reasons for forgetting your name, and I'll like you none the worse
for it as long as you toe the mark. Telegraph Hill, of course, is
your port of entry. It sticks out all over your mug. Tough as
they make them and twice as nasty. I know the kind. Well, you can
make up your mind to have it taken out of you on this craft.
Understand? Who shipped you, anyway?"

"McCready and Swanson."

"Sir!" Wolf Larsen thundered.

"McCready and Swanson, sir," the boy corrected, his eyes burning
with a bitter light.

"Who got the advance money?"

"They did, sir."

"I thought as much. And damned glad you were to let them have it.
Couldn't make yourself scarce too quick, with several gentlemen you
may have heard of looking for you."

The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. His body
bunched together as though for a spring, and his face became as an
infuriated beast's as he snarled, "It's a--"

"A what?" Wolf Larsen asked, a peculiar softness in his voice, as
though he were overwhelmingly curious to hear the unspoken word.

The boy hesitated, then mastered his temper. "Nothin', sir. I