became
conviction, and the pledged clothing, which might otherwise have given
the police the needed clew, was carefully hidden away against a time
when the Jew's apprehensions should be quieted.

Having thus disguised himself, Griswold made the transformation
artistically complete by walking a few squares in the dust of a loaded
cotton float on the levee. Then he made a tramp's bundle of the
manuscript of the moribund book, the pistol, and the money in the red
handkerchief; and having surveyed himself with some satisfaction in the
bar mirror of a riverside pot-house, a daring impulse to test his
disguise by going back to the restaurant where he had breakfasted seized
and bore him up-town.

The experiment was an unqualified success. The proprietor of the
bank-neighboring cafe not only failed to recognize him; he was driven
forth with revilings in idiomatic French and broken English.

"_Bete!_ Go back on da levee w'ere you belong to go. I'll been kipping
dis cafe for zhentlemen! _Scelerat!_ Go!"

Griswold went out, smiling between his teeth.

"That settles the question of identification and present safety," he
assured himself exultantly. Then: "I believe I could walk into the
Bayou State Security and not be recognized."

As before, the daring impulse was irresistible, and he gave place to it
on the spur of the moment. Fouling a five-dollar bill in the mud of the
gutter, he went boldly into the bank and asked the paying teller to give
him silver for it. The teller sniffed at the money, scowled at the man,
and turned back to his cash-book without a word. Griswold's smile grew
to an inward laugh when he reached the street.

"The dragon may have teeth and claws, but it can neither see nor smell,"
he said, contemptuously, turning his steps riverward again. "Now I have
only to choose my route and go in peace. How and where are the only
remaining questions to be answered."

V

THE _BELLE JULIE_

For an hour or more after his return to the river front, Griswold idled
up and down the levee; and the end of the interval found him still
undecided as to the manner and direction of his flight--to say nothing
of the choice of a destination, which was even more evasive than the
other and more immediately pressing decision.

It was somewhere in the midst of the reflective hour that the elate
triumph of success began to give place to the inevitable reaction. The
partition which stands upon the narrow dividing line be