DeGolyer snatched his hat and rushed out into the street. Not a hack was in sight; he could not wait for a car, and he hastened toward the river. He began to run, and a boy cried: "Sick him, Tige." He stopped suddenly and put his hand to his head. "Have I lost my mind?" he asked himself.
"Well, here we are again," some one said. DeGolyer looked round and recognized the railroad man who had charge of the excursion.
"I'm glad I met you," DeGolyer replied. "It saves hunting you up."
"Why, what's the matter? Are you sick?"
"No, I'm all right, but something has occurred that compels me to return at once to Chicago."
"Nothing serious, I hope."
"No, but it demands my immediate return. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. Good-by."
Again he started toward the river. He upset an old woman's basket of fruit. She cried out at him, and be saw that she could scarcely totter after the rolling oranges. He halted and picked them up for her. She mumbled something; she appeared to be a hundred years old. As he was putting the fruit into the basket, she struck a note in her mumbling that caused him to look her full in the face. He dropped the oranges and sprang back. She was the hag that had taken him from the Foundlings' Home. He hurried onward. "Great God!" he inwardly cried, "I am covered with the slime of the past."
Without difficulty he found the captain of the Creole. "I don't know very much about the poor fellow," he said. "I run across him nearly six months ago fit a little place called Dura, on the coast of Costa Rica. He was working about a sort of hotel, scrubbing and taking care of the horses; and I guess I shouldn't have paid any attention to him if I hadn't heard somebody say that he was an American; and it struck me as rather out of place that an American should be scrubbing round for those fellows, and I began to inquire about him. The landlord said that he was brought there sick, a good while ago, and was left for dead, but just as they were about to bury him he came to, and got up again after a few weeks. A priest told me that his name was Henry DeGolyer, and I said that it didn't make any difference what his name might be, I was going to take him back to the United States, so that if he had to clean out stables and scrub he might do it for white folks at least; for I am a down-east Yankee, and I haven't any too much respect for those fellows. Well, I brought him to New Orleans. I couldn't do much for him, being a poor man myself, but I got him a place in a restaurant, where he could get enough to eat, anyhow. I've since heard that he used to be a newspaper man, but this was disputed. Some people said that the newspaper DeGolyer was a black-haired fellow. But that didn't make any difference—I did the best I could."
"And you shall he more than paid for your trouble," said DeGolyer.