Jeff leaned on a pile and let his imagination people the harbor
with the wandering children of the earth who had been drawn from
all its seafaring corners to this Mecca of trade. He knew that
here were swarthy little Japanese with teas and silks, dusky
Kanakas with copra, and Alaskan liners carrying gold and returning
miners. There would be brigs from Buenos Ayres and schooners that
had nosed into Robert Louis Stevenson's magic South Sea islands.
Puffy London steamers, Nome and Skagway liners condemned long
since on the Atlantic Coast, queer rigged hybrids from Rio and
other South American ports, were gorging themselves with lumber or
wheat or provisions according to their needs. Here truly lay
before him the romance of the nations.
The sound of a stealthy footfall warned him of impending danger.
He whirled, and faced three men who were advancing on him. A vague
suspicion that had oppressed him more than once in the past week
leaped to definite conviction in his brain. He was the victim of a
plot to waylay--perhaps to murder him. One of these men was a huge
Swede, another a swarthy Italian with rings in his ears. He had
seen them before, lurking in the shadows of an alley outside the
_World_ building.
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