around the
commander's quarters. Already the Statue of Liberty loomed
majestically over the port bow, and the wide expanse of the Hudson
River was framed by the wooded slopes of Staten Island, the low shores
of New Jersey, and the heights of the Palisades. Somewhat to the right
rose the imperial outlines of newest New York, that wonderful city
which, even in the memory of children, has raised itself hundreds of
feet nearer the sky. A thin, blue haze gave glamour to a delightful
scene, glowing in the declining rays of a November sun. The gigantic
strands of the Brooklyn Bridge showed through it like some aerial path
to a fabulous land, while, merging fast in the shadows, other dim
specters told of even greater engineering marvels higher up the East
River. A fleet of bustling vessels, for the most part ferry-boats and
tugs of every possible size and shape, scudded across the spacious
waterways, and lent to the picture exactly that semblance of vitality,
of energetic purpose, of relentless effort to be up and doing--whether
the New Yorker was going home from his office, or his wife was coming
into town for dinner and a theater--which one, at least, of the city's
uncounted sons had confidently expected to find in it.

So John Delancy Curtis drew a deep breath that sounded almost like a
sigh, but a pleasant smile illumined his somewhat stern face as he
turned to Devar and said:

"I am giving myself fourteen days' free run of the town before I go
West to visit some relatives. They live in Indiana, I believe.
Bloomington, Monroe County, is the latest address I possess. Don't
forget to ring me up to-morrow. You remember the hotel, the Central,
in West 27th Street."

"Oh, forget it!" cried the other vexedly. "Why in the world are you
burying yourself in that pre-historic shanty? Man alive, the Holland
House is only a block away, and there are 'steen hotels of the right
sort strung out along Fifth Avenue, 'way up to Central Park----"

"It's just a whim," broke in Curtis, who did not feel like explaining
at the moment that he was choosing a quiet old inn in a side street
because he had been born there! Nevertheless, his words held that ring
of decision, of finality in judgment, which invariably forms part of
the equipment of men who have lived in wild lands and lorded it over
inferior races. Devar was vaguely conscious, and perhaps slightly
resentful, of this compelling quality in his new-found crony.
Oft-times it