Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/59

 She frowned at that thought, only to laugh lightly.

"That's what I need," she whispered.

She returned the gems to their hiding place, and cleared away the little confusion that was the result of her luncheon. Her work done, she sat on the stern deck reading some of the newspapers of varying age which she found on the cruiser.

She was reading, unconscious of the flight of time, when a loud hail startled her.

"Hue-e-e!" someone cried, and looking, she saw a shantyboat swinging into her eddy. On the bow, each pulling an oar, were Mrs. Mahna and her son.

"Hello!" she called, smiling. The arrival of people whom she had known awakened something in her heart.

"Looks like you are going into the boat business!" Mrs. Mahna declared with a laugh.

Delia looked at the stern of the cruiser, surprised by the statement. Her possession of that boat might make people think. How could she explain it? She had not thought of that phase of the situation.

"Your friend on board?" Mrs. Mahna asked her as though her curiosity were overcoming her tact.

"My friend on board?" Delia repeated, wonderingly, looking around her in a kind of bewilderment. "I have no friend here."

"Sho!" Mrs. Mahna exclaimed. "You got that