Who could accomplish that in which the law was powerless?—­Hummel.  Who could drive to the uttermost ends of the earth persons against whom not a shadow of suspicion had previously rested?—­Hummel.  Who dictated to the chiefs of police of foreign cities what they should or should not do in certain cases; and who could, at the beckoning of his little finger, summon to his dungeon-like offices in the New York Life Building, whither his firm had removed from Centre Street, the most prominent of lawyers, the most eminent of citizens?—­Surely none but Hummel.  And now Hummel was fighting for his own life.  The only man that stood between him and the iron bars of Blackwell’s Island was Charles F. Dodge—­the man whom he had patted on the knee in his office and called a “Mascot,” when quite in the nature of business he needed a little perjury to assist a wealthy client.

Hummel in terror called into play every resource upon which, during forty years of practice, his tiny tentacles had fastened.  Who shall say that while he made a show of enjoying himself nightly with his accustomed light-heartedness in the Tenderloin, he did not feel confident that in the end this peril would disappear like the others which had from time to time threatened him during his criminal career?  But Hummel was fully aware of the tenacity of the man who had resolved to rid New York of his malign influence.  His Nemesis was following him.  In his dreams, if he ever dreamed, it probably took the shape of the square shouldered District Attorney in the shadow of whose office building the little shyster practised his profession.  Had he been told that this Nemesis was in reality a jovial little man with a round, ruddy face and twinkling blue eyes he would have laughed as heartily as it was in his power to laugh.  Yet such was the fact.  A little man who looked less like a detective than a commercial traveller selling St. Peter’s Oil or some other cheerful concoction, with manners as gentle and a voice as soft as a spring zephyr, who always took off his hat when he came into a business office, seemingly bashful to the point of self-effacement, was the one who snatched Charles F. Dodge from the borders of Mexico and held him in an iron grip when every influence upon which Hummel could call for aid, from crooked police officials, corrupt judges and a gang of cutthroats under the guise of a sheriff’s posse, were fighting for his release.

Jesse Blocher is not employed in New York County, and for business reasons he does not wish his present address known.  When he comes to New York he occasionally drops into the writer’s office for a cigar and a friendly chat about old times.  And as he sits there and talks so modestly and with such quiet humor about his adventures with the Texas Rangers among the cactus-studded plains of the Lone Star State, it is hard even for one who knows the truth, to realize that this man is one of the greatest of detectives, or rather one of the most capable, resourceful, adroit and quick-witted knights of adventure who ever set forth upon a seemingly impossible errand.