Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/112

 miles up the coast machine guns will be landed, and tubs of cartridges, and two thousand rifles."

"But how do you know all this?"

"It became my duty to know it."

"But why?"

"Because my brother is Arturo Boynton, the Locombian minister of war," she answered, after a moment's silence.

McKinnon gazed at her in a mingling of wonder and perplexity.

"Is he a Locombian?"

"No."

"Then why the Arturo?"

"That was a concession to local prejudices," she answered, after still another moment's pause.

"But why such concessions? You see, you'll have to be perfectly frank with me."

She smiled a little. It was not a smile of condescension, for her earnest eyes were almost deprecative as she looked at him.

"That will mean a sad lot of family history," she said with a little shrug, as exotic, almost, as the Southern inflection of her voice.

He laughed a little, too, for all the anxiety that was weighing on him.

"But you see we have to understand each other's position in this."