hing glimpse
of a tall, flannel-clad figure disappearing into the doorway of the
main saloon, as he himself went to his stateroom to freshen himself up
for dinner.

As the painter emerged from his cabin a few minutes before the call of
the dinner-bugle, the thin man was lounging against the rail further
aft.

Saxon stood for a moment drinking in the grateful coolness that was
creeping into the air with the freshening of the evening breeze.

The stranger saw him, and started. Then, he looked again, with the
swift comprehensiveness that belonged to his keen eyes, and stepped
modestly back into the protecting angle where he could himself be
sheltered from view by the bulk of a tarpaulined life-boat. When Saxon
turned and strolled aft, the man closely followed these movements,
then went into his own cabin.

That evening, at dinner, the new passenger did not appear. He dined in
his stateroom, but later, as Saxon lounged with his own thoughts on
the deck, the tall American was never far away, though he kept always
in the blackest shadow thrown by boats or superstructure on the
moonlit deck. If Saxon turned suddenly, the other would flatten
himself furtively and in evident alarm back into the blackness. He had
the manner of a man who is hunted, and who has recognized a pursuer.

Saxon, ignorant even of the other's presence, had no knowledge of the
interest he was himself exciting. Had his curiosity been aroused to
inquiry, he might have learned that the man who had recently come
aboard was one Howard Stanley Rodman. It is highly improbable,
however, that he would have discovered the additional fact that the
"stuff" Rodman had asked after as he came aboard was not the
agricultural implements described in its billing, but revolutionary
muskets to be smuggled off at sunrise to-morrow to the coast village
La Punta, five miles above Puerto Frio.

Not knowing that a conspirator was hiding away in a cabin through fear
of him, Saxon was of course equally unconscious of having as shipmate
a man as dangerous as the cornered wolf to one who stands between
itself and freedom.

La Punta is hardly a port. The shipping for this section of the east
coast goes to Puerto Frio, and Saxon had not come out of his cabin
the next morning when Rodman left. The creaking of crane chains
disturbed his sleep, but he detected nothing prophetic in the sound.
To have done so, he must have understood that the customs officer at
this ocean flag stat