be a doctor and who had stared so intently down at the quiet-eyed
greaser, had turned the color of ashes and without a word had slipped
away. And the bewilderment of the entire situation was further
increased when the _Trunella_ swung in at Callao and the large-bodied
man of mystery was peremptorily and none too gently put ashore. It was
noted, however, that the first-class passenger who had stared down at
him from the promenade-deck remained aboard the vessel as she started
southward again. It was further remarked that he seemed more at ease
when Callao was left well behind, although he sat smoking side by side
with the operator in the wireless room until the _Trunella_ had steamed
many miles southward on her long journey towards the Straits of
Magellan.

XV

Seven days after the _Trunella_ swung southward from Callao Never-Fail
Blake, renewed as to habiliments and replenished as to pocket, embarked
on a steamer bound for Rio de Janeiro.

He watched the plunging bow as it crept southward. He saw the heat and
the gray sea-shimmer left behind him. He saw the days grow longer and
the nights grow colder. He saw the Straits passed and the northward
journey again begun. But he neither fretted nor complained of his fate.

After communicating by wireless with both Montevideo and Buenos Ayres
and verifying certain facts of which he seemed already assured, he
continued on his way to Rio. And over Rio he once more cast and pursed
up his gently interrogative net, gathering in the discomforting
information that Binhart had already relayed, from that city to a
Lloyd-Brazileiro steamer. This steamer, he learned, was bound for
Ignitos, ten thousand dreary miles up the Amazon.

Five days later Blake followed in a Clyde-built freighter. When well
up the river he transferred to a rotten-timbered sidewheeler that had
once done duty on the Mississippi, and still again relayed from river
boat to river boat, move by move falling more and more behind his
quarry.

The days merged into weeks, and the weeks into months. He suffered
much from the heat, but more from the bad food and the bad water. For
the first time in his life he found his body shaken with fever and was
compelled to use quinin in great quantities. The attacks of insects,
of insects that flew, that crawled, that tunneled beneath the skin,
turned life into a torment. His huge triple-terraced neck became raw
with countless wounds. But he did not stop b