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"No," interrupted Code, "it isn't, Elsa. He has just as much

power over me as he ever had. I am still a criminal at large to

be arrested, and you can wager your last dollar that if he can

bring it about I will be picked up by the first gunboat that

finds me."

"But after all this?"

"Yes, after all this. We have made a beautiful case against him

and it fits, but, Elsa, there's one thing we haven't got, and

that is a single word of proof! We haven't enough to even bring a

charge against him. Do you realize that?"

The girl sat back, unable to reply. Code had expressed the

situation in a sentence. Despite all they had pieced together he,

Code, was still the man against whom the burden of circumstantial

evidence rested. Nat was, and always could go, scot free.

"Code, this is terrible!" she said. "But there may be a way out

yet. No man with the right on his side has ever failed to

triumph, however black things looked."