Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/246

 form of an interrogation, they might have been claimed to carry the weight of an ultimatum.

The huge, red-faced figure with the black cigar leaned in through the narrow doorway.

"I think you will, though," was the vaguely menacing retort.

"And why?"

Ganley laughed a little.

"Do you s'pose I'm going to let a couple of children like you"—and he threw a world of contempt into the word "children" as he uttered it—"step in and try to stop my steamroller?"

"You haven't told me why?" mildly inquired McKinnon, more and more becoming master of himself again.

"Well, this is why," said Ganley, and he leaned closer in through the door as he spoke. "If you don't choose to put a padlock on that wire, I'm going to put a padlock on you!"

"Just what does that mean?" was the quiet-voiced inquiry.

"It means that you'll kill that message, or I'll kill you!"

Then Ganley shut the cabin door, quietly, and the operator was left standing alone in his station.