Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/277

 throaty and inarticulate little gasp of gratitude.

"What is it?" he asked, looking up quickly.

"Nothing!" she answered, turning away her head so that he would not see a foolish tear or two in her eyes.

"I said things would go our way—and they will!" he declared, ruminatively. "Once we get this message out, we'll have three hundred American bluejackets up in Guariqui inside of two days!"

"And Ganley?" she asked.

"Oh, Ganley will be about again, and very much alive by that time!"

"But what will he do—what could he do, if we reach Puerto Locombia before the Princeton?"

He sat back, deep in troubled thought.

"That is the one thing I don't know, I can't tell. He's hinted at some trump card he's got up his sleeve—but he's given no inkling of what it is."

"Then we can only wait?"

"Yes, we can only wait!"

Then the tightened jaw-tendons relaxed into his quick and conciliating smile. "But why should we waste thought on things like that!" he cried, with his forced yet valiant laugh. "We're going to have a banana-train filled with machine guns climbing up through those hills