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 and thrown back into the auto, which was immediately started up and which made off towards Fairport at a rattling speed. Three hundred yards away, however, Loge rose again and shook a furious fist at the Jasper B., and though Cleggett could not distinguish the words, the sense of Loge's impotent rage rolled towards him on the wind in a roaring, vibrant bass.

The sight of the box that he had not been able to buy, in Cleggett's possession, had stirred him beyond all caution; he had actually contemplated an attempt to rush the Jasper B. in broad daylight.

But while this queer tableau of baffled rage was enacting itself on the starboard bow of the Jasper B., a no less strange and far less explicable thing was occurring on the port side. The swish of oars and the ripple of a moving boat drew Cleggett's attention in that direction as Loge's booming threats grew fainter. He saw that two oarsmen, near the eastern and farther side of the canal, had allowed the dainty, varnished little craft they were supposed to propel to come to a rest in spite of the evident displeasure of a man who sat in its stern. This third man was the same that Cleggett had seen on the deck of the Annabel Lee with a spy glass, and