Part 2

The shore, though, remained quite unseen until the power boat was almost upon it. Then Butch Traynor cut the ignition. The two boats--the rearmost one towed--went on with diminishing speed until the prow of the first touched land.

“You get out here,” said Butch Traynor grimly. “I don’t know anything about you, an’ I don’t want to know. But I’m not havin’ my wife in court tellin’ how she picked you up swimmin’. Get out!”

The man from the water got up shakily. But he stopped to say in a last flicker of hope:

“Listen! She said y’were in trouble with the law. An’ if y’ are, why--”

“Hell!” said Butch Traynor. “You can’t believe a crazy woman. She was crazy. Crazy mad. With me. That’s all.”

The girl said urgently, “He tried to kill you, Butch! You oughtn’t let him go!”

“So did you try to kill me,” said Butch Traynor curtly. To the man he added, “Git!”

He shoved off the boat with his one good arm. The man from the water heard its motor catch. It backed out, with the other, empty boat bumping clumsily about it. It started off down the coast. The man on shore saw it move into one of the erratic lanes of clearness in the golden mist. Sunlight actually struck upon it. The two figures in it were clearly visible. The girl sat almost humbly before the man, who held the tiller. Just before they vanished in the lessening mist, she reached over and stroked his hand hopefully.

The man on shore turned. The mist was thinning. Before it thinned too much he had to be far away and hidden. He had to stay hidden until the world believed him drowned. His chances were not excellent, but they were fair. He began to climb the leaf-littered bank, on the top of which virgin timber began.

But as he climbed and before he became absorbed again in the business of being a fugitive, for one fleeting instant he thought of the pair he had just left. And he spat.

“Dames!” said the murderer disgustedly. “Hell!”

[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the August 10, 1939 issue of Short Stories magazine.]