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took McKinnon but half a minute to reach the passageway that led to Ganley's cabin. He felt, as he paused for an instant before his enemy's closed door, that his entrance into the room before him involved a final and unequivocal betrayal of his own position. His line of advance from that time forward could no longer be the circuitous and subterranean one he had hoped to make it. The contest between him and Ganley, thereafter, would have to be open and aboveboard.

Then, preparing himself for the scene he was to face, he turned the knob and swung open the door.

The cabin was empty. The electric lights were turned on, the disordered berth stood before him, and Ganley's massive pigskin wallet lay on the floor. But the room was without an occupant.

McKinnon, now thoroughly alarmed, turned