Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/75

 A meditative silence filled the little white-walled cabin.

"But what have I got to do with all this?" McKinnon at last demanded. His face seemed to carry the complaint that he had always found dissension on shipboard hard to endure; it was never easy to get away from disturbances in a world so small, or to put hate behind one in a life so circumscribed. Yet he smiled a little, in spite of himself. A ship, he had somewhere heard, must be either a heaven or a hell. The next fortnight, he felt, would find little of the celestial about the Laminian.

"That's just what I'm coming around to," the intruder was saying to him. "This Ganley, remember, has got his 'fences' and confederates and small-fry helpers. He works the thing thorough when he does it. And as likely as not, between here and Puerto Locombia, he's going to get messages sent in to him, or he's going to send out some despatches on his own hook—so as to keep in touch with his people."

The stranger came to a stop and sat regarding the younger man as though he looked for some word of encouragement or comprehension from him.

"The thing I've got to guard against most," the stranger who called himself Duffy continued, "is the department at Washington. If