All that he had learned on the streets and
wharves and roof-tops, all that pitiable experience and dangerous
knowledge that had made him a leader and a hero among the thieves and
bullies of the river-front he called to his assistance now. He faced
the fact flatly and with the cool consideration of an uninterested
counsellor. He knew that the history of his life was written on Police
Court blotters from the day that he was ten years old, and with
pitiless detail; that what friends he had he held more by fear than by
affection, and that his enemies, who were many, only wanted just such
a chance as this to revenge injuries long suffered and bitterly
cherished, and that his only safety lay in secret and instant flight.
The ferries were watched, of course; he knew that the depots, too,
were covered by the men whose only duty was to watch the coming and to
halt the departing criminal. But he knew of one old man who was too
wise to ask questions and who would row him over the East River to
Astoria, and of another on the west side whose boat was always at the
disposal of silent white-faced young men who might come at any hour of
the night or morning, and whom he would pilot across to the Jersey
shore and keep well away from the lights of the passing ferries and
the green lamp of the police boat.
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