Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/186

 "You 're going to take me to Guayaquil," repeated Blake.

"That 's where you 're dead wrong," was the calmly insolent rejoinder. "I ain't even goin' to Guayaquil."

"I say you are."

Tankred's smile translated his earlier deliberateness into open contempt.

"You seem to forget that this here town you 're beefin' about lies a good thirty-five miles up the Guayas River. And if I 'm gunrunnin' for Alfaro, as you say, I naturally ain't navigatin' streams where they 'd be able to pick me off the bridge-deck with a fishin'-pole!"

"But you 're going to get as close to Guayaquil as you can, and you know it."

"Do I?" said the man with the up-tilted cigar.

"Look here, Pip," said Blake, leaning closer over the table towards him. "I don't give a tinker's dam about Alfaro and his two-cent revolution. I 'm not sitting up worrying over him or his junta or how he gets his