CHAPTER XXI
THE OLD "BANKER"
VARGE had headed steadily south—always south. What better plan could he have adopted than that so naïvely suggested by the doctor—to make Gloucester and ship on a fishing smack for the Grand Banks? He would be away for months, out of touch with the world and safe from pursuit; he would be earning something the while, and on his return—well, the time to think of that had not yet come.
Night after night he had left the miles behind him. The prison suit had long since disappeared—well hidden in the hollow trunk of a fallen tree close to the spot where Doctor Kreelmar had met him. Little by little, in the general stores of the small hamlets, an article at a time, he had supplied himself with the necessities that he lacked. The tell-tale underclothing, with its "777" stamped glaringly, indelibly upon it, was discarded; his coat was no longer buttoned tightly around a bare throat, for he now had collar, shirt and tie; the heavy prison boots were replaced by those of less ostentatious manufacture; the warden's battered soft-felt hat by one of like design but of more respectability. He would have bought new clothes as well, but, though his money was sufficient for the purpose, he had not dared to drain too heavily upon his slender capital—and after all, if old, the clothes had not yet reached that stage of shabbiness or indecency that would provoke suspicion or distrust.
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