after dusk in the evening. I was up here in the texas, getting ready to
go to supper. Gavitt--we may as well keep on calling him that till
you've found another name for him--Gavitt had been cubbing for the
pilot. I saw him go across the hurricane-deck and down the companion to
the saloon-deck guards; and a minute later I heard him talking to
somebody--a woman--on the guards below."

"You didn't hear what was said?"

"I didn't pay any attention. Passengers, women passengers especially,
often do that--pull up a 'roustie' and pry into him to see what sort of
wheels he has. But I noticed that they talked for quite a little while;
because, when I finished dressing and went below, he was just leaving
her."

Broffin rose up from the bunk on which he had been sitting and laid a
heavy hand on Maurice's shoulder. "You ain't going to tell me that you
didn't find out who the woman was, Clarence--what?" he said anxiously.

"That's just what I've got to tell you, Matt," returned the clerk
reluctantly. "I was due at the second table, and I didn't go as far
forward as the stanchion she was holding on to. All I can tell you is
that she was one of the half-dozen or so younger women we had on board;
I could guess at that much."

Broffin's oath was not of anger; it was a mere upbubbling of
disappointment.

"Maurice, I've got to find that young woman if I have to chase her
half-way round the globe, and it's tough luck to figure out that if you
hadn't been in such a blazing hell of a hurry to get your supper that
night, I might be able to catch up with her in the next forty-eight
hours or so. But what's done is done, and can't be helped. Chase out and
get your passenger list for that trip. We'll take the women as they
come, and when you've helped me cull out the names of the ones you're
sure it wasn't, I'll screw my nut and quit buzzing at you."

The clerk went below and returned almost immediately with the list.
Together they went over it carefully, and by dint of much
memory-wringing Maurice was able to give the detective leave to cancel
ten of the seventeen names in the women's list, the remaining seven
including all the might-have-beens who could possibly be fitted into
the clerk's recollection of the woman he had seen clinging to the
saloon-deck stanchion after her interview with the deck-hand.

To these seven names were appended the addresses given in the steamer's
registry record, though as to these Maurice admitted that th