first train out of New Orleans. As he sped across the face of the
world, crawling nearer and nearer the Pacific Coast, no thought of the
magnitude of that journey oppressed him. His imagination remained
untouched. He neither fretted nor fumed at the time this travel was
taking. In spite of the electric fans at each end of his Pullman, it
is true, he suffered greatly from the heat, especially during the ride
across the Arizona Desert. He accepted it without complaint, stolidly
thanking his lucky stars that men were n't still traveling across
America's deserts by ox-team. He was glad when he reached the Colorado
River and wound up into California, leaving the alkali and sage brush
and yucca palms of the Mojave well behind him. He was glad in his
placid way when he reached his hotel in San Francisco and washed the
grit and grime from his heat-nettled body.

But once that body had been bathed and fed, he started on his rounds of
the underworld, seined the entire harbor-front without effect, and then
set out his night-lines as cautiously as a fisherman in forbidden
waters. He did not overlook the shipping offices and railway stations,
neither did he neglect the hotels and ferries. Then he quietly lunched
at Martenelli's with the much-honored but most-uncomfortable Wolf
Yonkholm, who promptly suspended his "dip" operations at the Beaches
out of respect to Blake's sudden call.

Nothing of moment, however, was learned from the startled Wolf, and at
Coppa's six hours later, Blake dined with a Chink-smuggler named Goldie
Hopper. Goldie, after his fifth glass of wine and an adroit decoying
of the talk along the channels which most interested his portly host,
casually announced that an Eastern crook named Blanchard had got away,
the day before, on the Pacific mail steamer _Manchuria_. He was clean
shaven and traveled as a clergyman. That struck Goldie as the height