Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/114

 "Yes. Mr. Murdong," the young woman answered. "He stopped at the Haney boat in Putney Bend the other night. They were talking about you, and he dropped in to say 'Howdy'."

"You're welcome," Mrs. Mahna declared after she had scrutinized her visitor. "Out the Ohio?"

"No—upper Mississippi. I'm from Chicago. Probably I'll go clear down to New Orleans."

"In that skift? Why don't you get a shantyboat?"

"I had thought of it," he admitted. "In bad weather I'm cramped under that canvas."

"Why don't you sell him yours, Delia?" Mrs. Mahna turned to the girl. "You got the gasolene—that'd do well for you. Better'n a shantyboat, because you can run or anchor or go anywheres."

"I hadn't thought" she turned questioningly to Murdong.

"It's that other boat," Mrs. Mahna declared. "Come on over and look at it! Won't do no hurt to look, for lookin' is cheap down here, long looks an' short looks all the same."

She sprang as agile as a goat aboard the gasolene, and Murdong and Delia followed, the girl accepting his hand to get across.

"Course she'll want some of the things," Mrs. Mahna declared. "But not the bed, or furniture,