The person in charge at the time lifted a message from a hook and handed it across the counter.
It was promptly paid for in gold, and the receiver, placing it in his pocket, walked out.
There was a smile on his face, and it lingered there some time, or until he entered a hotel and went up to a room on the third floor.
There, with the door locked behind him, he pulled forth the telegraph envelope and tore it open.
The message was from London and was very short, but it startled him.
In the soft Australian sunlight that entered the chamber he read at a glance, as follows:
"The Wolf follows. He is off on the Maybloom, bound for Sydney.
Jem."
The recipient of the cablegram looked up with a snarl of defiance on his face, now no longer old-looking, but with the mask removed, and young and handsome.
"So he is on the trail," he cried; "so this ferret from afar is on the hunt? Well, I am ready to meet him, but there's many a trap he never dreams of!"
He tore the message into tatters and threw them out the back window, to see the wind carry them in very many directions.