Albert Payson Terhune

“ Mahan hurled himself upon the fallen man. Clyde, with the skill of old football days, wriggled from under his clumsy assailant, gained his feet and set off at top speed.
People had begun running up from all directions. As Mahan gained his feet, no less than four street boys had launched themselves with howls of delight upon the diamonds. The bulk of the little crowd, divided in desire between fun of a man-hunt and the incredible spectacle of a fortune in jewels starring the sidewalk, chose the latter attraction. ”

“ Sylvia: I am quarantined off Staten Island. The quarantine will end two days from to-morrow morning. Then I will come at once to you. But it will be a day late. I won't try to tell you how I suffer at the thought of all that my delay must mean to you. We have lost a fortune. But we still have each other. And that is the real happiness. I've risked all to reach you on time. And I have failed. Forgive me—I write stiffly, in case this note should be read by other eyes before it reaches you. In two days—from to-morrow morning, I shall be with you. A whole day too late. Clyde. ”

“ The captain, as Clyde passed on toward his own stateroom, met him, glowered, made as though to speak, then grunted and turned aside.
Arrived in his cabin, Maxwell's first act was to plunge both hands in his steamer-trunk and scatter its contents right and left until he came upon a roll of American money. Then, changing into other, less wrinkled, clothes, he stuck the bills into his pocket, along with several pieces of silver.
“It's like locking the stable door after the horse is stolen,” he grumbled; “but it does me good to feel a bunch of honest Uncle Sam currency in my suit. ”

“ Here I'm robbing the girl I love. I don't mind my own loss. I can always earn some sort of a living. But to think I'm making her lose a fortune! I'm not going to do it, either!” he went on fiercely.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Do about it? I've nearly forty-eight hours left. We are at anchor off Staten Island, not a quarter of a mile from shore. Ferries are running between Staten Island and New York every few minutes. In one hour from now I could be at Sylvia Tennant's door. I could be with the girl I love, and I could save six hundred and twenty thousand dollars—all in one hour. ”

“ The captain, on his way to bed, passed Clyde on deck, and favored him with another glower. Maxwell thought he read suspicion in his surly glare. If the captain should suspect him of planning to escape a second time a secret watch would undoubtedly be set upon him.
Perhaps such a watch was already set. It might be wiser to go below. And down into the warm, stuffy interior of the vessel the weary man went.
In his stateroom he forced himself to move rapidly about, to go through a series of “setting up” exercises that still further tired him, to reading aloud as he walked up and down. ”

“ The nearest outsider was the sailor on guard, who stood with his back to them.
Across the few feet of dark deck moved Clyde and the roustabout, their burden between them. Then the tug-man started down the companionway, Clyde at his heels.
“That's the gawkiest way I ever saw a grown man handle a trunk,” observed the returning officer to a companion. “The hindmost man. He holds his end of it up against his face like a mask. And he can hardly keep his feet. If that's the way they are going to shift the luggage, they'll be at it for another hour.” ”

“ If he could gain its shelter unseen, he might readily get to New York within an hour or so. It was worth the chance.
Ordinarily, Clyde would have thought little enough of such a swim, even fully dressed as he was. But now, every stroke was anguish.
Yet it comforted him to note that as he continued swimming, the first numbness began to wear off; to be succeeded, in fact, by a certain glow of physical reaction. He was young, barely twenty-five, and in fine physical condition. Where many a man would have sunk, through shock and exhaustion, he battled on. ”

“ The man they were looking out for was a dapper, short cuss, about fifty years old. He's known as 'Atlantic' Donnelly because he plays both sides of the ocean, and has a gang of accomplices in New York, and London, too. But Mahan swears the fellow who had the jewels is tall and under thirty. Must be a confederate. But how he could be so stupid as to—”
The boat drew in to the Ellis Island wharf, and Clyde heard no more. Nor did he need to. Deane—or 'Atlantic' Donnelly—had made a pretty catspaw of him. As an all-round dupe, he felt he had no living equal. ”

“ At the newcomer's first word, Clyde had known him for the young official who had brought him back to the ship two nights before, and whose intervention had saved him from trouble with the captain.
The Health Department doctor's face showed a momentary spasm of surprise. Then it settled into a mask of indifference. Walking up to Maxwell, as the Scotchman was about to speak, he said sharply:
“You're the sick one, my man! Step outside with me. You're in bad condition and likely to carry infection to the others. I must have you isolated.” ”

“ From the incoming steamers big barges carry steerage passengers to Ellis Island. There, the newcomers are sorted out, examined for disease, poverty or other official crimes and eventually—if they are in luck—allowed to set foot in the glorious Land of the Free.
As each ship discharges its barge-loads there, a horde of friends and agents cross in the government boat to meet the late arrivals. In the outskirts of such crowd did Clyde Maxwell now find himself. ”

“ Maxwell, with a primal instinct of a hunted thing that seeks to lose itself and hide its trail by plunging into a crowd, wriggled his way through the rearmost rank of the waiting men and women.
He understood well enough now where he was. This was the dock of the government boat that plies between Battery Park and Ellis Island. Here come foreigners of all grades on their way to Ellis Island to greet immigrant friends. Here, too, are brought such “undesirables” as have eluded governmental vigilance at Ellis Island, reached New York, and been captured and ordered back for deportation. ”

“ At each such maneuver, Clyde managed to work his way deeper in the mass.
In a few minutes at most the boat would be ready for its passengers. Then the crowd would go aboard. His shelter gone, he would once more stand exposed to the eye of the first searching officer. Something must be done, and quickly.
At his shoulder, as the people once more recoiled, he found a tall, slender man, of much his own general appearance. The stranger wore a rather dilapidated but still fairly presentable slouch hat, and a long greenish ulster.
He looked hard up. Maxwell had an idea. ”

“ The whole talk of one thousand dollars' payment for engineering Clyde's escape—the whole scene—had evidently led up from the very point to that one proposition—that Maxwell bring the bag to New York.
Deane had chosen an unconscious agent whom he knew to be honest, desperate, resourceful. It had failed only because Clyde had fallen asleep at the moment when he should have been on the lookout for Coan. ”

“ Nature can stand only a certain amount of strain. The man who has plowed all day cannot run fast foot-races at sunset. The system that has been overexhausted balks when concentrated mental or physical effort is called for.
Clyde made such few arrangements as were needful. He replaced and locked his steamer-trunk, thrusting it under his berth. He saw to it that all his money was safe in his pocket. He put on his thickest overcoat, and changed his sea-cap for a derby.
He dared not risk the suspicion of any of the ship's officers by carrying even the lighttest hand-luggage with him. ”

“ Why did you risk your life just to reach New York three days earlier?”
“If I'm not married two days from now, I forfeit more than half a million dollars. You won't believe that, of course; and I don't care whether you do or not. But it's true. So I took chances.”
“Say, Mr. Maxwell,” observed the official, dropping his voice and speaking with a reluctant admiration, “you interest me. I like your pluck. The man who had the nerve to dive over a ship's side on a February evening, and the strength to swim a quarter of a mile in such water, is worth helping. That's why I'm helping you.” ”

“ The junior partner of a struggling young law firm is not a Croesus. Come on and help me get the first agony over. The gangway is ready at last, I see.”
Down the railed inclined plane they moved, side by side. In front hurried passengers with loads of hand luggage, hastening to be swallowed up in the eager, welcoming throng below. Behind them pushed and pressed onward many others.
Maxwell's eye had never once left Sylvia's glowing face. She had not been able to force her way close to the gangplank, but stood some yards back, waiting with laughing impatience for Clyde to come and greet her. ”

“ NOW, the distance from a liner's second deck to the water below does not look very great. A diver will speedily find it far longer than it appears.
Also, a man who, under ordinary circumstances, can readily swim a mile or more in moderately cool salt water, will find it quite another thing to swim twenty strokes in a February sea that is thick with floating ice fragments. The more so, if he be weighted by shoes and clothing.
As Clyde Maxwell, expert swimmer, struck water, the chill of it bit his very bone. ”

“ The newcomer was a dapper little keen-eyed man of about fifty. Maxwell remembered chatting with him once or twice in the smoking-room. His name was Deane.
“I don't know what part of the country you come from, Mr. Deane,” observed Clyde, recovering, with a tinge of anger, from his surprise, “but you won't be offended, I hope, if I tell you that in civilized communities there is a quaint, old-fashioned custom which demands that people knock at a door before bursting in. It is a custom I believe in encouraging. ”

“ In the confusion we can change.”
Clyde vaguely wondered at the fellow's quick agreement and ready resource. But he did not grudge paying forty dollars for coat and hat that were not worth ten. Thus garbed he could easily walk unnoticed past policemen who were scouring the square for a hatless, coatless man, and could reach Sylvia.
Again the mass of people rolled forward. Once more the man with the white goatee drove them back. The recoil was more violent than usual, whirling the human atoms this way and that into a veritable whirlpool of confused, tangled groups. ”

“ You say you have paid out money, and sent cipher telegrams, and spent time and trouble on the scheme. Why? There must be an answer. No one does that sort of thing to help a stranger evade the law. That's why I say 'Impossible.'”
“Quite right,” assented Deane, with a careless shrug of the shoulders. “If you care to look at it that way. But there are other points of view. If you were a sentimentalist I might say I'm interested in seeing two loving souls united, and in saving them a fortune that they would lose unless I—”
“I am not a sentimentalist,” interrupted Clyde. “Try another.” ”

“ As the two tug men come for their second load, one of them will stand aside, and you'll take his place. I don't think it was really necessary to tip that sailor. In the dim light the change would not be noticed. But I wanted to make sure. Of course, you can't carry your luggage ashore. But you can readily wait for that until the ship docks.”
“Look here!” said Maxwell, more moved than he cared to show. “It's a crazy trait of humanity always to seek something in exchange for nothing. That trait fills the poor-houses and potters' fields and the Wall Street men's pockets. ”

“ Maxwell had left his friend, and was racing across the twilight deck. He halted in front of the captain and McCue as they reached the head of the companionway.
“Pardon me, Mr. McCue,” he began. “I am to be married March 1st. A fortune depends on it. May I go ashore with you? I will pay for my—”
“Step back!” thundered the captain, aghast that an ordinary passenger should dare accost the great Bird Seed Trust president. “Stand free of that gangway!”
“Mr. McCue,” implored Maxwell, “I beg you will take me along. ”

“ You're a lucky chap, Maxwell. For a struggling young lawyer to come into three hundred and ten thousand dollars, and to marry a girl with the same amount of wealth, seems almost too good to be true.”
“It is too good to be true,” groaned Clyde. ”

“ From the Rosebank wharf at natty white launch had chugged out into the gray, ice-strewn water. It was now nearing the vessel, and “rounded to” at the foot of the hanging companion-ladder.
Several men, members of the crew, were lugging one or two trunks to the companionway. Just behind them, escorted by the obsequious captain, walked a portly, middle-aged man.
“Isn't that the chap you pointed out to me yesterday as old McCue, president of the Bird Seed Trust?” asked Clyde.
“That's the man,” assented the purser. “Don't you envy him? ”

“ If it isn't the truth, it's as much of it as the surly old brute is entitled to. By the way, he's worse than usual to-day. Another passenger somehow decamped last night. Strangely enough, it was your friend Deane. Come along, and let's get the ordeal over with.”
An hour later, in his own stateroom, Clyde Maxwell looked keenly at himself in the mirror. A bath, a complete change of clothes, and a shave had wrought miracles in his looks. The young doctor, who was dining aboard, sat on the berth edge. ”