Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/141

 consigned me to a wireless station there. My real duty at Pinar del Rio was to forward cipher reports to Havana and keep the authorities there in proper touch with any filibuster movements in the affected district. Then came a lean year, when I tallied coffee-bags and banana-bunches from a roof-car at Port Limon, until I elbowed my way into a position as night operator on the Costo Rican Northern. It's all very tame to tell about, yet it had its compensating touches of adventure now and then. But I wanted to get North and work out some electrical apparatus that had been preying on my mind."

He came to a stop.

"And you went North?" she prompted him.

He looked up with his quick smile.

"You know there's a certain group of rocks on the Olancho River, near Jutigalpa, where the water is beautifully clear. They say that if you once dive from that cliff, no matter where you go, you will return to Olancho, in the end, that you will die somewhere along the fringe of the Caribbean. I took that dive."

She gave vent to her habitual little head-shake.

"They say the same thing if you drink from the Fontana di Trevi in Rome. It's very pretty, but, of course, it's also very foolish."