"I'm sure it is!"
"Well, how are you going to run it down? How are you going to get all the facts in the case? Who can you trust to help you in this? Where are you going to get all the money that it will take? Why, Kid, if these conspirators you talk of have anything big up their sleeve, they could buy people right and left to put you off the track and you'd never get anywhere! On your own showing, they've just plumped you down here in Havana, where there's nothing doing."
"They sure have," admitted Stuart ruefully.
"Of course they have. Now, if you had one of the big American newspapers backing you up, one that you could put confidence in, it would be just as if you had the United States back of you, and you'd be part and parcel of that big power which is the trumpet-voice of Democracy from the Atlantic to the Pacific—the Press!"
The boy's eyes began to glisten with eagerness. Every word was striking home.
"But how could I do that?"
"You don't have to. It's already done!"
Stuart stared at his friend, in bewilderment.
"See here," he said, and he threw the cablegram on the table. "That paper is willing to pay any price for a big story, if it can be proved authentic. Proved, mind you, documents and all the rest of it. I cabled them to know if they wanted to see you, and, if they found what you had was the real goods, whether they would stake you. They cabled back, right away, that you were to go up there."
"Up where?"