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 they sent something in, and it got out all over the ship, it would be likely to spoil everything."

"But it won't get out all over the ship," the operator corrected.

"You'll promise me that?" asked the other with a look of relief.

"Of course I'll promise you that—it's part of my business."

"But there's the other side of the question," the stranger discreetly continued. "Ganley is almost sure to be sending or receiving some thing. Why, I shouldn't be surprised if you've been handling something for him already." The operator reached out for his message-hooks. The movement was merely perfunctory, for the hooks were all but empty.

"What name would he be travelling under?" McKinnon looked up to ask.

"He's booked as John Siebert, cabin fourteen," was the answer.

The man in the steamer-chair looked relieved, but only for a moment, when he learned that nothing had come or gone.

"Of course I may be wrong about his trying to keep in touch with those people of his. And it may happen the department won't even try to have him held. Perhaps they won't do anything until we get him ashore at Puerto Locombia. But we've got to get him there—it's our