Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/137

 "Sure! That's what's aching me, and I never thought! Not before, I didn't. I tell you when that girl let go at me, so darned handy and already, and me the sure-enough simp, never understanding a little bit, why, she showed herself to me! Look't! There she sat, reading magazines and books on the bow deck. Pretty! Lord! Why, if I hadn't been watching up the river, I'd tumbled then, right away! But I held off. There she was, and there she kept. Course, I didn't drive like hl down the river. I knew better'n that. What I didn't know was that she tripped along, making up what she'd lost, floating nights, down the Ohio, and I tied in nights. There, day after day, just ahead of me, maybe, or just astern. And me worried about up the river."

"You think she baited you on?"

"Ain't I be'n telling you? Then I went aboard, and she smiled. Plumb satisfied she was! She smiled, and let go her little billie doo, and I fall off the deck, and hog-wallow up the sandbar. Ain't she got my gasolene boat then? Sure she has! And she's got it yet, I know that. Believe me, if that girl gets the drop on me again, she's got to spend her time doing something 'sides smile. I ain't never killed no woman, but she's bad, that woman is. Delia, hl! Ain't I the come-on, though? But if I'm a come-on, there'll be a comeback, too! Believe me there will!"