Raymond S. Spears

“ Apparently, looking intellectual isn’t any help to me!”
With his dark-rimmed spectacles off he wasn’t anywhere near the same looking man. Clumb was thirty yards down the bank by this time, and he glanced back and saw the two sitting numbly in the launch. As he looked, the shanty-boater gave them an eloquent look, a gesture that Columbiana understood but which Caroost, looking at her, did not even see.
A talking-machine on the little red shanty-boat started a brass band record, and the shanty-boater threw armfuls of wood on to the shanty-boat bow. ”

“ And in seven minutes there was nothing in sight to lend possibility to the hope that there would be a break-down. What Chief Clumb remarked to his subordinate with a handful of cigars is utterly unthinkable, unless one has heard a river-town police man swing his tongue on such an occasion.
When the escapers had gone from sight, Clumb turned wrathfully on the shanty-boater. ”

“ CHAPTER V CHIEF CLUMB LOSES HIS PATROL A SOFT-PAW remains just “that soft-paw” or “the soft-paw” until something happens to him to give interest to his name and make somebody of him. James M. Caroost had preserved his nonentity for a thousand miles while he floated down the Mississippi. The Indian youth seeks an opportunity to distinguish himself, become somebody and earn a name. ”

“ As Clumb and his discomfited motor-boat man went aboard the ferry, the shanty-boater returned into his own craft.
“Theh!” he said to his pals. “Old Clumb’s plumb sure Columbiana an’ that feller Caroost done that job. Good thing we towed up with ‘Sour Pop.’ Hit’s jes’ the way he said. I bet we can pull that pearl-buyer tonight. We ain’t never bothered them pearl-buyers none. This here boat ain’t big enough fer any real freight. Hit don’t take much joolry o’ that kind to make a load, though.” ”

“ They stole the Duck and Deer stock——”
“They did! Sho! That lil’ gal an’ that feller—the paper said there was a big safe—them two tote a safe across Mendova mud an’ sand-bar!”
Clumb’s jaw dropped. How had those not overly-strong river man and girl carried a weight like that—carried the tons of merchandise in the short time they had had to work, between the passings of the patrolman on the beat? Clumb saw and was dazed by the point.
“Riveh-pirates could do anything!” Clumb declared angrily. ”

“ A little after dark they put the outboard motor on the skiff and drove up the river to land in Gas House Slough of Mendova and walked up to Tivoli Street, turned south and then turned again toward the river. Two stopped at the first comer, and Tid and Rooter went on down the block to a little block and concrete building with a delivery alley along one side. They entered the building, and ten minutes later the other two strolled down and also entered.
In the back room a man with greatly distended jaws sat firmly bound in a chair. ”

“ We’ll get shut of them pearls and slugs, an’ we’ll have fifteen thou’, all right, and we’ll get some new hats and pants and so on, an’ what we won’t do won’t be do-able. No! Nobody can tell us how to do things! ”

“ We kin git somethin’ so’s when we go drappin’ down, scoutin’ down the bends, we’ll have somethin’ to do. I don’t know nothin’ harder to do ’n jes float down an’ watchin’ the banks. If yo’ got some good liquor along, hit kind of passes the time ”