“It is impossible. The men are scattered. We have on hand no more loading for ten days.”
“All right, then to-morrow. To-morrow evening we will be at this dock ready to load. We can load at night.”
To this the Spaniard made no answer. After waiting a respectable time for a reply, Johnny left the office.
As he walked out into the warm tropical sunshine his head was in a whirl. The feeling of dark shadows creeping up from behind him was so strong that he involuntarily turned to look back. There was no one. The dusty street was empty.
“Strange,” he thought, “that he should seem to hate me and want to thwart my plans. He seems to be a friend of Kennedy. He must know I am working only for Kennedy’s good. Why then should he behave as he does?”
He was destined to ask that question many times before he discovered the real answer.
Just then as he thrust his hand deep in his pocket, a habit he had when engrossed in thought, he felt a crumpled bit of paper.
“Pant’s message,” he said to himself as he drew it forth.
“Wonder what it’s all about?” His brow wrinkled in puzzled thought. “Wish I knew. Wish I had the key to it. It might mean a lot. Wish I knew where he is, and what’s happening to him.”
Finding a grassy spot in the shadow of the dock, he sat puzzling over that jumble of figures and signs which he felt sure was meant to convey an important message to him, but which in reality meant nothing to him.