Gregory nodded. "That's what I was figuring on," he said. "I'm going to send a radio to all my boats within a thirty-mile radius of the island to reinforce the fleet and mix it with Mascola off the Hell-Hole Isthmus on the north side. While they're busy on that side, it will leave us a clear field on the other."
Dickie's eyes opened wide at his words. As they moved away together in the direction of the cannery, she cried: "I don't understand at all. Aren't you going to help the boys out?"
Gregory shook his head and the grim lines tightened about his mouth.
"No," he answered. "Not this time. That is what Rock, Bandrist and Mascola think I am going to do. But I'm going to fool them. There's something back of all this that we can only guess at now. Diablo has a secret our fathers died to learn. I'm sure of it now. To-night I'm going to find out what it is."
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ISLAND'S PRISONER
Diablo was steeped in moonlight. For miles about the sea gleamed like a mirror. The grim mountains which guarded the shore were robed in saffron and checkered with black by the dark shadows of the towering peaks as they fell athwart the hillsides and mingled with the darkness which hugged the canyons.