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The Bootblack Stowaway; or, Broadway Billy's Blind
This issue contains "The Bootblack Stowaway; or, Broadway Billy's Blind: Secret of the Banker's Buried Booty" by J. C. Cowdrick, author of the Broadway Billy novels. The serial opens with hunchbacked Conrad Conningham hiring ship captain Elliott for a mysterious voyage aboard the yacht Gauntlet, offering fifty thousand dollars for months of work. The cargo and its nature must remain secret; the crew will be drugged unknowingly with sleeping potion so none discover what is taken aboard at an unnamed barren island. A stowaway listens through the cabin skylight and steals the voyage chart and papers. Broadway Billy, Junior—a street Arab bootblack and detective—observes the thief's escape and shadows him to the waterfront, where the man meets a sailor named Tom and mentions finding something valuable aboard the Gauntlet. They discuss locating Captain Trycker at a boarding house to discuss the mysterious opportunity.
