“Good! Keep saying it over to yourself as you go upstairs, and I’ll telephone the office from the ferry and see if you’ve got her out.” But Peters had already disappeared into the darkness within the building. Brainard climbed into the plumber’s wagon, the man whipped up his horse, and they jolted out of the alley. As they came in sight of the ferry building, the reporter compared his watch with the clock, and remarked: “Eight minutes to the good—fast traveling for a plumber!” “Just look out for my stuff while I telephone!” Brainard exclaimed. All the way to the ferry he had been anxious about the girl in the safe. He had already resolved that if he found Peters had failed to open the safe, he would go back and run the risk of capture. When the operator rang up the number of Krutzmacht’s private office, there was an agonizing wait before any one answered. Finally a woman’s voice, very faint, called: “Who is it?” Prudence counseled Brainard to assume that the voice was that of the stenographer, and to hang up the receiver. But he wished to make sure that it was the woman herself, and so he asked: “Are you feeling all right, miss?” “You thief!” came hissing over the wire to his ear. “You won’t get—” And there was no more. She had dropped the receiver, probably for action. When Brainard stepped from the telephone booth, he looked uneasily in the direction of Market Street, as if he expected to see the stenographer flying through the hurrying crowd. The reporter beckoned to him. “Your trunk has gone aboard the ferry. Here’s the check—to Chicago. I thought you’d rather tote this bag yourself, though it’s pretty heavy.” “Much obliged for all your trouble,” Brainard replied warmly. “And now for you!” He pulled his roll of currency from his pocket, and handed five hundred-dollar bills to the reporter. “You earned it! I never should have got away in time without you.” “I guess that’s so. Much obliged for the dough; but the scoop alone is worth it. What a story! A light-fingered attorney from New York blowing in here under the court’s nose and lifting the whole Pacific Northern, and goodness knows what else besides, clean out of the State! Some folks who think they know how to do things will be sick to-morrow morning when they get the _Despatch_!” He shoved the bills into his trousers pocket and pulled out another cigarette. “There’s the gong!” he remarked. “Thanks!” Brainard said warmly, shaking the reporter’s fat hand. “I’ll want to see your story. Send it to me!” “And say, I’d make up a better yarn than that lawyer story, when you have time.” “So you didn’t believe me?” “I guess I’m no cub reporter!” the _Despatch_ man laughed complacently, as the ferry-boat began to move out of the slip. Then he started on a run for the nearest telephone booth. “If that girl means business, as I think she does, I shan’t get as far as Chicago!” Brainard muttered to himself, turning into the cabin of the ferry-boat. IX