Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/78

 "Well, I don't know who shot him, but the Mahnas and that soft-paw girl, Delia, has got White Collar Dan's boat, and him an old river man! I tell you, shantyboaters is talking now! All but Mrs. Mahna. She ain't saying a word. I stopped in with them one night last week, above Plum Point in the Chute of Canadian Reach Island. Number twenty-six, is it?"

"Twenty-six and twenty-seven," Frest identified the island. "Get to talk to them any?"

"Why—sorta. Delia and the men folks didn't talk none much. Mrs. Mahna talked, course she talked! You know how she is. I'd kinda liked to talk to that gal a bit. She's a looker all right. Mrs. Mahna talked fish, hunt, trap, trippin', and the devil knows what all. Not a word about Delia or that cruiser. Made me kind of mad, and I pulled out. They'll bust up in a row. Then somebody'll get to talk to that girl. She ain't no common soft-paw, you can bet on that!"

Thus there were mysteries and mysteries in this matter of Delia.

"Mostly, girls take a name with a handle to it," Frest mused. "She ain't nothing but Delia!"

"That's one thing makes me think she's no common girl," Macrado suggested. "Take Kid Russel, now, or Eyes Brolah, or Big Sue Cairn, or any of those girls. You know their last names, anyhow—or some