The time had been when the fact that Johnny Thompson occupied this room was no secret to anyone who really wanted to know.  Johnny had roomed here when he first came to Chicago as a boy, working for six dollars a week.  When, in the years that followed, it had been discovered that Johnny was quick as a bobcat and packed a wallop; when Johnny began making easy money, and plenty of it, he had stuck to the old room that overlooked the river.  When he had heard his country’s call to go to war, he had paid three years’ rent on the room and had locked the door.  If he never came back, all good and well.  If he did return, the old room would be waiting for him, the room and the river.  Now here he was once more.

The river!  The stream had always held a great fascination for him.  Johnny had seen other rivers but to him none of them quite came up to the old Chicago.  In its silent, sullen depths lay power and mystery.  The Charles River of Boston Johnny had seen, and called it a place of play for college boys.  The Seine of Paris was a thing of beauty, not of power.  The Spokane was a noisy blusterer.  But the old Chicago was a grim and silent toiler.  It bore on its waters great scows, lake boats, snorting, smoking tugs, screaming fire boats and police boats.  Then, too, it was a river of mysteries.  Down into its murky depths no eye could peer to discover the hidden and mysterious burdens which it carried away toward the Father of Waters.

Yes, give Johnny the room by the old Chicago!  It was dusty and grim; but tomorrow he would clean it thoroughly.  Just now he wished merely to sit here and think for an hour.

The time had been when Johnny had not cared who saw him enter this haven; but to-day things were different.  Since he had got into this affair with the Russian and his band he had had a feeling that he was being constantly watched.

There was little wonder at this, for did he not carry on his person forty thousand dollars’ worth of rare gems?  And did they not belong to someone else?

“To whom?” Johnny said the words aloud as he thought of it.

His mind turned to his Japanese comrades, the girl and the man.  He had told neither of them about the diamonds.  Perhaps he should have done so, and yet he felt a strange reticence in the matter.

He was to meet Hanada at eight o’clock.  Hanada had never told him why they were pursuing the Russian; why he could not be killed in Siberia; why he must not be killed or arrested if seen now, until he, Hanada, said the word.  He had not told why he thought that the Secret Service men had committed a blunder in offering a reward for the Russian’s capture.

As Johnny thought of it he wondered if he were a fool for sticking to this affair into which he had been so blindly led.  He had not shown himself to his old boss or to Mazie.  To them he was dead.  He had looked up the official record that very morning and had seen that he was reported “Missing in Vladivostok; probably dead.”