Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/155

 any boat. Make ten mile an hour, an' she was new, last year, but ain't be'n took care of right. Three hundred."

"She! You expect we—we could do hit?"

"Ain' you a man? Ain' I a man?" Macrado demanded. "Cayn't you shoot, an cayn't I shoot? No questions asted on Old Mississip'"

Frest's eyes gleamed with hopeful avarice. This thing that Macrado suggested stirred him to his soul. It reminded him of his own thought that luck breaks right to a man sometimes. Wasn't it likely to break right this time?

"Diamonds is hard to get away with," Macrado admitted, "but we can go around; if White Collar Dan could get to learn, we could. We'll get a little money for the gasolene boat—get our money back, so's we could go East. Maybe the detectives would chase afteh us if they heard we had them. We could just slide around from place to place. Nobody'd know."

"Yassuh, hit's so!" Frest approved. "I could git a httle ready money an' we could keep a goin' circlin' around, kinda livin' nowheres in particular." Macrado looked keenly at the junker, but dropped his eyes. They whispered their scheme over; they would purchase a gasolene boat and go hunting the girl, Delia. Watching White Collar Dan, and taking in any strangers who might appear, and who might