M'Grath was cruelly cornered, but he still had the courage of his
gratitude.

"Well, then, I did be taking the bracelets off av 'm. Now make the most
av ut, and be damned to you! Did I know what he'd been doing? I did not.
Do I know where he wint? I do not. Have I seen the naygur that skipped
with him, from that day to this? I have not; nor would I be knowing 'm
if I did see 'm. Anything else yez'd like to know? If there is, ye'll be
taking ut on the tip av my fisht!" And he went back to his work, oozing
profanity at every pore.

Thrown back upon the one remaining expedient, Broffin went ashore and
became a student of railroad time-tables. Passing the incidents of the
stubborn chase in review after many days, he wondered that it had not
occurred to him to question Captain Mayfield. But that the captain would
know anything at all about any particular bit of human driftwood in the
ever-changing deck crew seemed easily incredible; and there was no good
angel of clairvoyance to tell him that the captain had once been made
the half-confidant of a distressed young woman who was anxious to be
both just and merciful.

It was while he was waiting for the departure of the first northbound
train that he planned the search for the young woman, arranging the
names of the seven might-have-beens in the order of accessibility as
indicated by the addresses given in the _Belle Julie's_ register. In
this arrangement Miss Charlotte Farnham's name stood as Number Three;
the two names outranking hers being assigned respectively to Terre
Haute, Indiana, and Baldwin, Kansas.

In his after-rememberings, Broffin swore softly under the drooping
mustaches when he recalled how, in that morning waiting at Vicksburg, he
had hesitated and changed his mind many times before deciding upon the
first three zigzags of the search. Terre Haute, Baldwin, and Wahaska lay
roughly at the three extremities of a great triangle whose sides,
measured in hours of railroad travel, were nearly equal. Failing at
Terre Haute, the nearest point, he could reach either of the two
remaining vertices of the triangle with fairly equal facility; and it
was surely an ironical fate that led him to decide finally upon the
Kansas town as the second choice.

Some twenty-odd hours after leaving Vicksburg, Broffin the tireless
found himself in Terre Haute. Here failure had at least the comfort of
finality. The Miss Heffelfinger of his list, whom he found and
interviewed within a