Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/92



URDONG slept steadily and deeply under his flat arch canvas canopy. He had slept for a long time, he felt, when something awakened him suddenly from his slumbers. His eyes opened as consciousness returned—with his senses appeared a feeling of startled and subdued excitement. Something was different, something was wrong.

For a man of poetic temperament he was a well-found river tripper. His hand crept down his side and seized a pistol butt. There he let it rest, having made certain that nothing had hooked over the receiver and that the muzzle was free. Outside of his skiff he heard a steady if subdued paddling. He knew the sound well, for he had jacked for deer in northern Michigan ponds, for the excitement of violating the game law, as much as anything else. A paddle was cutting the water, and through the skiff were occasional bumps, as craft struck craft—slight shocks, but perfectly apparent to the skiff man, though his pneumatic mattress was a shock absorber.

Soon Murdong divined what had happened. One 86