Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/113

 Those hoops stretch and hold the canvas up. I cook with those oil stoves. I've a pneumatic mattress—it's very comfortable! Sometimes a pirate tries to steal me, or something like that."

"Tries to steal you!" she interrupted. "You mean that?"

He told her about the river canoeman who cut the skiff loose.

"He thought no one was on board—but I fooled him!" he laughed. "Still, they'll steal almost anything down here, they say. It's a mean old river in some ways. You have to know how to take care of yourself! I took his gun away from him. Have you got one? You can have that"

"I—yes, I have one, thank you. They call guns 'The Law' down here."

"That's good!" he laughed. "The Law! Well, a revolver is the law. You travel down here for days, and hardly see a soul."

"And when you see people, you aren't sure they have souls," she smiled, uncertainly. "Here comes someone."

Mrs. Mahna bounded out of the woods, and her men-folks toiled after her.

"Hue-e!" she called. "We found that old bee tree, sure's your borned, and I bet there's Sho! Got a caller, eh?"