e patrons of
the boats were not always careful to comply with the regulation which
required the giving of the home address.

"About as often as not they write down the name of the last place they
stopped at," he asserted; and Broffin swore again.

"Which means that I may have to pound my ear eight or ten thousand miles
on the varnished cars for nothing," he growled. "Well, there ain't any
rest for the wicked, I reckon. Now tell me where I can find this man
Buck M'Grath, and I'll fade away."

M'Grath was on duty, superintending the loading and unloading of the
Vicksburg freight quotas; but when Broffin tapped him on the shoulder
and showed his badge, the second mate was called in and M'Grath stood
aside with his unwelcome interrupter.

There were difficulties from the outset. A man-driver himself, the chief
mate shared with the sheerest outcast in his crew a hearty hatred for
the man-catchers all and singular; and in the present instance his
sympathies were with the fugitive from justice, on general principles
first, and for good and sufficient personal reasons afterward. Then,
too, Broffin was hardly at his best. At the thought of what this man
M'Grath could tell him, and was gruffly refusing to tell him, he lost
his temper.

"You're edgin' up pretty close to the law, yourself, by what you're
keeping back," he told the mate finally. "Sooner or later, I'm going to
run this gentleman-roustie of yours down, anyhow, and it'll be healthier
for you to help than to hinder. Do you know what he's wanted for?"

M'Grath did not know, and his enlargement upon the simple negative was
explosively profane.

"Then I'll tell you. He was the 'strong-arm' man that held up the
president of the Bayou State Security and made his get-away with a
hundred thousand. Now will you come across?"

"No!" rasped the Irishman--and again there were embellishments.

"All right. When I catch up with him, you'll fall in for your share in
the proceeds as an accessory after the fact. My men nabbed him on the
levee at St. Louis, and when he euchred them he carried away a pair of
handcuffs that somebody had to help him get shut of. He came back to the
boat, and you are the man who took the handcuffs off!"

"'Tis a scrimshankin' lie, and ye can't prove ut!" said M'Grath.

"Maybe not; but there's one thing I can prove. This side-partner of
yours didn't get his pay before he went ashore with the spring-line;
_but you drew it for him afterwards!_"