Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/235

 and unexpectedly through the hot cabin. It was Captain Yandel's, belligerent, stentorian, bull-like.

"Come out o' that station!"

The man addressed did not move.

"Come out o' there and stop interferin' with my men!"

Ganley turned his head slowly about and gazed at the ship's master. But otherwise he showed no sign of having heard.

"Are you comin' out o' there?" demanded that apoplectic-faced officer, in a roar of inebriate and affronted authority. There was no evading his blind and unreasoning anger. Ganley shrugged a massive shoulder.

"Since you ask me so politely, I s'pose so," he conceded, with his mirthless laugh. Then he placidly turned about and stepped to the doorway, and from the doorway to the open deck.

"Now you get below-decks where you belong!"

The gaze of the two men met and locked; it was like the clash and lock of elk-antlers.

In that interlocked gaze lay animal-like challenge and counter-challenge, threat and counter-threat, malignant fortitude and an even more malignant defiance.

Ganley, with a lip-curl of contempt, thrust