Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/265

 don't need to go into no trance to dig out what yuh and Nitro Charlie've been tryin' to cook up this last two weeks! And Charlie'd sure take it hard, after lootin' that launch-full of Iona Island powder, to know yuh were hangin' the Indian sign on him for the chance o' doin' a little gay-cattin' for Keudell and his gang!"

Shindler slowly replaced his beer-jug.

"What're you ragin' about, anyway?" he demanded. But his blink was one of bewilderment, bewilderment at her comprehension of his well-hidden secrets.

"There's a Service man or two who'd sure be interested to know just what yuh found out about them coast-defense guns at Indian Head, and them mortars at Fort Monroe!"

Shindler quite as slowly sat down beside the table. He did not look at Sadie Wimpel. His vacantly ruminative eyes were fixed on the two empty beer glasses in front of him. He toyed idly, as he sat there, with a seal ring on his finger, twisting it nervously round and round. And Sadie, as she sat studying him, remembered that he was always most virulent when he was most passive.

Through the gray mists of memory, too, as she