Page:Son of the wind.djvu/275

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE SOD ON THE PANE

an accent on the last word, but he seemed a little taken aback. He made a meditative half-circle in the pine-needles with his heel, then looked up at Carron from under his brows. "I was only going to say, you seem to be wasting a lot of time."

"Yes?" Carron had the gift of not talking. He saw occasion for exercising it now.

"I told you you would," Ferrier volunteered. His adversary merely looked at him, only too ready to let the conversation fall. Ferrier gathered himself together. "I know how you are! You'll never help a fellow an inch with what he's got to say!" He wavered, summoning his last resolution. "The fact is, I've thought over what you said to me the other night about a certain matter and I've decided to accept your proposition."

Carron opened cold wide eyes of astonishment. The past, so little past, flung up to him in this man's voice created in him intense distaste. He had no wish to recall it. He did not want to remember that he had ever made a proposition to Ferrier—and such a proposition! He indulged a vague speculation as to what the man wanted. More money? If so, he was asking for it in a bad way. Carron put his hand meditatively into his pocket. "I don't know what you are talking about," he said.

"You know mighty well," the other man's voice

257