Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/181

 "Sure! He 's got to be aboard the Trunella!" "Then why d" you say I can't get at him?"

"Because Guayaquil and the Trunella and the whole coast down there is tied up in quarantine. That whole harbor 's rotten with yellow-jack. It 's tied up as tight as a drum. You could n't get a boat on all the Pacific to touch that port these days!"

"But there 's got to be something going there!" contended Blake.

"They daren't do it! They couldn't get clearance—they couldn't even get pratique! Once they got in there they 'd be held and given the blood-test and picketed with a gunboat for a month! And what 's more, they 've got that Alfaro revolution on down there! They 've got boat-patrols up and down the coast, keeping a lookout for gunrunners!"

Blake, at this last word, raised his ponderous head.

"The boat-patrols would n't phase me," he announced. His thoughts, in fact, were