Page:Ralph Paine--The Steam-Shovel Man.djvu/139

 The other man quickly followed and locked the door behind him.

"Pretty exclusive, aren't you?" said Devlin. "Why, hello, Captain Brincker. I'm looking for a young friend of mine named Goodwin. What have you done with him?"

Gazing hard at the bold intruder, the soldier of fortune answered:

"There is no young man in the house. You are Jack Devlin."

"Sure I am, and my belief is that you are a liar. Do you recall the night when you broke jail ahead of the government troops that were going to shoot you next morning, and swam aboard my dredge in Guayaquil harbor?"

"That revolution in Ecuador was unlucky for me," returned Captain Brincker, in a matter-of-fact way, as if this meeting were not at all extraordinary. "I was on the losing side. You hid me on your dredge and kept me there until I could slip away in a German tramp steamer. I have not forgotten it."

Devlin stood alertly poised, his mind intent on the main issue. If there was to be a truce it must be on his own terms. There was contempt in his eyes as he said: