Still Lanagan held that vice-like clutch on me. Another prolonged interval. Two more figures bulked into view and disappeared. Many more minutes passed and Lanagan said no word. The wind during the hours had died away, but the rain continued, pelting now straight down. Lanagan’s hand finally loosened itself from my leg. He pointed over the ocean toward the intermittent flashes of the lighthouse at Land’s End. Between the Land’s End and Fort Point lights could be seen--the lights of a vessel. “She’s a day overdue on account of the storm,” Lanagan shot up at me. “She’s heading through the Golden Gate now. We’ll have some fun shortly, I reckon.” He straightened up and stretched himself and I did likewise, threshing my arms to start the blood into circulation. I was cold, cramped and grouchy. “Jack,” I said impatiently, “cut out this mystery stuff and give me the facts. You’ve got me neck and neck with pneumonia now. Kick through with this story, whatever it is, or I’m going to tear down that cliff after those fellows and start something if only to keep warm.” Of course he only laughed. The man must have been made of chilled steel. “Easy, Norrie. Think of the ten cents’ carfare you can charge up on this assignment. That ought to be some compensation, that and the glory of the thing, even if you do get sciatica or lumbago or some other old woman’s complaint. Norrie, sometimes you make me weary. Here I’m staging one of the finest climaxes you have ever participated in. I have adopted a true Shakespearean method of suiting the natural surroundings to the action. It’s rather an epic situation, in my opinion. “Now that liner--it was the Mail boat _Hongkong_--has finally passed inside the gate. Any minute something may happen, and I pick you out of the entire staff to be here when it does happen; here in an elemental atmosphere where human lives may be snuffed out as we snuffed out the contents of those flasks, and still you’re not satisfied. It’s a big, vital, gripping situation. Where’s your imagination?” “Oh, hell. You’re drunk. Let’s chase down after those men. Let’s do something to start things, whatever they may be. I’m cold.” Lanagan was genuinely put out with me. Later I knew why. He had been hanging around those bleak cliffs for two nights and skulking in the sand dunes for two days watching the Stockslager hut. No wonder I was a “quitter” by comparison. He whirled on me and I saw his eyes flashing with that curious light that I had seen in them on rare occasions when he was thoroughly aroused. “You either quit whining or beat it back to town.” If he had struck me in the face it couldn’t have affected me differently, such was the magnetism of that remarkable man. “I beg your pardon, Jack. I didn’t mean to rough you,” I said, and he was his natural self in a moment, too.