United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Yes, I think it's settled!" Again Tankred laughed. "But take it from me, my friend, you'll sure see some rough goin' this next few days!" As Tankred had intimated, Blake's journey southward from Panama was anything but comfortable traveling. The vessel was verminous, the food was bad, and the heat was oppressive.
And as they stood smoking together Blake tenderly and cautiously put out the usual feelers, plying the familiar questions and meeting with the too-familiar lack of response. Like all the rest of them, he soon saw, Pip Tankred knew nothing of Binhart or his whereabouts. And with that discovery his interest in Pip Tankred ceased.
For the second time Tankred turned and studied the other man. "And you're still goin' after your gen'leman friend from up North?" he inquired. "Pip, I 've got to get that man!" "You've got 'o?" "I 've got to, and I 'm going to!" Tankred threw his cigar-end away and laughed leisurely and quietly. "Then what're we sittin' here arguin' about, anyway? If it's settled, it's settled, ain't it?"
Blake knew that nothing was to be gained by beating about the bush. "There's a man I want down there, and I 'm going down to get him!" "Who is he?" "That's my business," retorted Blake. "And gettin' into Guayaquil's your business!" Tankred snorted back. "All I 'm going to say is he 's a man from up North and he 's not in your line of business, and never was and never will be!"
The wakened sleeper heard the other man moving about in the velvety black gloom. "What 're you doing there?" was his sharp question as he heard the squeak and slam of a shutter. "Closin' this dead-light, of course," explained Tankred. A moment later he switched on the electric globe at the bunkhead. "We 're gettin' in pretty close now and we 're goin' with our lights doused!"
It was the night after they had swung about and were steaming up the Gulf of Guayaquil under a clear sky that Tankred stepped down to Blake's sultry little cabin and wakened him from a sound sleep. "It's time you were gettin' your clothes on," he announced. "Getting my clothes on?" queried Blake through the darkness. "Yes, you can't tell what we 'll bump into, any time now!"
At the same time Blake heard the scream of a denim-clad figure that suddenly pitched from the landing-ladder into the sea. Then came an answering volley, from somewhere close below Blake. He could not tell whether it was from the boat-flotilla or from the port-holes above it. But he knew that Tankred and his men were returning the gunboat's fire.
"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 ammunition. But I want to get into Guayaquil, and this is the only way I can do it!" For the first time Tankred turned and studied him. "What d' you want to get into Guayaquil for?" he finally demanded.
"You 've a weakness for yellow fever?" inquired the ironic McGlade. "I guess it 'd take more than a few fever germs to throw me off that trail," was the detective's abstracted retort. He was recalling certain things that the russet-faced Pip Tankred had told him.
Then he sauntered out to where the russet-faced stranger stood watching the street crowds. "Pip, what 're you doing down in these parts?" he casually inquired. He had recognized the man as Pip Tankred, with whom he had come in contact five long years before.
Word Of The Day