Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/130

 be needed; she is needed; and she may as well be told of it now. I mean we'll do what we've got to do while the way's still clear."

"But how can you order about an American warship as though it were a street cab you'd hired?"

"It won't be me—it'll be the wireless that does the ordering."

"But who are you?"

"That's just it—I'm nobody! I'm like those canaries you spoke of; I wouldn't be worth cannonading."

"But you have no power to do this!" demurred the still puzzled woman. "You are not the President of the United States! You have no authority to order about a battleship!"

"I'll make the authority!" he cried as he sprang to his key and once more called through the night. "You've said just enough to give me my chance to make my course plain. American interests are threatened in Guariqui at this very moment; American property has already been destroyed in Puerto Locombia. It's only forestalling the inevitable. I mean I'm going to send an official call for that cruiser myself!"

The woman looked at him in amazement as he swung about and clapped the 'phones once more to his ears.

"If we can only get her!" he half groaned