Raymond S. Spears

“ Jerry had capitalized himself at last; he had twenty kegs of cold assets down in Payto Bayou, and he figured that he could afford to work and toil honestly for a while, in order to come clear with what he had. Born an undersized, scrawny, weakling, half-starved baby, and cowed and unloved in an asylum, trained and schooled in further wickedness in a reformatory, he had held to one idea, a stake.
When he made his stake he would reform and turn square, would live on his income! Now he had his stake; he was working and living on his earnings. ”

“ Jerry salvaged a gasolene-launch that a hunting sport sank in Point Pleasant crossing, the motor bringing him three hundred dollars. Jerry toiled on with all his might, so that he wouldn't have to do anything that would bring the authorities down on him. He worked all winter long, up and down the river, and never a question did he ask any man about things that might have happened. A junker minds his own business! He was so afraid of gold that he wouldn't touch a coin of that metal, lest he become a suspect. ”

“ Trust a river rat to adapt himself to a sadden shift of plan. He swung into Payto Bayou, thirty miles above town, and there, at 2 o'clock a.m., he dropped the kegs overboard, one by one, to the hard sand bottom, where they would await his pleasure in ten feet of water at the three-foot stage.
He ripped off the paper on which he had painted the name Tupelo, and he threw mud at the sides of the boat and painted the cabin white again. ”

“ He moved up the river then, leaving Payto Bayou's overarching trees and enjoying the fresh autumn sunshine. "I've made my getaway!" he told himself. "They can't prove a thing against me—if I don't handle no yellow bucks, what have they got on me? Hue-e-e! A million simoleons—I can wait a year, and live soft on what I can make working. Oh, I can work, now!"
He struck a job that afternoon. A drifter wanted a ninety-log raft swung down to Sawmill eddy, and he paid five dollars for the work. ”

“ Men have been landed in Joliet or on the farm just because they happened to have a coin of gold or a sparkler or something like that. Jerry made up his mind that he would give no one a chance to frame anything up on him because of his reputation. ”

“ With his million to fall back upon, with no dread of poverty or pressing want, he turned his mind to the little things of business and work, and he earned something about every day, and averaged a good deal more than his expenses came to. ”

“ She had made him pay a darky a half-dollar which she had promised but forgotten to give for a brass casting.
"I don't want any money that isn't earned right!" she said upon his easy remark that it didn't matter about the four bits. ”

“ I got to hang around, too, till hit'll be too late to see mah frien'. A man cayn't call on a lady afteh 'leven o'clock!"
"He shore cayn't!" Jerry sympathized.
"Ten o'clock!" Jerry breathed as he sauntered away. "They'll shore load off'n the plank stagin' by the float on the mud bar. Lawse! Lawse! That's way up above the levee lights—I cayn't believe hit!"
He raced then to another garage, and bargained for a truck to carry twenty kegs down to the levee and load them on a launch there.
"Send along three men to help load them!" Jerry said, "and get them down at 9.45 o'clock sharp!" ”