Evening star., 1941-03-02

automatic. He balanced it in his hand. I've
been year in jail, and I've been broke for
nearly three months since | got out. And
there's fifty thousand dollars on one of those
little islands, just rotting away. I'm going to
find it,
But even if you get the money, it's all
marked. Every dollar you spend may lead you
straight back to jail - for something you
never did, a kidnapping -"
What the hell's gone wrong with you?"
T-" She turned away from him. After
awhile she said, Nothing I'll go with him
in the morning"
So next morning she was standing beside
Tom Harris boat when he came, the sun not
yet up and only gray, sourceless light over
the beach and the bay and the sound of guls
passing overhead, crying weirdly. AS he stepped
out of the sea oats onto the beach, he saw her
and stopped. He stood there, his arms loaded
with croker sacks and buckets and dip nets.
Il thought -" he said hoarsely.
OHE tried to make her voice gay You
should know better than to refuse woman
as you did me last night. 1t only makes her
more determined to have her way. See, I've
even brought lunch"
He went past her and loaded his things in
the rowboat She stood close beside him, Civ
ing him no chance to get away without her.
Now he Strengthened standing there in the
sand looking straight into her eyes. Il don't
think you ought to 60
''Of course I'm going"
He turned away and showed the boat out
into the water and held to it. Get in" When
ol.o 4 1 A.
knee deep before he stepped in. He did not
speak to her again. He slipped the oars into
the oarlocks and began to row.
Overhead the gray mist withdrew into the
bowl of blue sky. The bay was CLASSY, family
f1ecked with colors which changed slowly into
one green-blue expanse on which the sunlight
glinted. Long lines of pelicans passed, their
wings beating in unison.
Tom Harris continued to row steadily. She
could see the easy play of the muscles in his
arms; the oars dipped without splashing, moved
back and lifted cleanly, and the boat slid stead
lily over the smooth water. A porpose rolled
close to the boat, dark and oily looking, with
its dorsa fin broken to blunt line.
That's old Humpback," Tom said. 1--WE
seen him around here ever since first started
going over to the flats
You like this country"
Yes. like it very much | was born here.
| wouldn't want to live anywhere else. But |
want to see the rest of the world too want to
to feel like something happened to me" His
eyes were not on her but on the empty space
beyond her. Il -" He stopped abruptly and
a slow blush covered his throat and cheeks.
81 been reading too many Stories" he said
awkwardly.
mo. I'm interested You've never been
away from here?'
"A little. To Miami To Jacksonville once.
To Tampa every week with my stone crabs.
But Annie, that's my sister, is only fifteen.
She was just ten when Dad died. So | have to
keep working"
She didn't know what to say. She was think
ing of herself only two years before, waiting
on tables in a roadhouse in the midwest. She
had been the prettiest girl in the county Peo-
pie had said she was pretty enough for Holly
wood and she had dreamed of herself as a
movie star, dreamed of mink coats and dia-
mond rings, of persons in big cities whispering,
Look! There goes Edith Macy" But she had
no money, not even training as a singer or
dancer. She was the prettiest girl in the county
and she waited on tables from day to day and