Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/234

 been oiled. His peering eyes showed in two thin crescents of white, out of the heavy shadow made by the projecting eye-bones.

"Nothing," was McKinnon's sharp retort. "I'm only trying to get something."

He shook the detaining hand from his arm, and gave all his attention to his call. But the intruder was not to be so easily overridden.

"Are you with us?" he demanded, pregnantly, as the preoccupied operator again caught up the phone-set.

"Yes—yes, I'm with you," cried the man, stooping over the responder. "But I'm trying to operate!"

"What in hell does this operating count if you're with us?" persisted the placid-toned Ganley, determined, apparently, on a policy of obstruction.

"It's this call that's going to save both our scalps," was the abstracted yet hurried retort.

"How save my scalp?" demanded Ganley, with a detaining hand on the other's fore-arm.

The stooping McKinnon straightened up and wheeled on him, every nerve ready to snap like an overstrained bowstring.

"I've got to catch this call! Don't talk—keep away from me!" Ganley looked at him heavily. He did not speak. But a third voice thundered abruptly