The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-04

Ory habitationS adorning that fringe of a city flotsam was the ruinous boathouse of a certain Oyster Joe.
 And Oyster Joe, the river pirate. looked the part. Even the tan of { wind and sun failed to conceal the subterranean aspect of his weather roughened face. His furtive and close set eyes failed to note the slender bodied stranger who quietly ap- preached his abode, entered it, and stared studiously about. What made this intruder even more mys- teriouS was the fact that across the upper part of his face he wore a narrow band of yellow cloth, the center of which dropped apronlike almost as low as his upper lip, lend- ing to that face when seen at first glance the faint suggestion of a leer, of countenance cut by the inverted crescent of laughing mask.
 The movements of this mysterious stranger were marked by celer1ty. When his investigations, in fact, were suddenly interrupted by sound which grew louder along the narrow road winding inland through the salty marshes, he crept to the door, peered out and prepared himself for a prom ised intruder. For approaching Oys- ter Joe's boathouse he could plainly make out a two-horse wagon driven by slattern- -shouldered and white bearded man of about 60.
 The masked intruder crept back through the boathouse, entered the sail loft and stealthily approached the still musing figure of Oyster Joe. As he did so he twisted together a bit of sail cloth which he had caught up on his way to the loft. Over the satur- nine face with the blinking eyes he adroitly tossed this strand of canvas, quickly jerking it tight as it fell against the bull-like neck, and con- tinuing that pressure, with his knees held firm against the arching back, until the river pirate, garroted into silence. rolled gasping and gurgling to the floor.
 There, catching up bits of rope scat tered about the rubbish Uttered floor, he tied and gagged his captive.
 Then, hearing the wagon wheels almost at the door, the stranger dragged his inert captive to a near by beam, lashed him to it and over him threw the tarpaulin from the cognac casks.
 Slipping back to the outer room the masked stranger drew his re- volver and stood close in beside the shadow of the door, calmly waiting for the man who had already alighted from the wagon.
 froe fri1
 he kept company with his rolling eyed and equally mystified confrere, Oyster Joe. There he sat blinking about him as the masked stranger brisllly rolled two of the cognac casks out to the waiting wagon, loaded them on the platform and as briskly drove away,
 Only once did that wagon stop on Its journey to the city. This was upon the signal of a street-corner watcher in Brooklyn itself. The new driver apparently both expected and understood that signal. for without further barley or delay he turned his team in between the wide doors of a feed stable.
 At Legar's quarters beneath this same Owls Nest, in the meantime Margory Golden had not altogether given up hope. Faint as seemed any chance for her rescue from that thick aired den of iniquity she still nursed in her memory a mysterious incident already several hours old.
 That incident occurred as the Owl serenely dozing after her third gen. erous libation of square face" gin sat drowsing in her chair, and the girl herself, under rumbling and re- peated threats of violence upon her head, was listlessly making prepara- tions for the coming meal. She started