In a quiet Vermont valley, young lovers Derrick Ames and Helen Hathaway flee Raymond on a moonlit elopement night, only for Helen’s banker father to be found murdered in his locked office and the town’s bank robbed, a crime that sends Derrick to prison and brands him a fugitive when he escapes. Years later, as war with Spain looms, Jack Ashley, a quick-witted New York reporter, and John Barker, a relentless detective, follow the tangled trail of that unsolved killing from Green Mountain trout brooks to New York hotels, filibustering steamers, and the insurgent camps and cafes of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. Crossing paths with the proud sisters Helen and Louise Hathaway, the mysterious yachtsman Phillip Van Zandt (once Ernest Stanley), Cuban patriot Don Rafael Manada, fiery rebel leader “El Terredo,” and the vengeful Isabel Harding, they uncover how stolen Raymond bank funds, false identities, and Spanish intrigue knit together three flags—American, Cuban, and Spanish—into one long plot of betrayal and revenge. As U.S. cruiser America races the black yacht Semiramis, insurgent and Spanish forces clash around Santiago and Manila, and old enemies meet at last in a Santiago café and in the harbor under cannon fire, the truth behind Roger Hathaway’s death and the fate of both Feltons are finally written at gunpoint, closing the trail that began in a Vermont mountain town.

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