"See whom?" asked Clarence carelessly, as he handed the man his promised
fee.
"The other man I ferried over to catch the stage. He must have gone on
without waiting. You're in luck, young fellow!"
"I don't understand you," said Clarence impatiently. "What has your
previous passenger to do with me?"
"Well, I reckon you know best. He's the kind of man, gin'rally speaking,
that other men, in a pow'ful hurry, don't care to meet--and, az a rule,
don't FOLLER arter. It's gin'rally the other way."
"What do you mean?" inquired Clarence sternly. "Of whom are you
speaking?"
"The Chief of Police of San Francisco!"
CHAPTER II.
The laugh that instinctively broke from Clarence's lips was so sincere
and unaffected that the man was disconcerted, and at last joined in
it, a little shamefacedly. The grotesque blunder of being taken as
a fugitive from justice relieved Clarence's mind from its acute
tension,--he was momentarily diverted,--and it was not until the
boatman had departed, and he was again alone, that it seemed to have any
collateral significance. Then an uneasy recollection of Susy's threat
that she had the power to put his wife in Fort Alcatraz came across him.
Could she have already warned the municipal authorities and this man?
But he quickly remembered that any action from such a warning could
only have been taken by the United States Marshal, and not by a civic
official, and dismissed the idea.
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