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"But how?" he cried despairingly. "I have racked my brains for

some means of closing the net about him, but there seems no way."

"Now there is not," she returned, "but, Code, you can rest

assured that I will do everything I can."

"God bless you," he said, taking her hand; "you are the best

friend a man ever had."

CHAPTER XXVI

WETTING THEIR SALT

Pete Ellinwood, alone except for the cook, who sat peeling

potatoes just outside the galley, paced the quarter-deck of the

_Charming Lass_.

He seemed to be an older man than that night when, goaded beyond

endurance by the taunts of the big Frenchman, he had fought a

fight that would long be remembered in the streets of the roaring

town of St. Pierre.

He felt that he had broken his promise to Ma Schofield that he

would keep guard over her boy. Now, for all he knew, that boy was

lying in jail at St. Andrew's, or was perhaps defending his life

in the murderer's pen.

The night of the fight had been a wild one for Ellinwood.