Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/129

 the girl and back again to Roy. He had a way of dry-washing the backs of his hands like Uriah Heep.

"Fine. You 'll stay to dinner, now, of course. That's good. That's good. Young folks don't know how it pleasures an old man to meet up with them sometimes." His low voice was as smooth as oil.

Beaudry conceived a horror of the man. The veiled sneer behind the smile on the sapless face, the hooded hawk eyes, the almost servile deference, held a sinister threat that chilled the spine of his guest. The young man thought of him as of a repulsive spider spinning a web of trouble that radiated from this porch all over the Big Creek country.

"Been taking pictures of each other, I reckon. Fine. Fine. Now, I wonder, Miss Beulah, if you'd do an old man a favor. This porch is my home, as you might say, seeing as how I'm sorter held down here. I'd kinder like a picture of it to hang up, providing it ain't asking too much of you."

"Of course not. I 'll take it now," answered the girl.

"That's right good of you. I 'll jest sit here and be talking to Mr. Street, as you might say.