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Rh under the lid of a carelessly closed chest the end of a signal flag trailed.

He had time only to note that the name upon the prow of the canoe was "Midinette" when the voices outside upon the little platform or porch grew louder, and he composed himself again with closed eyes just as the two men reëntered the room.

"All right." The one called Pete was evidently concluding the conversation. "I'll beat it up to the village and see if I can scare up any, but it's ticklish business these days; thought you were off the stuff."

"Not any more dan youse is, ol' pal," returned Tony. "If I hadn't lost de package overboard dat Volkert slipped me last night we'd 'a' been fixed fine, but honest, I got de yin somethin' fierce!"

"Well, I won't be long."

A door closed, and shambling footsteps approached the couch. Odell held himself motionless, scarcely daring to breathe as a shaky hand lifted the ice-bag, felt of it speculatively, and then replaced it. The footsteps moved away, then halted; and there came the scratch of a match and whiff of a vile cigarette. Then footsteps again, the opening and closing of a door, and Odell was once more alone.

Volkert! That was the name of the German who ran the drug-store on the corner of Third Avenue just across from the pseudo-tailor's shop and who had paid a heavy fine not three months before for selling drugs to the wretched addicts of the vicinity. The "package" which the druggist had slipped to Tony was self-evident; the latter and Pete were both, in their own parlance, coke-sniffers.

If Pete succeeded in securing a supply in the village of