Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/28

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14
BEACHED KEELS

came in for was to ask if any of you would put me up for the night."

No one volunteered.

"If any one will,"—the boatman's warning about money checked and changed his speech,—"why, it 'll be better than sleeping out these cold nights."

The silence remained discouraging.

"I was told that Mr. Powell might," he persevered. "Can you tell me where he lives?"

The young man in hip-boots broke out angrily.

"Old man Powell!" he sneered, lurching in his seat. "Ho, yes, I guess he will! I see him doin' it! An' I guess"—He spat out obscenity which showed that Powell had a daughter.

"That 'll do for you, Lehane," called a clear voice from the farthest corner, behind the stove. A tall man stepped out from the shadows, and fixed on the young drunkard a pair of stern eyes. Taller than Archer, and very dark, he was lithe as a cat, with a grace that would have been courtly had it