Now the gentleman of whom he made inquiries answered that he had seen a number of persons running just as the ship's moorings were cast off. "There were a couple of young chaps," he said, "very ragged and dirty-looking, who ran aboard the last thing, as if afraid of being left; but I didn't see them come off again, and I expect they belong to the ship. Then there was another couple who seemed in a great hurry, and ran shouting after a carriage that was just starting up-town. They stopped it, got in, and drove off. One of them was, as you say, a very gentlemanly appearing lad, and the other was so evidently a sailor that I expect they're the two you are looking for."
"I shouldn't wonder if they were," replied the officer, delighted at having thus quickly discovered the trail. "Did you happen to hear them give the driver any directions?"
"Yes. The young chap said, 'Hotel Tacoma.'"
Thanking the gentleman for his information, the lieutenant hurried away, boarded an up-town trolley-car, and a few minutes later stood in the office of the great hotel scanning its register. A single glance was sufficient, for the two last names on the page, so recently entered that the ink was hardly dry, assured him that his search was successful. They were both in the same handwriting, and read——
Philip Ryder, Alaska.
Jalap Coombs, "
"Pretty smart dodge," chuckled the lieutenant, as he walked away, "to hail from such an indefinite place as Alaska. This Philip Ryder is certainly a sharp chap. It is plain enough now that he left that bag in the Siwash camp as a blind to throw us off the track. What a pile of money those smugglers must make, though. Here is one of them, apparently a simple deck-hand, who buys the choicest groceries to be had in Victoria, bathes in cologne-water, throws away a suit of clothes so handsome that I should be only too glad to wear them myself, and now puts up at the swellest hotel in the city. It certainly is a great business."
While thinking these things the lieutenant was hurrying back towards the cutter, to make report of what he had discovered to his superior officer. After listening to all he had to say, that gentleman decided to continue the investigation himself; and an hour later he, with his third lieutenant, both out of uniform, appeared at the hotel, followed by a sailor bearing a canvas dunnage-bag.
Going into one of the small writing-rooms, which happened to be unoccupied, the commander wrote a name on a plain card and sent it up to Mr. Philip Ryder, with a request that the gentleman would consent to see him on a matter of business. Then, with the canvas bag on the floor beside him, he waited alone, having desired the lieutenant to keep out of sight until sent for.
Inside of three minutes a bell-boy ushered into the room a well-dressed, squarely built youth, with a resolute face and honest blue eyes that looked straight into those of the commander.
"Mr. Ellery, I believe," he said, glancing at the card still held in his hand.