Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/178

 keep him here. He's fooled and he's mean, and—let it go!"

Sure enough, Urleigh and the man Deha had shot had arrived in the shantyboat town. They drifted past the Mahna shantyboat with the gasolene cruiser occupied by Delia alongside. The diamond specialist gazed at the cruiser steadily and with lowering brows.

"Hello, Mr. Man!" Mrs. Mahna burst out upon him, from the stern of her boat. "You can land up above that yeller boat if you want!"

"Thank you!" Urleigh raised his hat. "I'll try it."

A space above the yellow boat was forty or fifty feet wide, and Urleigh easily landed against the bank, bow on. He ran out the starboard bow and stern lines and made them fast to a snag limb. Then he hauled the port lines taut on stakes which he drove with an ax. Last he drove a stake at the bow, and pushed the gang-plank against it, and, lashing the plank rope to a cleat on the bow, bumped. Thus the boat was held on the bank, but sparred off, too.

"You're getting right handy with the lines," Gost approved. "It's a good part of a man's business to know how to moor a shantyboat down thisaway."

Gost started up the bank, weakly, and Urleigh had to lend him a hand as he climbed the steep dirt bluff. As they emerged upon the level of the bottoms Delia strolled that way, her arms swinging, and her face