“Where he won’t trouble you and me any more.” “Won’t he be missed?” “Oh, mebbe. What if he is?” “They will search for him.” “But they won’t find him. I do nothing by the halves, Rod. It was really another blow at Dean Mercer. He’d no business to be his friend. Then, there was the money.” “What have you done with him?” asked Rodney for the second time. “Sometimes it’s better not to know too much,” replied Tim. “Jess as it is ’bout that burning boat. He’s gone, and thet settles it. I’ve got the wallet and all there is in it.” “There were papers concerning his father’s trial?” “They were not intrusted to me. It is not my lookout what his old man does or gets done to him. Come; going to the Raven with me?” Five minutes the couple were safely in their room at the hotel. “I do not see any signs of the fire,” commented Tim, as he prepared to retire for the few hours of the night left. “But it is safe to say the _Spray_ will not make that trip to Millville to-morrow. I mean to-day.” CHAPTER VIII. THE MORNING NEWS. The downward course of crime is a rapid descent, and becomes facile and familiar to the victim of evil, once he is started on the steep grade. At least so Rodney Darringford found it. When he awoke the morning after the events depicted in the last chapter, it was in a room at a hotel, and with him was his companion of the night previous--Tim Downey. Rodney had a splitting headache, as he expressed it. There was a sense of confusing, a frightened, all-gone feeling; a weight that caused him to close his eyes and try to imagine what had really occurred to be a dream. Wine! liquor! that he now discerned was the cause of all his boldness. He had descended to the level of a common criminal. He had been a party to the guilt of Tim Downey and his confederates. How far had that guilt carried them? “The new steamer--they set it on fire,” gasped Rodney, and then the terror of the law and the enormity of the crime flashed over his mind with crushing force and drove him from the bed with a groan. “I’ll get away from Tim--I’ll hurry to the boat!” muttered Rodney. “What a fool I was ever to be led by him into trouble--when he’d have done it alone!” Yes, that was it--not regret or remorse, but dread. Rodney Darringford recked little that Judge Oglesby’s property had been destroyed. He simply did not wish to be mixed up in it himself. “Hallo! you awake?” Tim was out of bed and dressing himself. He grinned coolly at Rodney, and his hardened face expressed none of the pallor or worry that Rodney’s features bore. “Yes, I’m awake.” “Don’t be in a hurry.” “I want to get back to the boat.” “The _Warrior_?” “Yes.” “It don’t sail until ten o’clock.” “Well----” “Well, you want to get away from me!” jeered Tim. “That don’t suit me. Here, you’re trembling like a leaf. Take a swig. It will brace up your nerves.” Rodney shuddered with nausea as he bolted a drink from the flask of fiery liquor that Tim handed him. “Feel better?”