the first time flashed the lamp full in the injured
man's face. Even then Peter didn't recognize him, but he saw Hawk
Kennedy's eyes open wide as he stared at Peter.

"Who----?" gasped the man. And then, "_You_ here! '_Cre nom!_ It's Pete,
the waiter!"

Peter started back in astonishment.

"Jim Coast!" he said.

Hawk Kennedy chuckled and scrambled to his feet, halfway between a laugh
and a groan.

"Well, I'm damned!"

Peter was still staring at him, the recovered bills loose in his hand.
Jim Coast thrust out an arm for them.

"The money," he demanded. "The money, Pete."

Without a word Peter handed it to him. It was none of his. Coast counted
the bills, the blood dripping from his fingers and soiling them, but he
wiped them off with a dirty handkerchief and put them away into his
pocket. Blood money, Peter thought, and rightly named.

"And now, _mon gars_, if it's all the same to you, I'd like you to take
me to some place where we can tie up this hole in my shoulder."

This was like Coast's impudence. He had regained his composure again
and, in spite of the pain he was suffering, had become his proper self,
the same Jim Coast who had bunked with Peter on the _Bermudian_, full of
smirking assertiveness and sinister suggestion. Peter was too full of
astonishment to make any comment, for it was difficult to reconcile the
thought of Jim Coast with Hawk Kennedy, and yet there he was, the terror
of Black Rock House revealed.

"Well, Pete," he growled, "goin' to be starin' at me all night?"

"You'd better be off," said Peter briefly.

"Why?"

"They'll be here in a minute. You've got your money."

"Let 'em come. They'll have to take me to McGuire----"

"Or the lock-up at Egg Harbor----"

"All right. I'll go. But when I open my mouth to speak, McGuire will
wish that Hell would open for him." And then, "See here, Pete, do you
know anything of what's between me and McGuire?"

"No--except that he fears you."

"Very well. If you're workin' for him you'll steer these guys away from
me. I mean it. Now think quick."

Peter did. Angry as he was at McGuire, he knew that Jim Coast meant what
he said and that he would make trouble. Also Peter's curiosity knew no
subsidence.

"You go to my cabin. It's hidden in the woods down this path at the
right----"

"That's where you live, is it?"

"Yes. You'll find water there and a towel on the washstand. I'll be
there to help you when I sheer these men off."

Coast w