Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/64

 "No—just that he had come visiting and that he knew I wouldn't mind. Then I shot."

"Good! He's learned his lesson if he isn't dead. Gracious."

There was a shock as the other shantyboat bumped into the cruiser and shook all three boats.

Mrs. Mahna went to the stern deck and scolded about the way the two men were roughing around. Then she returned into the cabin again.

"It's calming down awful," she remarked. "This is cyclone weather—warm and no wind and graying up. We'll drop into the eddy down by Point Pleasant, or under the Two State point across from New Madrid. I wouldn't pull out to-night, only you oughtn't to stay in the eddy where you've shot up a man. This is Kentucky—United States marine laws along here—but down there it's Tennessee. It'll help a lot if some fee-hunting sheriff should take a notion to investigate. Nobody said anything about your shooting?"

"I told no one but you."

"And I'll tell no one at all," Mrs. Mahna shook her head. "You see, the best way when you've killed a man is not to say anything if you're away off by your lonesome. Course, if there's witnesses, you kind of want to fix them right off. I ain't even a witness now. You see, I know ladies that's been