WEAVING THE NET.
Was the hour of Shadow's vengeance at hand?
It would seem so, from the expression which came into his face as he
passed nearer to the man whom he believed he had at last recognized.
An intense but suppressed excitement marked his every movement.
"Thank Heaven!"
He had thus exclaimed a moment before while he was earnestly
scrutinizing the face of this person.
The fact that he could be surprised into breaking his long and
well-maintained silence spoke very strongly for his belief that he had
at last found the man he was in search of.
And that man was McGinnis.
When he left the place Shadow followed him.
Like a sleuth-hound he kept on the track of the evil man, and so
carefully did he time his movements, that the suspicions of McGinnis
were not aroused.
Light-footed as a cat, noiseless as a very shadow, gliding along like a
ghost, a better person than the mysterious little detective could not
have been found for the purposes of dogging and pursuit.
Gradually the expression of excitement left his face, and it became
very stern and set.
It pictured a grim and unalterable purpose.
And that purpose was--vengeance!
That is, if McGinnis should prove to be the right man.
Shadow had been mistaken before, and there was a possibility of his
being so again.
But he was satisfied that this time he had found the right man.
Earnestly he had studied the face of Helen Dilt's abductor, and it
exactly corresponded with the mental picture he had formed of the
individual he was after.
Such a likeness, he told himself, could hardly be the result of
accident.
A description which had been given him, every word of which he had
carefully treasured up, suited McGinnis perfectly and in every
particular.
And, as Shadow pursued, a grim smile began to play about his lips.
"It is the man!" he muttered, again breaking through the shield of
silence with which he had so long kept himself surrounded.
"It is the man!" he muttered again. "My darling, you shall be avenged
soon."
Shadow knew that he had broken the self-imposed silence.
Yet he did not appear vexed, as he had when I forced him to speak on a
certain occasion.
Why was this?
It seemed to me as if he had vowed solemnly to utter no word to living
being until he had found the man he was after.
Satisfied that McGinnis was the person, he considered the vow fulfilled.
This was, indeed, the true reason.
But was McGinnis the man?
As closely as "death hangs to a nigger," Shadow hung to McGinnis, nor
ever let him get out of his sight.
More than once the hand of the mysterious detective sought the butt
of his revolver, as it had done in the saloon, in the first fever of
excitement subsequent to the recognition.
An equal number of times, however, the fingers unclasped from the
weapon.
While McGinnis filled the bill as far as the description went, and
while Shadow would have staked his life that he was the man, he had
sense enough, and was cool enough, to be aware that after all he might
be mistaken.
He did not wish to kill the wrong man.
That would be worse than no revenge at all.
No, he must be sure beyond even the smallest doubt, before he fired the
fatal shot.
He must follow the same general plan he had followed for so long--keep
near the suspected man, waiting until he should convict himself by his
own word of mouth.
McGinnis had not the remotest idea that he was under surveillance, and
certainly did not dream that he was tracked to his very door.
In the dark hours before the dawn a dark figure glided around and
around the shanty, ghost-like in the perfect silence of its movements.
It was Shadow surveying the lay of the land.
He was seeking a mode of access to the house of McGinnis.
None was to be found.
It was secure from any but forcible entrance, and eavesdropping from
outside would be worse than useless.
Shadow saw this.
It did not stump him, however.
He knew the old saying, that there is more than one way of killing
a cat, and failing in one plan, he always was able to invent another
without much loss of time.
Just before daybreak Shadow withdrew from the vicinity of McGinnis'
house.
While in sight of it he paused, and had any one been near, it would
have been to see Shadow raise his hand and shake that slender
forefinger in that peculiar way of his.
Then he was gone.
Little dreaming of the mine that was preparing beneath his feet,
McGinnis, with plenty of money in his pockets, which meant unlimited
rum while it lasted, considered himself in clover.
He did not issue from his house until just after sunset.
On his way up the street his attention was drawn to a rather
showy-looking woman--a blonde--coming from the opposite direction.
She was young, not much over twenty, was tolerably well dressed, and
wore a derby hat with a decidedly rakish air.
All told, there was a certain jauntiness about her bearing telling so
plain a story that most men would have turned aside to let her pass.
Not so McGinnis.
He winked at her.
Without an instant's loss of time she winked back.
"Halloo, Bridget!" said he.
"Halloo, Pat!" was her rather free-and-easy reply, in a jocular tone.
McGinnis paused short.
"Which way?" he asked.
"Any way," was the reply.
"Walk along with me, then."
"Good enough."
McGinnis and the girl walked along side by side, the man eying her in
silence for a while. Then he asked:
"Who are you?"
"Me? I'm called Daisy, mostly."
"Belong here?"
"No; just got to New York this morning from London. I say, you old
rooster, are you 'crooked?'"
"Yes," assented McGinnis.
"So am I. My pal was nabbed in London, but I managed to escape the
bobbies."
"What's your lay?" inquired McGinnis.
"'Whipes' and 'tickers' and such like."
Without following their conversation further, we shall advance the
time a few hours, and once again carry the reader to one of those low
saloons that are patronized by the "crooked" and "flash."
At either side of a small table sat McGinnis and Daisy.
He was treating her and trying to induce her to join her fortunes with
his.
Daisy hung back.
McGinnis continued to argue earnestly--and to order drinks.
A shrewd observer might have noticed that, while McGinnis swallowed all
his liquor, the girl each time managed to dump hers out beneath the
table.
The liquor began to mount to McGinnis' head, seasoned though it was.
He was becoming intoxicated.
He had been quite taken by the dashing manner of the girl and was now
rapidly becoming maudlin and correspondingly affectionate.
He wanted to hug Daisy.
He put his arm around her, but she shook it off with a:
"Here, let's have another drink."
At last, when more than half intoxicated, he became very confidential,
and to impress Daisy with the desirability of her taking him as her
pal, began recounting his exploits in the past.
Her eyes began to snap and sparkle, and she listened to him with
ill-concealed eagerness, while I, disguised, stood at a little
distance, looking on.
My eyes had rested on Daisy's face for an instant, as they took in
every inmate of the place. Back to her face my eyes had wandered,
attracted by a something that was familiar.
The heavy falling of a drunken man caused her to glance around. Her
eyes were directed at me for a second or two--and instantly I was
staggered.
Those eyes were Shadow's!
Daisy was Shadow.
If Shadow was Mat Morris, then Mat Morris was Daisy.
But could that be?
Could Mat Morris so artfully disguise himself? Could that slender
throat, and drooping shoulders, and swelling bust, belong to a man?