Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/248

 Urleigh and Delia were good friends now. They had set forth to save a man's life, and now that they knew White Collar Dan was dead, they felt a measure of relief—only they hoped that the murder had been done before the diamond specialist found Murdong, of whose fate they could not be certain.

"That poor boy! Never dreaming what he was up against," Delia shook her head.

Thus they swung down the river, scrutinizing the banks and steering to pass near by the trippers who were taking advantage of the fair weather.

"He'd float a day like this," Delia surmised, "but he'll take his time, dropping down, if he really meant to wait for me at Salem or in Spanish Moss Bend."

They made twelve or fifteen miles an hour down stream. Sixty miles below they rounded a sandbar into a long reach, and ahead of them something fretted the glassy surface in midstream. It was miles distant, but they knew it was a shantyboat, for they had passed a dozen that day.

They ran down straight toward it, scrutinizing both shores, and once turning in to look at a craft moored against the west bank. They turned out, and as the boat ahead swung in a swirl, Urleigh remarked:

"That's a white boat. Another one."

"We'll look at it close by," she said. "I'm growing discouraged."