a moment
with his oars lifted, looking at his passenger. "It ain't no business o'
mine, young man," he said deliberately, "but I reckon you understand me
when I say that I've just taken another man over there."

"I do," said Clarence impatiently.

"And you still want to go?"

"Certainly," replied Clarence, with a cold stare, taking up his oars.

The man shrugged his shoulders, bent himself for the stroke, and the
boat sprung forward. The others rowed strongly and rapidly, the tough
ashen blades springing like steel from the water, the heavy boat seeming
to leap in successive bounds until they were fairly beyond the curving
inshore current and clearing the placid, misty surface of the bay.
Clarence did not speak, but bent abstractedly over his oar; the ferryman
and his crew rowed in equal panting silence; a few startled ducks
whirred before them, but dropped again to rest. In half an hour they
were at the Embarcadero. The time was fairly up. Clarence's eyes were
eagerly bent for the first appearance of the stage-coach around the
little promontory; the ferryman was as eagerly scanning the bare, empty
street of the still sleeping settlement.

"I don't see him anywhere," said the ferryman with a glance, half of
astonishment and half of curiosity, at his solitary passenger.

"See whom?" asked Clarence carelessly, as he handed the man his promised
fee.

"The other man I ferried over to catch the stage. He must have gone on
without waiting. You're in luck, young fellow!"

"I don't understand you," said Clarence impatiently. "What has your
previous passenger to do with me?"

"Well, I reckon you know best. He's the kind of man, gin'rally speaking,
that other men, in a pow'ful hurry, don't care to meet--and, az a rule,
don't FOLLER arter. It's gin'rally the other way."

"What do you mean?" inquired Clarence sternly. "Of whom are you
speaking?"

"The Chief of Police of San Francisco!"

CHAPTER II.

The laugh that instinctively broke from Clarence's lips was so sincere
and unaffected that the man was disconcerted, and at last joined in
it, a little shamefacedly. The grotesque blunder of being taken as
a fugitive from justice relieved Clarence's mind from its acute
tension,--he was momentarily diverted,--and it was not until the
boatman had departed, and he was again alone, that it seemed to have any
collateral significance. Then an uneasy recollection of Susy's threat
that she had the power to put his wif