said Jones heartily. "How far is it?"

"Sixty miles to the turn of the Laguna. There's a four-mile current
to help. They've a scant two days' start, and we'll catch up some, for
their boat is heavier and their sail is no good with the wind in this
direction. If we don't catch up some," he added grimly, "I wouldn't want
to insure our young friend's life. So it's all aboard, if you're ready."

For the first time since embarking upon the strange seas of advertising
in his quest of the Adventure of Life, Average Jones now met the
experience of grilling physical toil. All that day and all the night
the two men swung at the oars; swung until every muscle in the young
Easterner's back had turned to live nerve-fiber, and the flesh had begun
to strip from the palms of his hands. Even so, the hardy captain had
done most of the work. Aided by the current, they turned the shoulder of
the Cocopah range as the dawn shone lurid in the east, and the captain
swung the boat's head to the southern shore of the lake. Meantime,
between spells at the oars, Average Jones had outlined the case in full
to Funcke. He could have found no better coadjutor:

By nature and equipment every really expert hunter and tracker is a
detective. The subtleties of the trail sharpen both physical and
mental sensibility. Captain Funcke was, by instinct, a student of that
continuous logic which constitutes the science of the chase, whether the
prize of pursuit be a mountain sheep's horns or the scholar's need of
praise for the interpreting of some half-obliterated inscription on a
pre-Hittite tomb. After long and silent consideration the captain gave
his views.

"It isn't bunco. It's a hold-up. If Richford had wanted to stick young
Hoff, he'd never have brought him here. There isn't 'color' enough
within eighty miles to gild a cigar band. It looks to me like the scheme
is this: They get him off in the mountains, out of sight of the lake,
so he'll have no landmark to go by. Then they scare him into signing
co-partnership papers, and make him turn over those certified checks to
them. With the papers to show for it, they go out by Calexico and
cash the checks in Los Angeles. They could put up the bluff that their
partner was guarding the mine while they bought machinery and outfitted.
That'd be good enough to cash certified checks by."

"Yes; that's about the way I figure it out. You spoke of Richford's
being able to get rid of young Hoff effectually, without