
desk.

Rayne took a seat and lighted one of the cigars that he took from
Portersham’s cigar case, which he had found in his pocket.

The Apache wanted a smoke. Even if he had not, most likely he would
have taken out the case. It would be one of the little proofs of his
identity which might impress Henry Morlein in case he were suspicious.

The venturesome scoundrel listened to one end of the telephonic
conversation between his private secretary and the steamship agent at
the wharf.

He gathered, from Morlein’s replies, that the agent was objecting to
holding the _Spangled Star_ for any one, even the acting governor of
Porto Rico. But Morlein shut him off sharply on that, telling him that
those were Mr. Portersham’s orders, and they had to be obeyed.

John Garrison Rayne grinned slightly behind his cigar. He was thinking
how different everything would be if either Morlein or the steamship
agent were to find out who this supposed Jabez Portersham really was.

“All right, sir,” observed Morlein, at last, as he hung up the
receiver. “They are reserving stateroom B for you on the upper deck.
There is a suite of two rooms and bath. I hope you will have a pleasant
trip. The steamer goes right through to New York. That will be your
quickest route to Washington.”

“I know that,” answered Rayne. “It will suit me, all right. I may have
to stay over in New York for an hour or two.”

“What about your baggage? Do you want me to give orders about it?”

“No,” was Rayne’s reply. “I’ve no time to bother about that. I can
borrow anything I need from some of the officers on the ship. Pajamas
are about all I should want till I get to New York. It is easy to buy
things there. Is my automobile ready?”

“I’ll have it at the front door by the time we get there,” answered
Morlein, as he took up the telephone receiver again.

“Very well. You might come down to the ship with me, Morlein.”

“All right!”

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour later, John Garrison Rayne was sitting in his comfortable suite
on board the modern and well-equipped steamer, _Spangled Star_, as it
skimmed out of San Juan harbor on its way to the Atlantic.

“Well, it is rather a relief to get away from San Juan,” he muttered,
with a grim smile. “There are people there I don’t much like.”




CHAPTER X.

NICK CARTER SMELLS A RAT.


It was early on the following morning when Nick Carter was awakened by
Patsy Garvan coming into his bedroom to inquire if his chief could get
up.

“What time is it?” asked Nick.

“Well, it is only six o’clock,” answered Patsy. “And you didn’t go to
bed till two. I don’t like to bother you.”

“That’s nothing. Go on,” broke in the detective impatiently. “What’s in
the wind?”

“Captain Douglas, of the San Juan police,” said Patsy shortly.

“Wants to see me?”

“Says so.”

“Where is he?”

“In the lobby, downstairs. Chick is with him.”

“What does he want to see me about?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out, if you like.”

“Do. Hustle down, and come right back. I’ll get dressed.”

Nick Carter could make his toilet about as quickly as anybody. But, by
the time he had been under the shower and rubbed himself off, and got
into his clothes, a good twenty minutes had elapsed.

“Wonder why Patsy did not come back. I’ll have to go down and see what
Douglas wants.”

Nick Carter had not much hope that it was a matter which would concern
him, for he had worked so hard on the case of the jewels without
success, that he did not believe anybody else could help him.

“I didn’t ask where Paul Clayton was,” he said to himself, as he went
down the stairs. “Perhaps he is with Chick and Patsy. I suppose he is.”

This supposition turned out to be correct. As the detective stepped
away from the stairs--there was no elevator at the Hotel Ionic--he saw
Clayton listening interestedly to a narration by Captain Douglas.

The chief of police turned as soon as he perceived Nick. Obviously, he
had been merely filling in his time by talking to Clayton until the
detective should come down.

Captain Douglas, head of the police force of San Juan, was a tall, lean
man, with a keen face--lighted up by a pair of steel-blue eyes--and a
short manner.

He had the reputation of being a splendid policeman, and it was not
often that he would confess himself at a loss on any case.

Just now, however, his haggard, worried face fairly shrieked of
disappointment. Nick Carter, accustomed to reading stories in the human
countenance, saw that something had gone wrong, and that Douglas was
metaphorically up a tree.

The captain shook hands with Nick Carter. Then he suggested that they
step over to a quiet corner of the lobby, where there were several
chairs.

“What’s up, captain?” asked Nick.

Douglas hesitated and passed a nervous hand across his chin.

“I suppose I may trust to your keeping it quiet?”

“Of course.”

“I know that,” returned the captain feverishly. “But this is such an
extraordinary affair, and it concerns so many big men that I don’t like
to speak of it even to myself.”

“Gee! Why don’t he cough it up?” grumbled Patsy, in a low tone.

Chick twitched his sleeve.

“Keep quiet, Patsy!”

“Go ahead, captain!” requested Nick.

“Well, the acting governor has suddenly bolted on the steamer _Spangled
Star_, which left port last night----”

“What of that?” asked Nick. “Nothing remarkable, is it?”

“Well, yes; it is very remarkable when one considers all the
circumstances.”

“What are the circumstances?”

“He went from the palace to the wharf in his automobile, with his
private secretary, Henry Morlein.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Portersham went on board the ship by himself, and was shown to the
stateroom that Morlein had engaged for him by telephone. He got there
at the last moment, and as soon as he was aboard, the gangplank was
taken in, and off went the ship.”

“I see. Well?”

“His automobile was on the wharf, with the regular chauffeur, José,
at the wheel. José did not turn around to see whether the secretary
was in the back seat until fifteen or twenty minutes after the steamer
had gone. Then he thought he was being kept there longer than seemed
necessary, and he turned his head, to ask Morlein for orders.”

“Go on,” urged Nick. “What is the point of all this?”

“The point is,” replied Captain Douglas impressively, “that Henry
Morlein was lying in the back seat of the car, senseless from
chloroform, and everything in his pockets, including several hundred
dollars belonging to the government, had been taken. He had been robbed
of every valuable thing that had been about him.”

“Chloroformed?”

“Yes. That’s what the doctor says it was.”

“Who is supposed to have done it?”

“Men about the wharf say there was no one near the automobile except
Mr. Portersham. He was seen talking to Morlein before he went to the
steamer, and José remembers hearing Mr. Portersham tell Morlein not to
get out of the car, but to go right back.”

“José is sure of that, eh?”

“Quite.”

“What kind of a man is this José?”

“He’s a reliable fellow. Everybody speaks well of him. He is a Cuban by
birth. If he makes a statement, it is safe to accept it, as a rule.”

“Where has Mr. Portersham gone?”

“The steamer is bound for New York. So he must be going there. Briggs,
a butler at the palace, says he heard Mr. Portersham tell Morlein that
he had been called to Washington.”

“By telegraph?”

“No. Senator Micah Garnford called on him a little while before he
sailed, telling him that he was required in Washington at once, on some
government business.”

“Senator Garnford?” exclaimed Nick. “Why, he is in Washington.”

“No. He is in San Juan. Briggs saw him, he says.”

“Briggs? I shall have to see Briggs and ask him a few things,” said
Nick thoughtfully. “I’m sure the senator could not be here now.”

“Briggs is sure he took in Senator Garnford’s card, and that he went
into Mr. Portersham’s room for a talk. Afterward the senator left the
palace by a back doorway.”

“Did any one see him go?”

“I believe not. But that is what Mr. Portersham said to Briggs.”

Like a flash it came to Nick Carter that all this mystery might be
mixed up with John Garrison Rayne.

The fact that somebody supposed to be the acting governor had left so
abruptly on the steamer, as well as the injury to and robbery of Henry
Morlein, smelled so strongly of the Apache’s methods that Nick could
not think of anything else.

“I should like to go to the palace, captain,” he said. “Is your car
outside?”

“Yes. I was hoping you would come.”

“I’ll take my two assistants with me. You have no objection?”

“Of course not, Mr. Carter. They’ll be useful, I dare say.”

“I hope so,” put in Patsy. “How about Mr. Clayton?”

“I should like to go,” announced Paul Clayton. “I have nothing to do
here.”

“All right,” agreed Captain Douglas. “There’s room for all of us in the
car. Tumble in!”

Douglas took the wheel himself, and in a very short time the car
stopped at the main entrance of the palace.

“Do you think there is anything in this that may help us to get that
jewelry?” whispered Paul Clayton anxiously, in Nick Carter’s ear.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” was the guarded reply. “I seem to see
Rayne’s hand in this affair, somehow.”




CHAPTER XI.

READY FOR A CLINCH.


When the party entered the big residence, Briggs met them at the door.
He was white, trembling, and generally disgruntled.

He had no hesitation about admitting the chief of police, but it was
not until Captain Douglas had said that his companions were friends of
his, and important persons from New York, that he made room for Nick
Carter and the others to go in.

“Take us to Mr. Portersham’s rooms,” ordered Douglas sharply, in his
most official tone.

“There is no one in any of them,” returned Briggs. “I have not let
anybody go near them this morning. Mr. Morlein is in bed in his room,
and the doctor is with him.”

“He is not in a serious condition, is he?”

“No, sir. I don’t think so. But he hasn’t come properly out of the
sleep he was in. He must have had an awfully strong dose of dope,
according to what I hear.”

“Very likely,” agreed the captain. “We’ll see him later. Where was Mr.
Portersham when he saw Senator Garnford?”

“In the library.”

“I’ll go into the library,” announced Douglas.

“The door is locked. I guess Mr. Portersham locked it when he went
away. The other rooms are open.”

“All right!”

Nick Carter did not take any part in this colloquy. He was listening
closely, however, and making a mental note of everything that was said.

They went into the dining room, bedroom, sitting room, and public
office that had been used by Portersham, but not into the library. The
door of this last-named apartment was the only one that was closed and
fastened.

“Haven’t got a key to this door, have you, Briggs?”

“No, sir. Mr. Portersham carries it himself, always.”

“What do you think, Mr. Carter?” asked the chief of police, in a rather
dubious tone.

“We’ve got to see the inside of that room,” was Nick’s short response.

“Break it open?”

“If there is no other way.”

“There doesn’t seem to be.”

“I might climb up to the window, with a ladder--or without one, for
that matter,” volunteered Chick.

“That wouldn’t do. Everybody outside would wonder what was going on,”
objected Nick Carter. “We don’t want to call general attention to this
trouble. Eh, captain?”

“Certainly not,” was Douglas’ hurried response.

“I should like to shin up to that window,” put in Patsy.

“Well, you can’t,” said Chick. “I’ll do it, if it were to be done at
all. You can’t have all the fun.”

“It’s mighty little fun I’ve had since I’ve been down here,” grumbled
Patsy. “It’s the dullest place I ever was in.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to force the door, would it?” asked Paul Clayton.
“We can all tackle it together.”

“It’s a pretty heavy door,” remarked Douglas. “I’ve seen it open, and
it is nearly three inches thick.”

“What’s the idea?” asked Patsy.

“To keep the sound in when they are talking.”

“Gee! I don’t see what they want a three-inch door for, just for that,”
was Patsy’s scornful comment. “Why couldn’t they whisper if they were
talking secrets.”

“Well, never mind about that,” interposed Nick Carter. “We’ve got to
break it down.”

“Hold on!” cried Douglas. “This is a pretty dangerous thing. I don’t
know that we have the right to do it. When the governor comes back he
might raise Hail Columbia with us.”

“You mean the acting governor, don’t you?” asked Chick.

“Either one,” replied the chief of police. “What are we expecting to
find in there, anyhow?”

“I’m convinced that we shall find something,” declared Nick Carter. “I
want to make sure that Senator Garnford really did come in here. I have
what I regard as positive proof that the senator is in Washington, and
I want to find out who has been impersonating him in San Juan.”

“You think that is what has happened?” asked Douglas, elevating his
eyebrows. “That sounds rather wild, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps it does,” answered Nick. “But I’ve been on the trail of a wild
man since I came to San Juan, and I fancy I can detect the fine Italian
hand of that person in this whole affair.”

Captain Douglas knew the reputation of Nick Carter as a detective who
did not make mistakes, and he had the highest respect for his ability
and acumen. He did not press his objection.

At the worst, he would have Carter to share the responsibility.

“All right, Mr. Carter!” he said. “Let her go!”

Nick Carter, Chick, Patsy, and Clayton put their shoulders against the
door, and, at a word from Nick, the four pushed with all their might.

There was a crash, but the door did not break down. Only a splintering
of wood told that it had been weakened by the assault.

“Stop!” shouted Captain Douglas. “I’m afraid to go on with this. It is
liable to put us all in jail. You can’t fool with the United States
government. This is a government building, and I don’t propose to----”

Nick Carter took no heed of this protest. He had made up his mind to
find out what was in this room, at any cost. He had come so near the
actual truth in his surmise, that he would not have drawn back now, no
matter who might have objected.

“Again, boys!” he shouted.

The four hurled themselves again at the weakened door. This time there
was more effect than at first.

Another crash resounded through the building, and, as the door toppled,
the quartet went sprawling into the room, with Patsy and Chick landing
with a bump against the heavy table in the middle.

Nick Carter and Paul Clayton fell on top of the door.

The detective was the first to gain his feet. He had caught a glimpse
of something under the table that made him rush over in a hurry.

“Push this table away!” he shouted.

His two assistants and Paul Clayton put their hands to the ponderous
piece of furniture and shoved.

Heavy as it was, it had good, easy casters. Therefore the table rolled
away several feet at once.

As it did so, there was revealed, lying on the floor, Jabez Portersham,
his eyes asking dumbly for assistance.

The gag was in his mouth, and the cruel wires with which he had been
bound were cutting into his flesh. He was nearly exhausted.

“Heaven save us!” ejaculated Captain Douglas. “It’s Mr. Portersham!”

Deeply as Nick Carter sympathized with the unfortunate acting governor,
he could not help glancing, with a slight smile of triumph, at the
chief of police.

The detective’s vague suspicion had been verified to a degree by the
discovery. He had been certain that the man who had posed as Senator
Garnford was an impostor. Here was part proof, at least.

Nick Carter’s ever-useful pocketknife, with its many tools in the
handle, came into play again. A pair of wire cutters was included
in its equipment, and it did not take long to snip the wires off the
unfortunate official.

They soon had Portersham on his feet. Then Patsy and Chick, in
obedience to the instructions of Nick Carter, ran him up and down the
room a few times, to take the stiffness out of his limbs.

Afterward they sat him in his own easy-chair, and waited for him to
compose himself.

“What does it mean?” he asked, in a dazed way, as he passed his tongue
over his dry lips. “What could have induced Senator Garnford, of all
men, to play such a trick on me?”

“It was Senator Garnford, then?” asked Douglas.

“Yes. I remember that much,” was the reply.

“You are mistaken,” put in Nick Carter.

“No,” insisted Portersham. “I saw him. We were talking, in a friendly
way. Then, all at once, he caught me around the neck and put some
stuff to my face in a cloth that made me lose my senses. I know it was
Senator Garnford. There is no mistake about that.”

“You’re wrong,” said Nick. “There was a mistake. A rascal pretended to
be the senator. He wanted to get to you, and now he has got away as the
result of his game here.”

“I don’t see how it could be,” said Portersham, shaking his head
feebly. “Who do you think the man was?”

“His name is John Garrison Rayne.”

“What?” cried Portersham. “The safe robber and bank sneak? Rayne? I’ve
heard of him.”

“So have I,” added Douglas bitterly. “To my cost. If it is that
blackguard, I’ll have him before he gets out of San Juan.”

“I’m afraid not,” contradicted Nick Carter. “Unless I am very much
mistaken, he is on the Atlantic Ocean, well on his way to New York by
this time.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I can’t give you all my reasons in detail. It would take too long. But
we will inquire at the wharf, and I think we shall find that he went on
the _Spangled Star_, pretending he was Jabez Portersham.”

“Pretending he was I?” put in the acting governor. “I don’t understand.”

“You will later,” answered Nick. “There’s a telephone on the floor,
Patsy. It was knocked off the table when we shoved it away. See if you
can get the agent of the steamship line, will you?”

“Sure!” replied Patsy, glad to have something to do.

There was ten minutes at the telephone, and Patsy announced that Mr.
Portersham had been a passenger on the steamer _Spangled Star_, which
left at ten o’clock the night before.

“The blackguard!” ejaculated Portersham, adding something under his
breath that was rather strong, but hardly to be wondered at in the
circumstances. “You’ll follow him up, won’t you?”

The eyes of Nick Carter narrowed, and his firm jaw seemed to take on
additional hardness, as he replied:

“I have business with that fellow, John Garrison Rayne, Mr. Portersham,
that has brought me all the way from New York. That is the only reason
I am here. When I do round him up--as I will before he is a month
older--I’ll make him answer for all that he has done. That means that
you will be avenged, I assure you.”

“You will have to go to New York after him, I suppose?”

“That is where we must look first,” returned Nick.

Portersham clenched his fists, and, although weakened by his many hours
of torturing confinement, he showed an energy which would become more
powerful as he regained his strength.

“I wish I could go with you, Mr. Carter,” he said. “I don’t mind a
straight fight. But this----”

The telephone bell rang. Patsy whipped the receiver off the hook and
shouted “Hello!”

“What’s that?” he went on, into the instrument. “You say she’s in
trouble? Got a wireless?”

He turned to those in the room, putting a hand over the transmitter.

“Gee!” he ejaculated. “Here’s more of it! Well, what do you think of
that?”

“What?” demanded Chick.

“Great Cæsar! Wouldn’t that jar you?” was all Patsy responded, as he
turned again to the telephone.

He listened a few moments. Then, as he clapped the receiver on the
hook, he announced, trying to speak calmly:

“The steamer _Spangled Star_ is in trouble a hundred miles out. One of
her engines has broken down, and she is limping back to port as well as
she can with the other.”

“What? To San Juan?” demanded Chick.

“Sure!” replied Patsy.

“That’s good. We’ll be there to meet her when she comes in,” said Nick
Carter, with a smile that was partly a vengeful frown.




CHAPTER XII.

A PRESENT FOR SAN JUAN.


The steamer _Spangled Star_, very lame, with only one engine working,
and with her propeller finding it difficult to urge her along on a
straight course, came into San Juan harbor, wabbling toward her wharf.

Before she got in altogether, she stopped, for she was hardly
manageable at intervals, and a motor boat put out from the shore and
hailed her.

In the boat were Nick Carter and his two assistants, with Captain
Douglas and Paul Clayton.

The police uniform of Douglas was enough to make the captain of the
steamer lower a sea ladder right away. He might not have done it for
one in citizen’s clothes--which was the reason Nick Carter had insisted
on Douglas putting on his blue and brass, gold badge and all, to
impress the commander.

Nick wasted no time when once he got on deck. Taking the skipper aside,
he asked if Jabez Portersham was aboard.

“You bet he is. Of course, he is acting governor of Porto Rico, and I
couldn’t help taking him as a passenger, even though it made us nearly
half an hour late in getting away. I believe he’s hoodooed us, too,
for I never had my machinery break down before. We’d had our engines
inspected, and there was no need for them to throw off. Yet, here’s
our sta’boa’d engine gone so far it’ll be only good for the junk pile,
and----”

“Where’s Mr. Portersham’s cabin?” interrupted Nick, when he saw that
the irate captain was likely to keep on airing his woes indefinitely.
“Can we see him?”

The skipper glanced at Douglas inquiringly. An almost imperceptible
nod reassured him, and he pointed to a doorway which led to the deck
cabins--the most expensive on the vessel.

“Look out, chief!” whispered Patsy. “He may be waiting for us. You
don’t want to run right into a gun before you know it.”

“I don’t think he would dare to shoot just now,” smiled Nick. “When he
is cornered, Rayne knows enough to give in. He depends on his cunning
to escape later.”

“That may be all so,” admitted Patsy grudgingly. “But you’d better let
me go first. If he plugs me, it won’t matter, because I ain’t of any
importance. It’s different with you. If he got you, where would we find
another to take your place. So----”

Patsy was surging ahead, to go into the narrow corridor, without
waiting for permission.

Nick caught him by the shoulder and swung him aside, with playful
sternness.

“You rat!” he laughed. “Get out! I’m going in myself. You and Chick
keep watch on deck. You never know what Rayne will do. Get out of the
way!”

The detective had got into the corridor, and had his eye on the door of
the stateroom that had been pointed out to him as Portersham’s, when
he was startled by a loud shout from Patsy, echoed by Chick and Paul
Clayton.

He understood at once that the disturbance had been caused by some act
of Rayne’s, but he did not know what it was.

It would not be safe for him to go out of the corridor now, leaving a
free route for Rayne to liberty.

“They may have seen him at a window,” he muttered. “Anyhow, he can’t
get away so long as we have him on the ship.”

The door of the stateroom was locked. But Nick Carter had anticipated
that, and already had his jackknife in his hand.

One jab and a turn of the wrist, and open came the stateroom door.

There were two rooms and a bath, it will be remembered, but only one
door led to the corridor. The others communicated with each other.

Nick ran into the first room. It was empty!

He hurried to the next. To his surprise, that was unoccupied, too!

He looked into the diminutive bathroom, which was the last of the
three. But he was not astonished to see that no one was in there.

“Chief!” bellowed Patsy, outside.

“By all the gods!” exclaimed Nick Carter. “He’s trying to trick us,
after all.”

The window of the middle room was wide open, with the curtains flapping
idly in the opening.

It was not a large window, but a man not too stout, and who was fairly
active, could get through.

This was apparent to the detective at a glance. The next moment he had
gone through headfirst, falling on the deck in a heap.

It was rather an uncomfortable proceeding, and he bumped his head so
that it rang again. But it was the quickest way to get out, and Nick
Carter did not mind a crack on the head when on the heels of a slippery
criminal.

He was on his feet in an instant, and looking around to see what the
situation might be.

He heard Chick and Patsy both shouting on the other side of the vessel,
and could distinguish the sound of running feet. Then he saw Captain
Douglas holding out his arms, as if to stop somebody at the forward end
of the deck, while the commander of the steamer indulged himself in
picturesque profanity, because, as he declared, they were making a fool
of his ship.

“Hey, chief!” bellowed Patsy.

“What is it?” responded Nick.

“Catch him when he comes around!” came from Chick.

“Stop, or I’ll plug you!” roared Captain Douglas at somebody.

It was just as this threat emanated from the chief of police that a man
came tearing across the deck, in the shadow of the smokestacks, and
made a leap for the gangway, where the ladder hung.

The ladder was a perfectly straight one, the sort of things to be
negotiated only by a nimble person, whose head was cool and level.

But John Garrison Rayne was both nimble and unterrified.

He gave one glance at the ladder, saw that the motor boat was made fast
to it at the bottom, and over he went!

He was not quick enough to elude Nick Carter, however.

The detective surmised what he intended to do before he did it.

So it came about that, when Rayne was nearly at the bottom of the
ladder, the detective had already begun to climb down, and was three or
four rungs on his way.

Rayne feverishly began to untie the painter.

“Ha! ha!” he shouted, with laughter that had a touch of hysteria in it.
“Fooled you again, Carter!”

“Not yet, my friend!” was the detective’s rejoinder. “Look out! I’m
coming!”

“If you do you’ll drop into the water!”

Rayne had the boat loose by this time. Then, turning the engine over,
he got it to moving as he took the wheel to steer toward the shore.

Again the rascal laughed loudly, while Chick and Patsy, on the deck
above, screamed warnings to their chief.

“Look out!” begged Patsy. “Better let him go than you tumble into the
sea. Don’t take the chance!”

“That’s so. Keep back!” added Chick.

Paul Clayton and Douglas were both standing near the side of the ship,
looking over.

The former did not speak, while the chief of police contented himself
with pointing his revolver at John Garrison Rayne, in the motor boat,
and threatening to fill him so full of lead that he would weigh a ton.

It was just now that Nick Carter took the chance which his assistants
pleaded so hard with him not to attempt.

He saw that there was a considerable width of open water between him
and the motor boat. On the other hand, he was far enough up the ladder
to be able to make a considerable broad jump.

The thought of this scoundrel getting away, now that he was so nearly
caught, maddened him. So, judging his distance carefully, he leaped out
from the ladder with all the power he could summon.

It was a risky performance. But luck reënforced judgment, and the
detective came plump down into the waist of the little craft,
immediately behind Rayne, who stood at the wheel, with his feet far
down in the well.

The motor boat rocked dangerously from the concussion when Nick Carter
dropped. Before it could quite recover, it was caught in a cross sea
that tested it a little more.

Only the most skillful manipulation by Rayne prevented it capsizing.

Nick gave him just time to get the boat on an even keel. Then he fell
upon the rascal with both hands!

A rough and tumble in a motor boat is necessarily full of risk. It is
always likely to end in a ducking for both combatants.

How Nick Carter and John Garrison Rayne escaped this unpleasantness is
not to be explained. Only the fact can be stated.

Perhaps it was because Nick Carter was so dexterous in putting on the
handcuffs when the Apache was not looking.

At all events, in less than two minutes, after a hard fight, John
Garrison Rayne lay in the bottom of the dinky little craft, handcuffed,
and with the detective sitting on him.

The boat was steered back to the ship, and the others came aboard.

“See if he has got the jewelry, Chick,” ordered Nick Carter. “I’ll hold
him.”

“Get back there, Chick!” commanded Patsy, grinning. “I’m the boy that
can frisk him.”

“Here’s two bags,” announced Chick, as he brought them forth from the
rascal’s inside pockets.

“Let Mr. Clayton look at them and see what’s inside.”

The bags were given to Clayton, and while he went hastily through their
contents and saw that they made up a large part of the Stephen Reed
booty, including the sultan’s pearls, Patsy found the flat packing
inside Rayne’s shirt.

“That about makes the tally,” said Clayton. “How can I ever thank you,
Mr. Carter?” he added, with something like a sob.

“Nonsense,” was Nick Carter’s reply. “It was all in the day’s work. Now
that we’ve got the jewelry, we’ll watch it closer than we did before.”

“When are we going to New York?” asked Patsy.

“As soon as we can get a ship to take us,” said Nick earnestly.

“What are you going to do with this fellow?” asked Captain Douglas,
stirring John Garrison Rayne with his foot. “Do you want to take him to
New York to answer to this charge of stealing the jewelry, or will you
leave him in San Juan, to be put through in our criminal courts?”

“You can have him,” laughed Nick Carter.


THE END.


“The Clew of the White Collar; or, Nick Carter on a Twisted Trail,”
will be the title of the long, complete story which you will find in
the next issue, No. 144, of the NICK CARTER STORIES, out June 12th. In
the forthcoming story you will read of the further adventures of the
famous detective with the clever John Garrison Rayne.




Where’s the Commandant?

By C. C. WADDELL.

(This interesting story was commenced in No. 140 of NICK CARTER
STORIES. Back numbers can always be obtained from your news dealer or
the publishers.)




CHAPTER XII.

IN THE ATTIC.


There is little to be gained, however, from regrets over lost
opportunities, and Meredith, as befitted the daughter of an officer
rated one of the most resourceful in the service, turned very speedily
from that bootless pursuit to consider what advantage she still might
glean from the information which had come her way.

One point she settled without delay; she would not hold to her
intention of leaving the roof she was under immediately after
breakfast. On the other hand--distasteful as the experience might
prove--she would remain until she had successfully ferreted out the
true cause of all the mystery which seemed to envelop the place and its
occupants. Heedless of her obligations as a guest, she would watch with
unremitting vigilance every move of her host and hostess.

A higher law than that of hospitality now demanded her allegiance; for,
convinced that Mrs. Schilder was concerned in the colonel’s abduction,
or at least friendly to the abductors, she was prepared to cast off all
restraints, and stand solely on the principle. “All is fair in war.”

Also she realized that she must communicate her discoveries promptly
to Grail. The intelligence might very readily dovetail in with what he
already had, and aid him materially in his task.

Therefore, as soon as the morning had sufficiently advanced to make
her appearance seem natural to any servants who might be about, she
arose, and, leaving Mrs. Schilder still soundly asleep, hastened to
her own room, with the idea of dressing, and proceeding to the nearest
telephone station. There were telephones in the house, of course, but
she did not care to use any of them at the risk of being overheard.

On arriving at the chamber she had left in such panic the night before,
she looked vainly about for the frock she had taken off, which, owing
to the haste of her departure from Chicago, was the only one she had
brought with her.

Hurriedly she rang the bell to summon Marie, and institute inquiries.

“Pardon, ma’mselle.” The maid shrugged her shoulders. “Ze skirt
had rubbed against ze w’eel of ze motor, and was in a condition
deplorable--all covered wiz grease and dust down ze side. I took ze
liberty, ma’mselle, to have eet sent to ze cleanair’s, and eet weel
not be back before twelve o’clock. Naturally, I did not anticipate zat
ma’mselle would arise so early.”

Meredith gave a gasp. She herself had not noticed that the dress was
soiled on removing it, although she was fair enough to admit that in
her preoccupation at that time she might have overlooked even more
serious damage. Still, that was not the point. Was she to be held
prisoner for any such absurd cause until noon?

“But I wish to go out, Marie,” she expostulated, “now, at once! You
must get me something to wear.”

The girl again shrugged helplessly. “Pardon once more, ma’mselle,
but Madame Schildair’s figure is so tall and slendair zat I fear eet
would be impossible for ma’mselle to wear any of her gowns. Her waist
ees only twenty-two inch, w’ereas ma’mselle”--she cast a calculating
glance--“must be fully twenty-six.”

“Then get me something of yours,” it was on Meredith’s lips to demand;
“something of somebody’s, if even only a raincoat to cover me with.”
But she checked herself in time. It would not do to attach too much
importance to her errand; already Marie was beginning to eye her
curiously.

“Very well, then,” she said carelessly. “I suppose I shall simply have
to wait. Fortunately, it does not make any especial difference.”

After all, the thought had struck her, there would be very little risk
in telephoning from the house, provided she used the main instrument
in the library downstairs, and saw to it that all the extensions were
switched off.

But when, with this project in view, she repaired to the library, she
found, to her disgust, that Schilder was ensconced there, going over
some papers, and she had to fabricate a hasty and rather feeble excuse
to account for her intrusion.

Moreover, a second visit, a half hour later, found him still there; and
when a third trip revealed him seemingly anchored to his chair, and she
ventured to inquire, in a casual way, what time he usually departed for
business, he informed her, rather shortly, that he was not going to the
office that morning. He had matters to attend to at home.

A messenger call box in the hall seemed to offer her recourse, and,
grasping at the suggestion, she gave the handle a twist which almost
jerked it off; then hastened to her room to write a note to Grail.

But, with the note finished, the slow minutes passed without any
response to her ring, until it seemed certain that even the most
tortoiselike messenger ought to have arrived, and she started an
investigation, only to learn that the boy had come and been sent away
again, since she had failed to apprise the man at the door of having
sent in a call.

Swallowing her chagrin as best she could, she gave another twist to
the knob, and this time not only gave notice of her action, but seated
herself at the window to watch for the messenger.

Presently a blue-uniformed boy hove in sight down the street, and
turned his bicycle into the drive leading up to the door. Meredith,
note in hand, lost no time in getting downstairs; but it was only to
see the servant on guard turning back from the entrance.

“Boy hasn’t showed up yet, ma’am,” he assured her unfalteringly.
“Wonderful how long them little rascals does take sometimes to get
around.”

Meredith realized now, with a sick feeling, what she had begun to
suspect for an hour or more past--that she was being deliberately
thwarted and baffled in her attempts to communicate with Grail,
probably under instructions from Mrs. Schilder herself.

The incident of the dress, the palpable falsehood in regard to the
coming of the messenger boy; more than all, the constant if unobtrusive
surveillance exercised by Marie, all assured her that she was making no
mistake. Now that she came to think of it, she could not recall a time
that morning when the maid, with her sly, watchful eyes, had not been
hovering close at hand, apparently absorbed in her duties, yet always
in a position to note everything that Meredith might do.

Did it mean, then, that she was to be cut off from all intercourse with
the outside world? If she should assert herself, and insist on using
the telephone, would the polite evasions and lies she had hitherto met
change to harsher and more restrictive measures?

For a moment she was tempted to put the matter to the test; then, with
more sober second thought, she decided to wait. To provoke a scene at
this juncture, or to display any undue eagerness to get away, would be
but to disclose her hand to Mrs. Schilder. It was not by force, but by
craft, and a pretense of innocence, that she must undermine her wily
antagonist. She must match her wits against those of the other woman
and overcome.

Suddenly, like a flash of inspiration, there came to her mind the
recollection of the wireless telephone apparatus which her father had
once rigged up for experimental purposes in the attic of this very
house. The colonel had become very friendly with Otto Schilder, and,
being an enthusiastic electrician, had suggested the installation
of the wireless apparatus, with which they might hold experimental
conversations, and had forthwith secured the instruments and arranged
them in the Schilders’ attic. Meredith was not especially interested in
such experiments, but she had often seen her father use the apparatus
at the fort, and believed she could manage it in such an emergency.

The door leading up to the attic from the third floor was unlocked,
but how to escape the sharp espionage of Marie presented a difficulty,
and after vainly trying a number of ruses, she almost despaired of
accomplishing it, until at last, about noon, hope was revived by the
ringing of a bell summoning Marie to her mistress.

The maid who took her place on guard, a stupid sort of girl, Meredith
had little difficulty in disposing of; then, the coast clear at last,
she hurried to the floor above.

The place, lighted only from above by small skylights, stretched away,
dim and shadowy, into the recesses and corners under the eaves. There
were boxes and packing cases all around, behind which anything might
be lurking. The silence, too, was a little fearsome; the only sound to
break the stillness was the buzzing of a fly.

Meredith did not falter long, however, but turned to the business
before her, and, lightly threading her way between the boxes, reached
the table, with its black cabinet on top, and the wires running up to
the mast on the roof.

Instrument, table and all were covered with the dust of long disuse,
but when she had slipped the receiver on over her ears, and had touched
a knob or two on the box, she was delighted to find that the instrument
had lost none of its efficiency.




CHAPTER XIII.

WIRELESS TALK.


At first, a mere jumble of indistinguishable sounds greeted her,
punctuated by the sharp crack-crack from two amateur wireless
telegraphers holding conversation across her field of hearing; but soon
she had remedied all that, and had her apparatus tuned down to the wave
lengths of the instrument at the post.

“Hello, there!” she broke in heedlessly on some practice work being
given a couple of recruits by a sergeant instructor. “This is
important,” she said, as the sergeant advised her, rather brusquely,
not to “butt in.” “I wish to speak to Adjutant Grail at once!”

“And who are you?” the sergeant demanded, still truculent over the
interruption.

“Miss Vedant!”

“Oh!” The voice, borne on the wings of the air, was now smooth and soft
as oil. “Excuse me, miss, for speaking as I did. I mistook you for one
of those amateurs that’s always bothering around. I’m sorry, miss, but
Captain Grail ain’t at the post just now.”

“Do you know where he is, then? Or could you get hold of him for me?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea where he is, ma’am.” The sergeant’s stiff
tone seemed also to indicate that neither did he care. Evidently he was
of the party to whom Grail’s very name had become hateful.

Recollecting, however, to whom he was talking, he added, less
churlishly: “The adjutant, ma’am, as I understand it, hasn’t been on
the reservation since seven o’clock last night, and he left no word
where he was going.”

“Nor when to expect him back?”

“Nor when to expect him back,” the sergeant echoed, a trifle cynically,
for it was a matter of general belief at the barracks that Grail,
unable to face the charges against him, had skipped out. Still, it was
not for him to voice any such rumor to the colonel’s daughter, and he
inquired diplomatically: “In case he does come in, ma’am, is there any
message you wish to leave for him?”

“No; I guess not.” She hesitated. “No. I will try to call him up later
in the day.”

Bitterly disappointed at the failure, and doubtful whether another
opportunity would be granted her to reach the attic, she leaned her
head in her two hands over the table, and tried to decide what to do.

Might it not be better, now that she was here, to remain beside the
instrument until she could effect communication with Grail, rather
than to risk the very dubious chances of again eluding the vigilance
belowstairs? But she shook her head. Her absence, once discovered,
and with the certainty that she could not have left the house in
dishabille, they would never rest until they had ransacked the place
from cellar to roof. Her retreat could not fail to be discovered,
unless she were able to hide from the prying eyes of the searchers.

The suggestion drew her glance to a closet or compartment at one side
of the attic, which, sheathed with iron, and having a combination lock
on the door, had been fitted up as a sort of strong room. She had heard
it spoken of, and remembered hearing that it was now in disuse and
unlocked.

It was the very place. No one would ever dream of her being secreted
inside, and she would be almost as safe from discovery as in a
burglar-proof vault; yet there was a window at one side to give her
light and air, and she could be just as comfortable there as in the
wider spaces of the attic outside.

She stepped quickly to the door, but as she paused to fumble with the
latch there reached her from within a faint sound of rustling and
scratching.

Rats! The idea of opening that door, or seeking refuge in the strong
room, died abruptly. With a timorous gasp, she fled down the attic
steps as fast as her feet could carry her.

Fortunately, there was no one on the third floor to witness her
breathless exit, and, recovering somewhat from her panic, she managed
to close the attic door and regain her own room without detection.

Hardly was she safe, however, before Marie made her appearance, looking
distinctly worried and upset.

“Where has ma’mselle been?” she demanded, almost crossly. “I have been
looking everywhere for her to serve her ze luncheon.”

“I?” Meredith found it hard work not to pant. “Oh, I have just been
strolling about the house. By the way, Marie,” deftly turning the
subject, “has not that frock of mine come back from the cleaner’s yet?”

Marie was apologetic. The “pig of a cleaner” had deceived her
outrageously; she had just sent over for the frock, only to be informed
that it would not be finished until four o’clock.

“Oh, well, it really makes no difference,” Meredith assured her
carelessly. “Since I have given up the idea of going out to-day.
Indeed, I think I shall try to take a long nap this afternoon. I did
not sleep at all well last night.”

With this plausible excuse, she managed to throw the sentinel maid
off guard, and, as Mrs. Schilder went out in the automobile, was
able to effect two more trips to the attic undiscovered, although,
unfortunately, without result. Each time she was informed that Captain
Grail had not yet returned to the post.

So the long afternoon wore away fruitlessly, and with the passing of
the hours passed also that feeling of buoyancy which Meredith had
experienced in the morning, and which, no doubt, was largely due to the
excitement of finding herself actively involved in the game.

Now, with the reaction, she was growing dispirited and apprehensive
once more. Nothing seemed to have been accomplished. Her father’s
whereabouts still continued a mystery; and, in addition, she now
began to worry over Grail’s protracted absence. What if something had
happened to him, too? Indeed, was it not almost certain that something
must have happened to him?

Darker and darker grew her misgivings as she gave rein to her
imagination, until, when Mrs. Schilder at last came in, she found the
poor girl a picture of disconsolate woe.

“Is there no news?” Meredith raised her wan face in piteous question.
Even from this deceitful source she might gather something in the way
of a glance or expression.

But Mrs. Schilder’s countenance revealed nothing.

“I am sorry,” she said, “but the investigation seems to have come to a
standstill. Every clew has been carefully worked out, the officers tell
me, but to absolutely no avail. However,” she dropped her gloved hand
on Meredith’s shoulder, “you must not let that discourage you, my dear.
No news is always good news, remember; and no one concerned is lacking
in activity in any direction. Mr. Schilder, indeed, is so deeply
concerned that he has invited all the officers of the post to meet him
here to-night and discuss what measures shall next be undertaken, and
he says that unless they can show him a reasonable promise of success
he will report the disappearance to the civil authorities.

“He told me to tell you of this conference, my dear,” she went on, “and
ask you if you did not want to be present; although I told him that I
hardly deemed it wise, since theories and conjectures are sure to be
advanced which cannot help but be harrowing to you.”

“No.” Meredith’s tremors ceased with the offer of a change of action.
Major Appleby might be bombastic, and Lieutenant Hemingway a fool, but
surely there was some one among the officers--blunt old Dobbs, the
surgeon, maybe--to whom she could whisper her suspicions.

“No,” she repeated, with decision, “there can be nothing said to cause
me more apprehension than the possibilities I have already pictured to
myself. Thank Mr. Schilder for me, please, and tell him that I shall
certainly attend the conference.”

First, however, she determined to call up Grail once more; then, if
she failed to find him at the fort, she would be satisfied that some
calamity had befallen him, and that both for his sake and her father’s
she would have to resort to another ally.

Accordingly, an opportunity arising for her to slip away just as Major
Appleby and his associates commenced to arrive, she stole once more to
the attic.

Confronted by the darkness and the possibility of scampering rats, she
halted for a moment, strongly tempted to turn and flee; then, nerving
herself to the effort, although still quaking with trepidation, she
dashed up the steps and over toward the wireless instrument.

Halfway across the space, her wild rush was abruptly stayed, and she
came to her knees, a stifled shriek of terror on her lips.

She had stumbled over the body of a man, bound and gagged, lying
directly in her path.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE MARKED NAMES.


As Grail turned back into his quarters, after seeing Meredith off, that
night of her arrival from Chicago, his face had fallen into lines of
troubled solicitude, and he gave an ominous shake of the head, for it
was idle to deny that the startling news concerning Sasaku had filled
him with the gravest sort of misgivings. Indicating that this was no
ordinary game of hide and seek, such as the gumshoe men of the various
powers are accustomed to play with each other, but a sinister intrigue,
prepared to balk at nothing to gain its ends, it raised a serious
question as to the possible fate which had befallen the colonel.

Hurriedly summoning his “striker,” he sent him out for a copy of the
extra _Herald_ containing an account of the murder; then, when the
paper had arrived, he devoted himself to a careful perusal and analysis
of the details.

There was really but little to be gleaned. The body of the Japanese
had been found on the stairs of a rooming house for laboring men, down
near the river front, and, as Grail noted, not more than a block or two
away from the Dolliver Foundry. Struck evidently from behind, by an
unexpected knife thrust, as he was starting to go out, he had lurched
forward, clutching at the banister, then sagged down lifeless on the
third step from the top, his straw hat rolling on down the flight, and,
by exciting the curiosity of a lodger on the floor below, leading,
later on, to a discovery of the dead man.

Life had not been extinct more than half an hour when he was found,
it was stated, and thus the time of the murder was definitely fixed
at about two o’clock in the afternoon; yet, although a number of the
occupants of the place had been in their rooms at that hour, no one
could be unearthed who had heard any outcry or sound of altercation.

Indeed, there seemed an utter lack of any clew to indicate the motive
or perpetrator of the crime. The door of the house was usually
left open, all kinds of people coming and going at will; so it was
assumed that the murderer must have entered deliberately, gained the
third floor, then laid in wait in the dark hallway until Sasaku, all
unsuspecting, came out. That the assassin did not belong in the house
seemed certain, from the fact that the Japanese was an utter stranger
in the place, having only engaged his room the afternoon before, and
being, so far as could be learned, unacquainted with any of the other
tenants. Besides, all those at home at the time of the affair were able
to account satisfactorily for their movements.

Some significance, at first, was attached to the circumstance that the
door of the room directly across the corridor from Sasaku’s was found
ajar, whereas the man to whom the room belonged, a foundry worker by
the name of Marice Matschka, was known to be very circumspect about
keeping his door locked, and one of the fourth-floor lodgers, who
had come in at noon, asserted that when he passed by the door had
undoubtedly been closed.

Matschka, however, was able to prove conclusively that he himself had
not been back to the place since leaving for work at six o’clock that
morning, and also stoutly denied having given up his key, or sent any
one else there. He was confident, he said, that he had locked the door
behind him, as usual, that morning, but, of course, might be mistaken,
and in that case it would have been an easy matter for the unlatched
portal to have swung open in the draft.

There was, moreover, no reason to believe that he had known the
Japanese, or could have harbored ill will against him for any cause, so
this line of investigation was very speedily abandoned.

In short, the case was a puzzle, looked at from any angle. Sasaku’s
scanty effects, consisting chiefly of his clothes, a few letters, and a
notebook containing a few names and addresses, offered nothing in the
way of a clew; nor did his history, so far as it could be traced out,
disclose the existence of any enemies. He had been an affable, friendly
sort of a little chap, generally well liked. Finally, it was plain
that robbery was not the cause, since a diamond ring, a gold watch and
chain, and some fifty dollars in his pocket, had been left untouched.

The police, all at sea for an adequate motive, had to fall back on the
fantastic theory that he had been the victim of some sort of Oriental
vendetta at the hands of his own countrymen; and, with great pretense
at secret knowledge, made significant allusions to oath-bound clans and
mysterious brotherhoods.

Grail had just about completed his reading of the newspaper narrative,
digesting carefully not only what appeared, but also what lay between
the lines, when Sergeant Cato entered and saluted him.

The sergeant was dusty and perspiring from what had evidently been an
arduous day, but his beaming expression showed that his efforts had not
been in vain.

“You’ve found out what I wanted, eh?” Grail glanced up eagerly.

“I think I’ve got it all, sir.”

“Good!” The adjutant nodded toward a chair, and extended a cigar. “Sit
down and make yourself comfortable, sergeant, and let’s have the story
as quickly as possible. I would tell you to go and get something to
eat first, but things have been happening since you’ve been away that
make haste imperative.”

“Oh, I’m not hungry, sir,” Cato assured him. “This beats a meal any
old time”--puffing luxuriously at the perfecto--“and, besides, I had a
sandwich over at Sunset Bluffs.”

“Sunset Bluffs, eh? Then you _did_ have time to look up the motor-boat
business for me?”

“Sure, sir. It came in yesterday morning, just as you said, billed to
Otto Schilder, and was taken out on his order late yesterday afternoon
by Mike Flannery, a truckman over there on the other side of the river.”

“And you talked to Flannery, of course?”

“No.” Cato shook his head. “He was out with his wagon. But I did
better, sir. I had a chin with Flannery’s kid, a boy about ten years
old.”

“Ah!”

“Yes, sir. He and I took in a moving-picture show together”--the
sergeant grinned--“and before it was over I guess he had told enough to
earn him the licking of his life, if the old man should ever find it
out. His father, it seems, intended to haul the boat out to the lake
last night, but just as he was getting ready to start out a stranger
came around to engage him for an immediate moving job. A big, dark-eyed
man, the boy said he was, who gave the name of Dabney, and seemed to be
in a great hurry.”

“A big, dark-eyed man, who gave the name of Dabney,” Grail echoed. “Go
on!”

“Well sir, Flannery, seeing a chance to squeeze in some extra money,
took him up, and, leaving the boat there in his stable yard, went off
with his truck and horses, expecting to be back and start for the lake
about one o’clock, Dabney telling him that his job wouldn’t take more
than that long. What with one thing and another, though, he didn’t get
back until the six-o’clock whistles were blowing, and then, according
to the kid, he sure turned the air blue. Somebody had borrowed the
motor boat during his absence, for a joy ride--his yard is only a
stone’s throw from the river--and it was a sight to look at, all
covered with river mud and grease, and dripping wet inside and out. He
was in an awful sweat for fear Schilder would find out about it, and he
worked like a nailer for over two hours, cleaning it up and polishing
the brasswork, before he dared set out with it for the lake. Funny
thing, though,” Cato concluded, “he doesn’t suspect this man Dabney in
the matter at all. He blames a gang of young roughs who live in the
neighborhood.”

Grail smiled. “As you infer, sergeant, it was Dabney, all right,” he
said. “He had need for a swift boat on the river last night, and he
didn’t want the hiring of one to be traced to him. Consequently, he
adopted this rather elaborate ruse to get hold of the one in Flannery’s
care. Dabney, although passing himself off as an Englishman, and
ostensibly conducting a real-estate office, is, I may as well tell you,
the man tipped off to me by Sasaku as a Russian spy, and the leader of
the operations to which Colonel Vedant has fallen victim.”

“Then you think,” Cato inquired quickly, “that the colonel was carried
off in this motor boat?”

“Assuredly,” Grail answered, and briefly explained his theory of
the seizure, and the employment of the electric crane to convey the
prisoner and his captors outside of the inclosure.

“The next thing, of course,” he concluded, “was to get their man away
as quickly and quietly as possible, and, naturally, the river suggested
itself as the most convenient avenue.”

“That sounds plausible enough.” Cato thoughtfully scratched his head.
“But what gets me, captain, is how did they know so much about the
motor boat, and just how to get hold of it? Is this Dabney-ovitch, or
whatever his real name is, a pal of Mr. Schilder’s?”

“No,” the adjutant admitted. “On the other hand, I think he has taken
especial pains to avoid meeting Schilder, or coming under his eye.
But”--he hesitated slightly--“the point you raise offers no difficulty.
Take my word for it, sergeant, there was a way for Dabney to find out
with absolute certainty anything he wanted.”

“And now,” he broke off, rather abruptly, “tell me what you discovered
in regard to the cigarette?”

“Oh, that was easy.” Cato’s brows cleared. “I scored a bull’s-eye the
second place I went into. It’s a little tobacco and stationery shop
down on Third Street, and the old fellow who runs it is one of the
talkative kind. He said he’d laid in a stock of these cigarettes for
four customers of his who get their newspapers there every morning, and
who live at a rooming house just around the corner. Here, I have the
names.” He produced a card on which he had jotted a memorandum. “Miller
Vance----”

“Ah!” Grail interrupted sharply. “The man who operated the crane. I had
a very strong suspicion that he was Russian, for all his alias, and the
American twist he had managed to acquire to his tongue. However, that
is not especially important. Go on, sergeant.”

“I, Pepernik, Louis Minowsky,” read Cato, “and Maurice Matschka.”

“Maurice Matschka!” The officer sprang to his feet. “That is a link
worth looking into,” he muttered. “Come on!” He caught up his hat, and
gave a quick nod of the head toward Cato. “I am going to the city hall.”

Arriving at the municipal building, and proceeding to police
headquarters, he was directed, on inquiry, to a certain Detective
Krause, as having the case of the murdered Japanese in charge.

“What makes all you people out at the fort so interested in this
affair, anyhow?” the detective asked, with a curious glance at Grail.
“Major Appleby and Lieutenant Hemingway was over here before supper,
and I told them all there was to know. The best I can do for you,
captain, is just to go over the same ground.”

“Of course,” Grail assented, with a smile. “Still you know how it is,
Mr. Krause; every one wants to hear a story at firsthand; and, as I
was, perhaps, better acquainted with poor Sasaku than any of the other
officers at the mess, there is just a possibility that I may be able to
throw some light on the tragedy.”

As a matter of fact, the detective required very little urging. He had
come to such an absolute halt in the investigation that he was only too
willing to repeat the story to any one who offered even the faintest
show of providing a solution.

His recital, though, if somewhat more diffuse, was practically the same
as that which Grail had already read in the newspaper. He presented
nothing new in the way of any material details.

“H’m!” The adjutant thoughtfully stroked his chin at the completion of
the narrative. “There would be no objection, I suppose, to letting me
examine the notebook which you say was found on Sasaku?”

“Certainly not, sir.” He stepped away to get it, adding, as he returned
and handed it over: “You won’t find anything there to help you,
captain. We’ve been over it already with a fine-tooth comb, and it
seems nothing but a list of names and people he’d met; some of them in
the city directory, and some not.”

Grail, however, evidently preferred to decide this point for himself;
for slowly and painstakingly he ran over the pages, scrutinizing each
entry carefully before he passed on to the next.

The detective, fidgeting at what he manifestly regarded as wasted
time, presently excused himself, on the plea of wanting to do some
telephoning, and sauntered off, and, with his going, Grail turned
back a couple of pages to point out significantly to Cato the name of
Dabney, with a little, almost indistinguishable mark set opposite it.

No further discovery was elicited until they reached the last page;
then Grail gave a sudden start, as he read, with the same cabalistic
mark against it, the name of Rezonoff.

“Rezonoff!” he muttered, with a frown of grave foreboding. “That can
only be Count Boris Rezonoff, captain in the imperial engineers!”

Cato, gathering from his tone that something was seriously wrong, edged
up closer.

“Is it bad, sir?” he whispered.

Grail vouchsafed no answer, but stood silent a moment, the look of
apprehension growing on his face; then snapped open his watch and
glanced at the time.

“Too early, by far,” he commented, under his breath. “I shall have to
wait at least two hours yet.”

Meanwhile, Cato, glancing over his shoulder, had been reading down the
page of the notebook, and now he gave a quick exclamation.

“There’s another name with that same mark against it,” he breathed
excitedly. “Don’t you see it! Down there at the bottom, underneath your
thumb!”

But Grail, as though recalled to himself, sharply closed the book.

“Oh, that one is of no consequence,” he insisted; yet he knew that it
was, for he had already noted the name with the telltale check opposite.

In Sasaku’s stiff, angular handwriting was set down: “Mrs. Otto
Schilder!”


TO BE CONTINUED.




THE NEGRO AND THE HORSE.


There is a time for everything, and the secret of success in life lies
in doing things at just the right minute.

A veterinary surgeon had occasion to instruct a colored stableman how
to administer medicine to an ailing horse. He was to get a common tin
tube--a bean blower--put a dose of the medicine in it, insert one end
of the tube into the horse’s mouth, and blow vigorously into the other
end, and so force the medicine down the horse’s throat.

Half an hour afterward, the colored man appeared at the surgeon’s
office, looking very much out of sorts.

“What is the matter?” inquired the doctor, with some concern.

“Why, boss, dat hoss, he--he blew fust!”




THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.


Story of “Scotty” Hero of Zinc Fields.

Picture a man who has been badly bent at times--aye, even broke unto
the last jitney--one who has tasted the bitter things of life along
with the sweet, one who has seen a fortune swept away in a twinkling,
only to be regained after a long, persistent struggle. Picture a good
loser, who has lost more than most men will ever earn, and who pins
his faith in the mining industry to such an extent that he laughs at
failure and hangs on like a bulldog until he succeeds, and you have a
mind’s-eye view of J. M. Short, the best known operator in the mining
district near Joplin, Mo.--the “Scotty” of the zinc fields.

Thirty-two years ago Short was working for $1.25 a per day at Galena,
Kan., and a few years later moved to Joplin, landing here with the
price of one ham sandwich. He worked for low wages until he had saved
enough to buy a prospect drill, and decided to look for ore on his own
responsibility.

His first few holes were blanks; the cost of sinking them was heavy,
considering Short’s limited finances. For a time it looked as though
he was destined to go back to wages. However, he hung on until almost
his last penny was gone; then luck smiled on him, and he made his
first strike. He had been watching the drill clippings for so long
and finding only barren pieces of rock that he could hardly believe
the truth when at last the sand bucket brought up a quantity of
yellow-looking dirt, rich in zinc ore.

Short sold this “prospect” for $5,000 cash, and immediately invested
the whole amount in what was known as the Bunker Hill Mine, which
netted him $65,000 in eighteen months, part of which--$3,000--he
reinvested in the Sacagawea Zinc Company, from which he profited,
inside of three months, to the tune of $17,000 more. A year later Short
again became “dead broke” on another mining venture, and again went to
work for wages.

Depriving himself of all luxuries and many necessities, he continued
to work for wages until he had saved up $1,800, when he determined
to again “try his hand.” One day, during an extremely dry summer, he
was driving by a piece of land where the Sitting Bull Mine was later
developed. He noticed a man sinking a hole to get water at a point
where a spring had once been. The land was low and boggy and the digger
was taking out shale and soapstone. The formation looked good to Short,
and he at once procured a forty-acre lease from the owner. With $1,800,
his sole capital, Short drilled the ground, discovered a rich run of
ore, and put down a shaft to the 185-foot level. The owner of the land
put up the capital for building a $15,000 mill. Ninety days later Short
had paid for the mill, had $10,000 in the bank to his credit, and had
a vast body of ore blocked out which netted him more than $100,000 in
profits in the next few months.

Almost immediately he secured another lease and opened up what is known
as the Pocahontas Mine, from which he cleared another $100,000. Then
followed in quick succession the Geronimo and the Waneta-Pearl. Short
is now interested in, if not the entire owner of, more than a dozen
valuable properties, so that, with the sudden jump in price of zinc
concentrates from thirty-five to seventy-five dollars per ton, this
Scotty of the zinc mines has but faint idea of what he is really worth.


Talk is Cheap.

A retired United States army officer says the European war is “a
horrible slaughter, which should be halted by some neutral power.” The
neutral power that attempted to halt it forcibly would simply increase
the slaughter and add its own blood to the crimson tide.


Canada Spends Millions on Ports.

Canada is making extensive improvements in her seaports. At Halifax
work is under way which will cost $10,000,000, while at St. John,
New Brunswick, $8,000,000 is being spent. Levis, opposite Quebec, is
building the largest dry dock in America. Much work is also being done
at the Pacific coast ports.


Finds Petrified Snake in Rock.

While blasting some limestone rocks in the side of Stone Mountain, near
Big Laurel, Va., the workmen found a petrified snake imbedded in the
rocks. The snake was coiled as if making ready to spring at something,
and is believed to have been a copperhead.


Failures.

Commercial failures in the United States last year were 8,344.


Cossacks Rescue Little Girl.

A little incident, told in Danish newspapers which have arrived in
Chicago, shows that the Cossacks are not as cruel as they are sometimes
depicted. Recently while advancing against a detachment of Turks, a
company of Cossacks found a little girl, two years old, who had been
deserted by her parents in their precipitate flight. They brought the
little one to the headquarters of the regiment, where she received food
and was made comfortable in every way.

In the Greek Catholic Church in the village of Bardus the little
foundling was baptized according to the orthodox ritual. The commander
of the regiment and Princess Gelovana, wife of a member of the Duma,
served as godparents of the child. The little girl received the name
of Alexandre Donshaga, after the regiment known as Don Cossacks. The
officers promised to contribute monthly toward the maintenance and
education of this little “daughter of the regiment.”


Girl in Soldier’s Uniform.

People in the vicinity of Cooke’s Church, on Queen Street, in Toronto,
at two-thirty in the afternoon were left wondering whether the Germans
had landed in the city in such large numbers that the military
authorities had found it necessary to mobilize a regiment of the fair
sex to aid the soldiers in driving them back.

The cause of the sensation was a pretty young lady named Clara Philip,
who, by the terms of a wager she had made with a lady friend, had to
walk down Mutual Street from Shuter to Queen Street dressed in full
soldier’s uniform, for a box of chocolates.

The young lady with curly hair peeping out under the service cap,
looked bewitching in the uniform, although it was somewhat too large
for her, and despite the fact that the heavy army boots were dispensed
with for her own dainty pair of “threes.”

“It certainly did feel funny walking down the street with some of the
people turning up their noses at me and others convulsed in laughter,
but I was determined to win the bet, and did,” said Miss Philip, after
her sensational parade.

“Oh, it was funny. On the way along I had the pleasure of saluting
a ‘brother’ soldier, who with much grace returned the salute, and a
little farther along a ‘guardian of the law’ discreetly turned and
walked in the opposite direction. That is the way I became richer by a
large box of chocolates.”


Sings as Surgeons Operate.

Zouave Besson, a French trooper, while undergoing an operation at the
Grand Palais, in Paris, a hospital for the last three months, lustily
sang the “Marseillaise” from the beginning to the end, weakening
slightly toward the close of the last stanza.

This patriotic demonstration is a contradiction of the proverb that
a good man will swear while he is under the influence of chloroform.
After the operation Besson’s nurse told him of his patriotism in
singing the national anthem.

He replied: “When I was just going on I realized that I was singing the
‘Marseillaise,’ and brought all my will power to bear to sing it to the
end.” He recovered nicely.


Death of a Spy.

Death to all spies is the military rule. One of the most dramatic of
the many minor tragedies of the war was seen at Lassigny recently,
when a captive in a black gown, to all appearances a nun, was suddenly
led before a firing squad and shot down at the officer’s command. The
startled onlookers learned that the squad’s victim was a daring young
lieutenant in the German army who had got inside the French lines by
donning a nun’s attire. So good was his disguise that he had gone for a
considerable distance and probably had obtained much information that
would have proved valuable had he escaped.

Had the spy been a woman, the penalty would have been the same. Such is
the law of war. Many women spies have been caught and executed.


Oldest Veteran in Southwest Section.

Probably the oldest, and surely the most noted Confederate veteran now
living in the Southwest is Doctor Thomas E. Berry, of Oklahoma City,
Okla., a typical “Kentucky colonel,” who is now eighty-three years old.
He walks as straight as a young Indian, has never used intoxicating
beverages or tobacco and has never suffered from fever or other
sickness, and during his long and eventful career he has been soldier,
globe trotter, author, duelist, physician, and surgeon.

In the Civil War he served with the Confederate generals, Morgan and
Forest, was captured twelve times by the Yankees, and escaped that many
times from their prisons. He received twenty-two bullet wounds and
several saber cuts during the four years of fighting, and since the
close of the war has fought six duels in foreign lands.

Doctor Berry served under Joe Shelby in Mexico and helped to organize
the French army in Algeria. He rendered valuable service to King
Menelik in Abyssinia and sojourned for a while in Constantinople,
where, like many others, he swam across the Bosporus. He received
several decorations from foreign rulers, but never wears them in this
“land of the free.”

In a recent chat with a friend Doctor Berry said:

“My father and grandfather admonished me to never forgive or forget
an insult; never offer the left cheek after having been slapped on my
right cheek. They also requested me to always keep the Berry escutcheon
untarnished; never be a craven nor a coward.”

The doctor comes from a wealthy family that owned large areas of land
near Perryville, Ky., but the Civil War made them comparatively poor.
The doctor wrote a book entitled “Four Years With Generals Forest and
Morgan.” He is now writing a book about his foreign military service.

He has also made several valuable discoveries in materia medica and
surgery while practicing medicine forty years. Some of them are very
original and should not be allowed to perish with the doctor’s death.

Doctor Berry, though one of the best physicians and surgeons, quit
practicing four years ago. He is an inveterate reader and has read
2,000 books. He also enjoys newspapers and magazines. It is needless to
say that the doctor’s personal appearance and courteous manners denote
him to be a gentleman and scholar. He belongs to no religious sect, but
is what he terms a “practical Christian.” He will no doubt be as brave
when Death calls him as he always has been during his long life. The
doctor is optimistic, however, and says he will probably live to be a
centenarian.


Some Facts You May Not Know.

The highest speed ever attained by man on the face of the earth is one
mile in 25.2 seconds, equivalent to 142.85 miles an hour, according
to the _Railway Age Gazette_. It was in an automobile run by Teddy
Tetzlaff on the level salt beds at Salduro, Utah, 112 miles west of
Salt Lake City. The best speed ever made on rails was with an electric
car between Berlin and Zossen, Germany, 130.5 miles an hour.

Birds, in the construction of their nests, almost without exception
avoid bright-colored materials, which might possibly lead to the
discovery of their place of abode by an enemy.

Apple wood, used almost exclusively for saw handles, also furnishes the
material for many so-called brierwood pipes.

On a peace footing the Portuguese army consists of 32,000 men. When
fully mobilized, the army should have 105,000 first-line troops and
145,000 of the second to put into the field.

In Germany, one man in 213 goes to college; in Scotland, one in 520; in
the United States, one in 2,000, and in England, one in 5,000.

Damage to American crops by insects yearly amounts to $580,000,000.

There are fewer suicides among miners than among any other class of
workmen.

A booby is not merely a human dunce, but is a Bahama bird, which is
so spiritless that when attacked by other birds it fails to fight and
gives up the fish it has caught without resistance.

Drawings of human beings and animals in ancient caves in France are
regarded as proof that man was right-handed as far back as in the stone
age.


Taking Precautions.

A rosy-cheeked youngster, dressed in his best clothes, entered the
village post office and carefully laid a huge slice of iced cake on the
counter.

“With my sister’s, the bride’s, compliments, and will you please eat as
much as you can,” he said.

The postmistress smiled delightedly.

“How very kind of the bride to remember me!” she cried. “Did she know
of my weakness for wedding cake?”

“She did,” answered the youngster coldly, “and she thought she’d
send over a bite of it this afternoon just to take the edge off your
appetite before she posted any boxes off to her friends.”


Kitchner’s Caustic Comment.

A story is going the rounds about what Lord Kitchener, the British war
secretary, said the other day after he had inspected some defense works
on the east coast of England. It is short and sweet.

The war minister motored from point to point, walked over the ground,
but never said a word all afternoon until the moment he was leaving for
London. Then he opened his grim mouth.

“Those trenches of yours,” he said, “wouldn’t keep out the Salvation
Army.”


Many Wolves in Texas.

The people of Texas destroyed 98,600 wolves and wild cats--including
fifty-three panthers and twenty-two leopards--between September 1,
1912, and March, 1914, according to the State comptroller. But there
are many thousands more of these wild beasts still alive, a serious
menace to the rapidly growing industry of sheep and Angora-goat raising.


Bandit Starr is Second Robin Hood.

Is Henry Starr, of Lawton, Okla., the bandit chief, another Robin Hood?
Does he, while engaged in robbing banks, keep in mind the hardships
of the poor, as did the picturesque highwayman and poacher of early
England? If only a part of the stories told of Starr are true, he might
be called the “Robin Hood of Oklahoma,” although just now he is in
Lincoln County Jail at Chandler, suffering from a broken leg, and with
a long prison term pretty thoroughly mapped out for him. But here is
what some of his admirers say he did:

“These things are of no value to me, but I’d hate it if the farmers
had them to pay,” and with that remark Henry Starr, the bandit leader
who, with his band of desperadoes, robbed two banks at Stroud and was
shot down and captured by eighteen-year-old Paul Curry, once threw a
heavy bundle of mortgages and notes, with a stone tied to them, into
California Creek in Northern Oklahoma, and they were never recovered.
Starr and his men had taken the bank’s papers when they rifled the bank
at Caney, Kan., several years ago, and he said he took them just so the
farmers would not have them to pay.

This incident in Starr’s bandit career was told by a long-time resident
of the Cherokee country. He has known Starr for a number of years, has
played poker with him frequently, and he insists that Starr is really
one of the kindliest of men. After the Kansas robbery the Starr gang
rode into northern Oklahoma and hid for some time, and it was at this
time that the mortgages and notes were destroyed. The total value of
the papers was perhaps never known, but a man who saw them declares the
bundle was a foot thick.

It was following this same robbery, too, that Starr made one of his
most spectacular get-aways. He and two men rode into an isolated
community during the night and concealed themselves in a big stone
barn, which was on the edge of a small valley with hills not far
distant and almost surrounding it. Starr and his men slept until late
in the day and then played pitch and shot craps for the small change
they had obtained at the bank. They would shoot for a handful of the
small silver, dimes and quarters, without any attempt being made to
ascertain the amount.

The whereabouts of Starr and his two companions became known to the
county sheriff, who, with a posse of twenty or thirty men, went to the
barn with the intention of capturing the trio. The members of the posse
were stationed on the hills surrounding the barn, and they thought it
would be impossible for the outlaws to escape. When Starr was notified
of the presence of the officers, he went into the barnyard and motioned
to the sheriff, whom he knew, to confer with him. When the sheriff rode
into the yard, Starr shook hands with him as though he was glad to meet
an old friend, and then said:

“I am going to leave here at five o’clock; there are three of us. If
you do not want your men hurt, you had better get them out of the way,
for when we start we are going through your lines. Tell your men that
for me.”

The sheriff returned to his men, called them together, and told them
what Starr had said; within five minutes there was not a man other than
the sheriff left within rifle distance of Henry Starr. That evening at
five, as he had announced, Starr and his men rode quietly, and without
being molested, away from the barn and toward the Osage Hills.

That Starr’s wife was the original of a photograph, “The Cherokee
Milkmaid,” which was published worldwide several years ago, is the
statement of Representative Walter R. Eaton, of Muskogee and Oilton.
Eaton was engaged at that time in promoting the town site of Porum,
and was going through the country in that vicinity with a photographer
getting pictures to advertise that section.

Late one evening Eaton and the photographer drove by the home of Mrs.
Starr, Henry’s mother, at a time when a very pretty young woman was
milking a cow in the barnyard. The entire scene was one that would make
a beautiful picture, and the two men finally persuaded the young woman
to pose for several pictures.

“We got one fine picture,” said Eaton, “which we labeled ‘The Cherokee
Milkmaid.’ It attracted instant attention because of its artistic
merits and was published widely throughout the United States in both
newspapers and magazines. It was about a year afterward that this
young woman married Henry Starr.” Eaton says the young woman was a
school-teacher at the time and was boarding at the Starr home.


Boy Hero Saves Five Lives.

The heroism of Aaron S. Ashbrook, twelve years old, saved the lives
of his mother, his grandmother, two sisters, and his uncle, George
Ashbrook, when they were trapped in the second story of their burning
home in Cynthiana, Ky.

Escape was cut off by means of the stairway, and the little fellow
leaped from the second-story window, and, running to a barn, secured
a ladder, which he placed to the window, and the inmates of the house
escaped without injury, with the exception of Mrs. Mary Gray, the
aged mother of Mrs. Ashbrook, who fell from the ladder and was badly
injured. The house was totally destroyed.


Town of 4,000; No Post Office.

Although boasting of a population of almost 4,000, and with mail
business sufficient, it is said, to justify free delivery, Oilton,
Okla., the recent metropolis of the Cushing oil field, has no post
office. Residents have chipped in and employed men to sort the mail,
while some concerns have employed their own carriers.

Two months ago Oilton was an alfalfa field. To-day it is one of the
fastest-growing towns in the country. It is the southern terminus of
the recently completed Oil Belt Terminal Railroad.

It is a great sight when the mail comes in. If it is not raining, the
mail is sorted out in piles on the ground. Usually the entire populace
stands around watching the assorting of the mail.

The post office department has been requested to designate a post
office at Oilton.


Builds Town Near His Farm.

Because he raised 150,000 bushels of wheat in 1914 and needed a place
to market it without a haul of ten miles, Ben Foster, a large land
owner, of Colby, Kan., built a town of his own. He constructed an
elevator, a coal and lumber yard, and some houses to go with it. The
town was named Breton.


Boy Flags and Saves a Train.

An attempt to wreck an east-bound Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad passenger
train, near Eastbrook, W. Va., was frustrated by a boy, who flagged the
train in time to prevent it from running into an obstruction placed on
the track. A pile of ties had been placed on the track at the end of a
curve. Railroad police are investigating.


Boston Has Giant Lobster.

The great-great-grandfather of all lobsters--according to Mike
O’Donnell, who is an authority on such matters--has arrived in Boston,
Mass. It is on exhibition in a stall in the Quincy Market.

The lobster, which in its natural state weighed thirty-three pounds
and one ounce, measures forty-two inches from the tip of its tail to
the end of its giant claws, the body alone measuring twenty-three and
one-half inches. Since arriving here the lobster has been boiled, the
meat removed, and the shell painted so that it now looks much the same
as it did when it left the waters of Newfoundland.

This giant lobster, the biggest one ever seen here, according to some
authorities, and one of the biggest on record, was caught off Grand
Manan by a fisherman named John Moses.


Buy-a-Pig Movement, Latest.

Isn’t it about time to buy a pig? This is no joke. One of the causes of
the high cost of living is in the fact that society is growing faster
than the farmers. There is no more profitable animal than a pig. He
improves the dressing and gives the gardener a valuable asset to begin
the season with. He stands in the doorway to keep the wolf away through
the winter. And the social part of it is no small item. The pig is the
most social of animals, especially when he is hungry, and a good pig
has a continuous appetite. It is no disgrace for any one to raise a
pig--not even a school-teacher. Buy a pig and get your name on the roll
of honor.


Motor Saw for Felling Trees.

In attempting to develop an electrically operated device for bucking
and felling trees, a lumber company in Marshfield, Ore., constructed a
portable motor-driven chain saw, which will cut through a two-foot log
in less than a minute, declares the _Electrical World_. The cutting
element consists of a motor-driven saw-toothed chain traveling around
the peripheries of two pulleys, one at each end of the frame. The
motor is connected direct to one of the pulleys and is supplied with
electricity through a flexible cord. The apparatus weighs only eighty
pounds complete.


Left Home on Freight; Back in Limousine.

To celebrate the anniversary of forty years ago, when he jumped a
freight at the old Delanco, N. J., station and beat his way in a
side-door palace car to a near-by metropolis in search of a chance to
make good, which he thought his home had denied him, a former Delanco
boy came back a day or two ago in a limousine to call on old friends
and renew the friendships of school-days.

The boy was John Cahill, who is now chief counsel of the American Bell
Telephone Company, with offices in New York, London, and Paris.


Is Given Fullest Penalty.

Judge Maxwell sentenced Merton C. Pierce, of Canton, Pa., to three
months in jail and a fine of $500 and costs of prosecution, for
furnishing liquor to a person of known intemperate habits. Pierce
pleaded guilty to supplying liquor to a man who could not buy for
himself.

“Oh, that the law was more severe in such cases,” said Judge Maxwell.
“I have the utmost contempt for a man who will buy liquor for a man who
is forbidden to buy it himself, and would like to send you to jail for
a longer period, but the law does not allow. However, I will give you
the fullest penalty, and that will keep you behind the bars for at
least six months,” said the judge, in passing sentence.

Another Canton man has been arrested on the same charge, but will fight
the case.


This Cow is Strong for Twins.

James Billingsley, a farmer residing near Axtell, Kan., has a Red
Polled cow that has made a record in raising calves. The animal, though
only eight years old, has given birth to eight calves, four of which
were born within a period of thirteen months. A year ago she gave birth
to twins, and recently she gave birth to a set of twins.

The cow is a fine milker, and all of her calves have brought prices as
high as fifty dollars a head.


Lone Hunter’s Tragic End.

“Have been torn up by a brown bear. No chance to get out. Good-by.”

Mortally wounded, and with his right arm incapacitated, King Thurman,
a lone hunter and trapper on Chickaloon Flats, Alaska, crawled to his
cabin, printed the above note with his left hand, and then shot himself
with his rifle.

This was the story that was read by the hunters who found Thurman’s
body in his cabin two weeks ago and reported the tragedy to the
authorities at Seward, Alaska.


Twin Brothers Marry Sisters.

Ashland, Pa., had a novel wedding, when Lewis and James Baglin, twin
brothers, were married to Ruth and Ada Maurer, sisters, by Reverend M.
H. Jones.


Refuses to Quit on Pension.

Thomas Strong, of Pine Meadow, Conn., who has been a trackman on the
New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad for more than forty years, and
is nearly eighty years old, has refused to be retired on a pension,
saying he wants to die in harness. He says he wouldn’t know what to do
with himself if he quit work.


Mustn’t “Cuss” by Wireless.

Radio operators in the United States can’t cuss each other out or use
profanity or indecent language of any kind “in the air.”

A few days ago an operator in the commercial station in Massachusetts
ended up a message with a word that shocked the inspector in the
government station at Boston, where it was picked up. The department of
commerce has sent the offending operator a strong letter of reprimand,
warning him to be careful of his language in the air in the future or
he would lose his license.


Cat’s Cradle Cost One Hundred Dollars.

Louis Newman, of Bayonne, N. J., owns a cat which is the possessor of a
litter of five kittens which Newman values at twenty dollars a piece,
despite their being decidedly common cats, of the back-fence variety.

Two weeks ago Newman left his safe open and later missed a roll of
bills, containing one hundred dollars. Chief Michael S. Reilly, of the
Bayonne police, and the entire detective force examined the premises
and found them clewless.

Newman solved the mystery himself. In the woodshed at the rear of his
home, at 73 West Twenty-sixth Street, he heard a cat’s voice, and spied
Spondulix, the household pet, in a box with five kittens. Newman picked
one up and at the same time caught sight of something green at the
bottom of the box. He investigated and found four ten-dollar bills, two
twenties, two fives, and some twos.

The mother cat, in seeking for something with which to line her cradle,
had appropriated the money from the safe.


Hog Without Food or Water.

That a hog can live fifty-five days without food or water has been
proven. Burch Dowell, of Cookville, Tenn., one of Putnam County’s
prosperous farmers, states that he has a Duroc hog that lived for
fifty-five days without either food or water, in a deep gully into
which it had fallen and became entangled in the dense undergrowth,
rendering its escape impossible.

The hog was accidentally discovered a few days ago by Dowell, who
extricated it from its helpless predicament. It had lost 175 pounds
in weight, but was still alive, and bids fair to rapidly recover its
former vigor.


Oldest Writing is of War on Locusts.

A number of ancient Sumerian tablets recording the deeds of the
Babylonians thousands of years ago have just been deciphered by
George A. Barton, at the University of Pennsylvania museum. One of
these tablets, which tells how a farmer rid his field of locusts and
caterpillars, is dated 4,000 B. C., and is the oldest piece of writing
extant, according to an announcement to-night by officials of the
museum. The farmer, Doctor Barton’s translation says, called in a
necromancer, who “broke a jar, cut open a sacrifice, a word of cursing
he repeated, and the locusts and caterpillars fled.” For this service
he received a tall palm tree.


Death in Electric Wringer.

Miss Margaret McConnell, aged thirty, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David L.
McConnell, of Washington, Pa., a society girl and active in church and
charitable work, met a horrible death while investigating the mechanism
of an electric clothes wringer that had been installed in the home that
morning.

A long scarf the girl had thrown about her head caught in the wringer
and she was strangled before her mother, who was standing close by,
could shut off the current or go to her assistance.

Mrs. McConnell, too late, made frantic efforts to save the life of her
daughter. Unsuccessful, she summoned aid and then collapsed.


Pleads for Aged “Boy” Drug Fiend.

Pleading for her sixty-year-old “boy,” who, she says, will die if he is
not permitted to obtain the drugs denied him by the Harrison antidrug
bill, an eighty-one-year-old Colorado woman has written a pitiful
letter to Doctor B. R. Reese, of the Federal internal revenue division
of the treasury department. She addressed her letter to President
Wilson, but Secretary Tumulty sent it to Doctor Reese, whose office is
the clearing house of such correspondence.

Much as the appeal of the old Colorado woman moved the officials, no
exception will be made in that case. There is no intention on the part
of the internal revenue division to issue blanket permits to obtain
drugs for individual cases.


Cheer Their Boy Soldiers.

Paris was enlivened early this week by gay crowds of conscripts of the
1916 class parading the streets to the strains of the “Marseillaise”
and other patriotic songs previous to departing to join their regiments
in the center and the south of France.

These nineteen-year-old recruits compare favorably with those of
previous levies, and they showed the better effect of physical training
in preparation for their service in the army.

All appeared to be full of confidence, and they departed without a sign
of reluctance or regret.


Wet and Dry Vote for Alaska.

The Alaska Senate passed a bill submitting territorial prohibition
to the voters at the November election in 1916. The bill has already
passed the House. If the voters approve prohibition, it will become
effective January 1, 1918.


Missouri Town Gets a Bomb.

The glass in almost every alley window in a half block in the business
section of Excelsior Springs, Mo., was broken when what is believed to
have been a stick of dynamite was thrown into the alley. One arrest has
been made.

A number of people narrowly escaped injury.

The explosion is believed to be the outgrowth of ill feeling engendered
at the local-option election here, January 18.


Kills Big She-wolf and All Her Young.

General Putnam, of early-day fame, who crawled into a hole and
dispatched a ferocious “painter” therein, has a rival at Worland, near
Gillette, Wyo., in the person of Henry Schumacher, who recently tracked
a monster she-wolf to her den, and, with six-shooter in hand, crawled
in after her.

He had only proceeded a few feet when the wolf sprang for him, but
Henry was quick with his gun, as usual, placing several bullets in her
head before she could reach him.

Eight pups, about a month old, were found at the end of the den.
Schumacher killed them all, but, small as they were, they put up a
stiff fight, repeatedly biting him before he succeeded in killing them
all. Bounty to the amount of one hundred and fifty-five dollars was
collected on the old wolf and her young.


Girl Was Dumb and Now Talks.

Miss Helen Dodge, eighteen years old, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. G.
Dodge, of Lestershire, N. Y., born deaf and dumb, will deliver an oral
oration at her graduation from the Malone State Institution for the
Deaf and Dumb in June.

Miss Dodge’s case is considered one of the most remarkable in
the history of teaching the deaf and dumb. She was placed in the
institution when only four years old, and has been a student there ever
since.

Her teacher soon discovered that she was unusually intelligent and
began experimenting in an effort to teach her to speak. Her vocal
chords were found to be in normal condition, and before she was seven
years old she had been taught to make sounds which were intelligible.
She now speaks as distinctly and with as much expression as a person
with the normal faculty of hearing, and it is declared that hers is the
first case of the kind in this or any other institution.


Educates Herself to Free Husband.

Fired with the ambition to become a lawyer, that she may some day
obtain the freedom of her husband, who is serving a life sentence for
the murder of Charles Reuter, a Tulsa, Okla., lawyer, Mrs. Mamie Baker,
dividing her time between household duties and public school, has
advanced from the lowest grammar grades to the high school in less than
two years. Mrs. Baker is a Bohemian, and unfamiliarity with the English
language has been an additional drawback to her.

When she completes high school, it is her aim to enter a law office.
She insists she will be a practising attorney in three years.

Mrs. Baker does not seek to obtain the freedom of her husband that she
may again live with him, but to take the stain of crime from her name.
She has always insisted her husband is innocent of murder.


Horse Stops Fast Express.

An engineer on a fast express on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad received
a signal to stop his train near Defiance, Ohio. It was an emergency
signal, so the train was stopped as quickly as possible.

The conductor, amazed at the sudden stop, ran to the engine and reached
it just as the engineer was preparing to go back to the train to
ascertain the trouble. Both were dismayed when told no person had given
the signal.

An investigation of the express car, however, revealed that a horse had
the signal cord in its mouth and was pulling it with all its might.


Forgets He’s in Prison as He Hears Fifes Play.

A fife-and-drum corps visited the State Penitentiary, at Joliet, Ill.,
to give the prisoners a treat.

The 1,500 convicts pushed back their plates when the corps marched down
the aisle of the big dining hall to the stirring tune of “Marching
Through Georgia.”

A grizzled old man seated at one of the benches rose and followed,
keeping step with the players. He was Thomas McNally, a life convict
from Chicago, who for twenty-five years has been “No. 3,692.”

“I am an old soldier--fought in the Civil War,” he mumbled in apology
when the music stopped. “I forgot where I was.”

An appeal for McNally’s pardon is pending. It is supported by the judge
before whom he was tried and twenty lawyers who believe he is innocent.


SONG POEMS WANTED for publication.

You may write a big song hit! Experience unnecessary. Publication
guaranteed if acceptable. Send us your verses or melodies today. Write
for free valuable booklet.

MARKS-GOLDSMITH CO. [Dept. 70] WASHINGTON, D.C.




The Nick Carter Stories

ISSUED EVERY SATURDAY BEAUTIFUL COLORED COVERS


When it comes to detective stories worth while, the =Nick Carter
Stories= contain the only ones that should be considered. They are not
overdrawn tales of bloodshed. They rather show the working of one of
the finest minds ever conceived by a writer. The name of Nick Carter is
familiar all over the world, for the stories of his adventures may be
read in twenty languages. No other stories have withstood the severe
test of time so well as those contained in the =Nick Carter Stories=.
It proves conclusively that they are the best. We give herewith a list
of some of the back numbers in print. You can have your news dealer
order them, or they will be sent direct by the publishers to any
address upon receipt of the price in money or postage stamps.

  704--Written in Red.
  707--Rogues of the Air.
  709--The Bolt from the Blue.
  710--The Stockbridge Affair.
  711--A Secret from the Past.
  712--Playing the Last Hand.
  713--A Slick Article.
  714--The Taxicab Riddle.
  717--The Master Rogue’s Alibi.
  719--The Dead Letter.
  720--The Allerton Millions.
  728--The Mummy’s Head.
  729--The Statue Clue.
  730--The Torn Card.
  731--Under Desperation’s Spur.
  732--The Connecting Link.
  733--The Abduction Syndicate.
  736--The Toils of a Siren.
  738--A Plot Within a Plot.
  739--The Dead Accomplice.
  741--The Green Scarab.
  746--The Secret Entrance.
  747--The Cavern Mystery.
  748--The Disappearing Fortune.
  749--A Voice from the Past.
  752--The Spider’s Web.
  753--The Man With a Crutch.
  754--The Rajah’s Regalia.
  755--Saved from Death.
  756--The Man Inside.
  757--Out for Vengeance.
  758--The Poisons of Exili.
  759--The Antique Vial.
  760--The House of Slumber.
  761--A Double Identity.
  762--“The Mocker’s” Stratagem.
  763--The Man that Came Back.
  764--The Tracks in the Snow.
  765--The Babbington Case.
  766--The Masters of Millions.
  767--The Blue Stain.
  768--The Lost Clew.
  770--The Turn of a Card.
  771--A Message in the Dust.
  772--A Royal Flush.
  774--The Great Buddha Beryl.
  775--The Vanishing Heiress.
  776--The Unfinished Letter.
  777--A Difficult Trail.
  782--A Woman’s Stratagem.
  783--The Cliff Castle Affair.
  784--A Prisoner of the Tomb.
  785--A Resourceful Foe.
  789--The Great Hotel Tragedies.
  795--Zanoni, the Transfigured.
  796--The Lure of Gold.
  797--The Man With a Chest.
  798--A Shadowed Life.
  799--The Secret Agent.
  800--A Plot for a Crown.
  801--The Red Button.
  802--Up Against It.
  803--The Gold Certificate.
  804--Jack Wise’s Hurry Call.
  805--Nick Carter’s Ocean Chase.
  807--Nick Carter’s Advertisement.
  808--The Kregoff Necklace.
  810--The Copper Cylinder.
  811--Nick Carter and the Nihilists.
  812--Nick Carter and the Convict Gang.
  813--Nick Carter and the Guilty Governor.
  814--The Triangled Coin.
  815--Ninety-nine--and One.
  816--Coin Number 77.


NEW SERIES

NICK CARTER STORIES

  1--The Man from Nowhere.
  2--The Face at the Window.
  3--A Fight for a Million.
  4--Nick Carter’s Land Office.
  5--Nick Carter and the Professor.
  6--Nick Carter as a Mill Hand.
  7--A Single Clew.
  8--The Emerald Snake.
  9--The Currie Outfit.
  10--Nick Carter and the Kidnaped Heiress.
  11--Nick Carter Strikes Oil.
  12--Nick Carter’s Hunt for a Treasure.
  13--A Mystery of the Highway.
  14--The Silent Passenger.
  15--Jack Dreen’s Secret.
  16--Nick Carter’s Pipe Line Case.
  17--Nick Carter and the Gold Thieves.
  18--Nick Carter’s Auto Chase.
  19--The Corrigan Inheritance.
  20--The Keen Eye of Denton.
  21--The Spider’s Parlor.
  22--Nick Carter’s Quick Guess.
  23--Nick Carter and the Murderess.
  24--Nick Carter and the Pay Car.
  25--The Stolen Antique.
  26--The Crook League.
  27--An English Cracksman.
  28--Nick Carter’s Still Hunt.
  29--Nick Carter’s Electric Shock.
  30--Nick Carter and the Stolen Duchess.
  31--The Purple Spot.
  32--The Stolen Groom.
  33--The Inverted Cross.
  34--Nick Carter and Keno McCall.
  35--Nick Carter’s Death Trap.
  36--Nick Carter’s Siamese Puzzle.
  37--The Man Outside.
  38--The Death Chamber.
  39--The Wind and the Wire.
  40--Nick Carter’s Three Cornered Chase.
  41--Dazaar, the Arch-Fiend.
  42--The Queen of the Seven.
  43--Crossed Wires.
  44--A Crimson Clew.
  45--The Third Man.
  46--The Sign of the Dagger.
  47--The Devil Worshipers.
  48--The Cross of Daggers.
  49--At Risk of Life.
  50--The Deeper Game.
  51--The Code Message.
  52--The Last of the Seven.
  53--Ten-Ichi, the Wonderful.
  54--The Secret Order of Associated Crooks.
  55--The Golden Hair Clew.
  56--Back From the Dead.
  57--Through Dark Ways.
  58--When Aces Were Trumps.
  59--The Gambler’s Last Hand.
  60--The Murder at Linden Fells.
  61--A Game for Millions.
  62--Under Cover.
  63--The Last Call.
  64--Mercedes Danton’s Double.
  65--The Millionaire’s Nemesis.
  66--A Princess of the Underworld.
  67--The Crook’s Blind.
  68--The Fatal Hour.
  69--Blood Money.
  70--A Queen of Her Kind.
  71--Isabel Benton’s Trump Card.
  72--A Princess of Hades.
  73--A Prince of Plotters.
  74--The Crook’s Double.
  75--For Life and Honor.
  76--A Compact With Dazaar.
  77--In the Shadow of Dazaar.
  78--The Crime of a Money King.
  79--Birds of Prey.
  80--The Unknown Dead.
  81--The Severed Hand.
  82--The Terrible Game of Millions.
  83--A Dead Man’s Power.
  84--The Secrets of an Old House.
  85--The Wolf Within.
  86--The Yellow Coupon.
  87--In the Toils.
  88--The Stolen Radium.
  89--A Crime in Paradise.
  90--Behind Prison Bars.
  91--The Blind Man’s Daughter.
  92--On the Brink of Ruin.
  93--Letter of Fire.
  94--The $100,000 Kiss.
  95--Outlaws of the Militia.
  96--The Opium-Runners.
  97--In Record Time.
  98--The Wag-Nuk Clew.
  99--The Middle Link.
  100--The Crystal Maze.
  101--A New Serpent in Eden.
  102--The Auburn Sensation.
  103--A Dying Chance.
  104--The Gargoni Girdle.
  105--Twice in Jeopardy.
  106--The Ghost Launch.
  107--Up in the Air.
  108--The Girl Prisoner.
  109--The Red Plague.
  110--The Arson Trust.
  111--The King of the Firebugs.
  112--“Lifter’s” of the Lofts.
  113--French Jimmie and His Forty Thieves.
  114--The Death Plot.
  115--The Evil Formula.
  116--The Blue Button.
  117--The Deadly Parallel.
  118--The Vivisectionists.
  119--The Stolen Brain.
  120--An Uncanny Revenge.
  121--The Call of Death.
  122--The Suicide.
  123--Half a Million Ransom.
  124--The Girl Kidnaper.
  125--The Pirate Yacht.
  126--The Crime of the White Hand.
  127--Found in the Jungle.
  128--Six Men in a Loop.
  129--The Jewels of Wat Chang.
  130--The Crime in the Tower.
  131--The Fatal Message.
  132--Broken Bars.
  133--Won by Magic.
  134--The Secret of Shangore.
  135--Straight to the Goal.
  136--The Man They Held Back.


Dated April 24th, 1915.

137--The Seal of Gijon.


Dated May 1st, 1915.

138--The Traitors of the Tropics.


Dated May 8th, 1915.

139--The Pressing Peril.


Dated May 15th, 1915.

140--The Melting-Pot.


=PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY.= If you want any back numbers of our
weeklies and cannot procure them from your news dealer, they can be
obtained direct from this office. Postage stamps taken the same as
money.

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK CITY




Transcriber’s Notes:

Minor errors and omissions in punctuation have been fixed, otherwise
spelling and punctuation has been left in original condition, except
for the below

Page 3: “Dawton” changed to “Lawton”

Page 12: “the jewelry slolen” changed to “the jewelry stolen”

Page 19: “messenger on the steamer” changed to “passenger on the
steamer”

Page 26: “Mr. Kruse” changed to “Mr. Krause”

Page 27: “detachments of Turks” changed to “detachment of Turks”

Page 27: “brought the little ones” changed to “brought the little one”

Page 27: “milita authorities” changed to “military authorities”

Page 28: “Some Facts You May Not Nnow” changed to “Some Facts You May
Not Know”

Page 31: “Twin Brothers Marry Sisiers” changed to “Twin Brothers Marry
Sisters”

Page 31: “ended up a mesage” changed to “ended up a message”