To lie stretched at length on a single plank with eye glued to a
crack is not a comfortable position, and the watcher thought the
hours of the next day would never end. As they dragged wearily
past, his bones began to ache beyond endurance, yet owing to the
flimsy structure of the building he dared not move while the room
below was tenanted. In fact, he would not have stirred had he
dared, so intense was his interest in the scenes being enacted
beneath him.

First had come the marshal, who imported his failure to find
Wheaton.

"He left his room some time last night. My men followed him in and
saw a light in his window until two o'clock this morning. At seven
o'clock we broke in and he was gone."

"He must have got wind of our plan. Send deputies aboard the Santa
Maria; search her from keel to topmast, and have them watch the
beach close or he'll put off in a small boat. You look over the
passengers that go aboard yourself. Don't trust any of your men
for that, because he may try to slip through disguised. He's
liable to make up like a woman. You understand--there's only one
ship in port, and--he mustn't get away."

"He won't," said Voorhees, with conviction, and the listener
overhead smiled grimly to himself, for at that moment, twenty
miles offshore, lay Mac's little tug, hove to in the track of the
outgoing steamship, and in her tiny cabin sat Bill Wheaton eating
breakfast.