Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/154

 copper this trip, and he had made many profitable trips down the river.

"If a man could make a stake—five-ten thousand, he'd get along!"

"Hit ain' enough," Frest protested, angrily, "hit ain' enough!"

Macrado glanced up quickly, but let his gaze go on past the junker to the blank wall.

"I be'n thinkin' we mout—we mout get to look that gasolene boat over," Macrado suggested, with a cunning leer. "I'd like to git to hit 'fore Dan comes clear down. He had money to carry him around—but I been figuring some, and hit don't look right to me."

"Mrs. Mahna," Frest brought up.

"What's her? What's Mahna an' that boy an' the whole damned bunch of them if theh's a hundred thousand into diamonds theh?" Macrado demanded with sudden vehemence. "I'm desp'rit!"

"So'm I!" mumbled Frest. "Money'd do me as much good as any man."

"I'll sell this yeah shanty; a feller 'lowed he'd give me one hundred and twenty-five for hit, an' get his answer in the mornin'. You could sell your boat to Carl—hit's a big boat"

"Then?"

"I got my eye onto a gasolene half-deck boat up the Slough—all hit needs is paint to make hit good's