was nowhere about, he noted, as he took his
departure.

Kendrick caught the next ferry across the bay to the Island and walked
in on his uncle's housekeeper. He found that once more he had the big
summer residence to himself, that his uncle had taken a flying trip to
New York. That meant that his aunt would be alone in the summer
cottage at Sparrow Lake, except for the servants, and he decided
suddenly to run up and see her that very evening. After glancing
through a slight accumulation of mail he changed to outing flannels and
hied to the boathouse for an hour's run in the launch--out through the
Eastern Gap into the open lake, where he could cut away across miles of
blue water that danced invitingly in the golden sunshine on and on to
the horizon's clear rim. All alone out there with the wash of the
water, the steady undertone of the engine throbbing in his ears and the
cool breeze blowing through his hair, he could sort out his thoughts.

They were inclined to tangle. He had yet to plan how he would proceed
to obtain the information which Ben Wade wanted in regard to J. C.
Nickleby. The railroad executive had traced certain consignments of
cheap whisky which had been run through to construction camps in the
northern part of the province and had his own suspicions as to the
source from which the bootleggers were obtaining funds. If the luck
which had attended Phil's first efforts to learn what Podmore was
planning held good, it ought not to be difficult; but there would be no
Blatch Ferguson to help him out in a task which would call for the
utmost circumspection.

Podmore could be dismissed as of the brood of Esau, willing to sell to
the highest bidder anybody's birthright upon which he could lay hands.
Ferguson's confident assurance that the stolen campaign fund
contribution,--if that was what it had been intended to be,--implicated
the Government in no way, could be accepted without question. Had it
been otherwise, Ferguson would have been galvanized to action of some
sort. At any rate, the sudden disappearance of the money before it
reached its destination eliminated it so far as the Government was
concerned.

This much was clear to Kendrick. Beyond wondering greatly how such a
substantial sum as fifty thousand dollars could drop from sight
mysteriously without creating general excitement, he dismissed the
matter as outside his immediate concern. If the actual money had been
in Wade's possession,