Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/214

 "You're holding out on me. Is that the way you treat a pal?"

Delia listened with impassive countenance. Gost shrivelled under the scorn of Urleigh, whose quality he had underestimated. He now tried to bluff through himself.

"Well, if you don't like my company, you can give er take! I'll pay you two hundred for your int'rest in the boat"

"Done!" Urleigh exclaimed.

Gost drew out his billfold and began to count down the bills. Urleigh entered the cabin and packed up his suitcase and returned into the cockpit. He accepted the money with relief. Gost had been an ill-at-ease companion, and leaving him seemed the best luck in many a day.

"Thank you." Urleigh nodded, and as he stepped out of the boat on to the splash-deck of Delia's, she said to him:

"I'll cast off his bow line. Will you throw off the stern one?"

In a moment Gost was adrift, sulking at his wheel. He watched the two as Delia whispered something in Urleigh's ear. Urleigh stared, but she ran over the bow and cast off the line mooring her boat to the bank. Before Urleigh fully realized her purpose she had thrown over the engine and started it. A moment