Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/166

 "It'll give me sunthin' to think about 'sides that" he decided.

"That" loomed large in his mind. It meant the means by which he was relieved of hunger and poverty and worry, about where next he would find a place to sleep. His idea of bliss had been escape from the petty subject of pennies and dimes and nickels—two bits wasn't much to him now.

"I'll know how to spend my money," he told himself; "I'll spend it cyarful. I won't take no chances about hit. Mebby I'll buy a little farm som'rs an' settle down. That'd be plumb comfort. Hit'd s'prise some, hearin' José Macrado had bought a farm. No-'count José a planter. Sho! Course, they might think sunthin' if they knowed me'n the Junker's gone off together. They'd sure think sunthin'. Nobody must know I got money—not for a long time. No, suh!"

He spent another terrible night alone in his cabin in a little eddy under the gloom of a wilderness. He had lived up and down the river, night like day to him. Now night was full of horror. He dared not put out his light; he did not know what attack might be made upon him if he let the light burn. He covered the ports, and stuffed the cracks around the door—but he was sure some splinter of a light beam shone through to betray him. He knew it in his heart, just as he