"Well! What's to be done?" demanded Fraser, sharply. "If you say the word, we'll shoot it out with them, and get away on the ship before—"
"We can't do that—there are a dozen policemen in front here."
"Well, you'll have to move quick, or they'll 'cop' you, sure."
Boyd clinched his hands in desperation. "I guess they've got me," he said, bitterly. "There's no way out."
His eyes fell upon the letter containing his boastful assurance of victory. What a mockery!
"From what they said I don't think they know you," Fraser continued. "Anyhow, they wanted Peasley to point you out. When they come off, maybe you can slip 'em."
"But how?" Boyd seized eagerly upon the suggestion. "The wharf is empty—see! I'll have to cross it in plain sight."
Through the rear door of the office that opened upon the dock proper they beheld the great floor almost entirely clear. Save for a few tons of freight at which Big George's men were working, it was as unobstructed as a lawn; and, although it was nearly the size of a city block, it afforded no more means of concealment than did the little office itself, with its glass doors, its counter, and its long desk, at the farther end of which a bill-clerk was poring over his task. Iron-barred windows at the front of the room looked out upon the street; other windows and a door at the right opened upon the driveway and railroad track, while at the rear the glass-panelled door through which they had just been peering gave egress only to the dock itself, up which the two officers were likely to come at any instant. Even as Emerson, with a last desperate glance, summed up the possible places of concealment, Fraser exclaimed, softly:
"There they are now!" and they saw at the foot of the gang-plank two men talking with Big George. They saw Balt point the strangers carelessly to the office, whence he had seen Boyd disappearing a few moments before, and turn back to his stevedores; then they saw the plain-clothes men approaching.
"Here! Gimme your coat and hat, quick!" cried Fraser in a low voice, his eyes blazing at a sudden, thought. He stripped his own garments from his back with feverish haste. "Put mine on. There! I'll stall for you. When they grab me, take it on the run. Understand!"