Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/273

Rh the room, and by their voices, which they made loud and cheerful; and, also, by the fact that they avoided looking at each other. They were striving patently to prove that there was nothing between them; and if Andrew had been on guard, now he became tinglingly so.

They arranged their bunks; Larry la Roche pulled off his boots and put on great, flapping slippers, which he always included in his pack. He took from his vest a pipe with a small bowl and a long stem and sat down cross-legged to smoke. Andrew suggested that Larry produce the contents of his saddlebag and share the spoils of war.

He brought it out willingly enough and spilled it out on the improvised table, a glittering mass of gold trinkets, watches, jewels. He picked out of the mass a chain of diamonds and spread it out on his snaky fingers so that the light could play on it. Andrew knew nothing about gems, but he knew that the chain must be worth a great deal of money.

"This," said Larry, "is my share. You gents can have the rest and split it up."

"A nice set of sparklers," nodded Clune, "but there's plenty left to satisfy me."

"What you think," declared Scottie, "ain't of any importance, Joe. It's what the chief thinks that counts. Is it square, Lanning?"

Andrew flushed at the appeal and the ugly looks which La Roche and Clune cast toward him. He could have stifled Scottie for that appeal, and yet Scottie was smiling in the greatest apparent good nature and belief in their leader. His face was flushed, but his lips were bloodless. Alcohol always affected him in that manner.

"I don't know the value of the stones," said Andrew.

"Don't you?" murmured Scottie. "I forgot. Thought