sier's pay,
My dollar and a half a day.
--Old Pumping Song.

Before leaving New York Mayo made inquiries at offices of shipping
brokers and trailed Captain Zoradus Wass to his lair in the loafers'
room of a towboat office. Their conference was a gloomy one; neither had
any comfort for the other. Mayo was laconic in his recital of events: he
said that he had run away--and had come back. Of Marston and Marston's
daughter he made no mention.

"I have been to see that fat whelp of a Fogg," stated the old master
mariner. "I ain't afraid of him. I had a good excuse; I said I wanted a
job. I didn't let on to him that I advised you to slip your cable, but
I might have curried favor with him by saying so. He seemed to be pretty
well satisfied because you had skipped."

"Captain Wass, that's the main thing I've come to talk over with you.
Here's my ticket back home. But I feel that I ought to walk up to the
United States marshal's office and surrender myself. And I want to ask
you about the prospects of my getting bail. Can you help me?"

"I reckon if I saw you behind bars I'd do my best to get you out,
son. But you steer away from here on a straight tack and mind your own
business! When the United States wants you they'll come and get you--you
needn't worry!"

"But I do worry, sir! I am dodging about the streets. I expect to feel
a hand on my shoulder every moment. I can't endure the strain of the
thing! I don't want anybody to think I'm a sneak."

"As near's I can find out by nosing around a little that indictment is
a secret one--even if it really was returned. And I'm half inclined to
think there wasn't any indictment! Perhaps those officers were only sent
out to get you and hold you as a witness. Fogg has been doing most of
the talking about there being an indictment. However it is, if they
don't want you just yet I wouldn't go up to a cell door, son, and holler
and pound and ask to be let in. Law has quite a way of giving a man what
he hollers for. You go away and let me do the peeking and listening for
you around these parts. I'm collecting a little line of stuff on this
water-front. Haven't much else to do, these days!"

"I reckon my first hunch was the right one, sir!' I'll go along home. If
you hear anybody with a badge on inquiring for me tell him I'm fishing
on the _Ethel and May_."

"That's a mean job for you, son. But I guess I'd better not say anything
about it, seeing what I