Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/42

28 marred by a certain pertness, a suggestion of sulkiness in the lower lips formed for kisses as it was. It was signed "your loving wife Margaret" in an unformed hand.

Healy had looked at it appraisingly while Stone was going swiftly through a jumble of duplicates of location papers, old stock in forgotten, worthless mines, and a collection of newspaper clippings on every subject, from recipes for making jelly to new methods for treating refractory ores. Lefty was poring over the Bible. He had discovered, seemingly for the first time, the Song of Solomon, and read avidly, his tongue in one cheek, clucking from time to time as a rounded phrase caught his fancy.

"Some po'try, I call that stuff," he said. "Listen to this, will yer?

Stone turned to the Cockney, smiling, marvelling, but sympathetic at the apt expression in the deep-set eyes. A vein of gold in that rock, after all, he thought to himself.

"I knew a Jew girl once," said Lefty, reminiscently. "’Arf Sheeny, 'arf French, she was. That hits 'er orf to a fare-you-well. But they all get fat before they're thirty."

"Here's a pretty girl for you," said Healy, passing