The next moment I was in my rooms, and for the life of me I cannot begin to describe their looks. My clothes and personal belongings were scattered all over the room, my big trunk had been emptied of its contents and was missing. The bureau drawers were empty and the place really looked like a Kansas rancher’s house after a cyclone.
On the dresser was a little note—in Bera’s handwriting, held down by a bronze paperweight surmounted by a tiny, but beautiful miniature of a woman’s form. It was Bera’s last birthday gift to me.
“We have gone to Alaska with Swiftwater and Mr. Hathaway. Do not worry, mama, as when we get there we will look out for your hotel.”
“BERA.”
That was Bera’s note. I looked at my watch. It was 7:25 and I knew the “Humboldt” sailed at 8 o’clock. I rushed down four flights of stairs, never thinking of the elevator, gained the street and hailed a passing hackman.
“You can have this if you get to the ‘Humboldt’ at Schwabacher’s dock before she sails!” I cried as the cabby drew his team to the curb, and then I handed him a ten dollar gold piece.
Whipping his horses to a gallop, the hackman drove at a furious pace down First Avenue to Spring Street and thence to the dock. He all but knocked over a policeman as the horses under his whip surged through the crowd which stood around the dock waiting for the departure of the “Humboldt.”
“My two daughters are on that boat and Swiftwater Bill Gates has stolen them from me!” I shouted as I grabbed hold of the arm of a big policeman near the entrance to the dock. “I want you to get those girls off that boat before she sails, no matter what happens!”
In another minute the policeman was fighting his way with all the force of his 250 pounds through the mob of five thousand people that hung around the gang plank of the “Humboldt.” The ship’s lights were burning brightly and everybody was laughing and talking, and a few women crying as they said goodby to husbands, sweethearts or friends aboard the ship.