It was hard won enough by the
old man, that money, with twenty years' dodging South American
customs. We'd buried it in the middle of a triangle of three trees. I
remembered how black the sea had been, and rough off shore. I
remembered the black cruiser with its pennon of smoke. The inlet had
been reedy, and the water there quiet, and the soil we dug in punky
and wet.
I sat in the stern of the dingey now and let Monson row, which he
did powerfully. His forearm was like a log of wood, the muscles
coming out of it in knots. I was glad enough there was no danger to
seaward, and wished I could carry Clyde's money away in a check,
instead of the meal bags we had in the dingey.
We rowed along and came to the inlet. There was a lot of marsh grass
and deep-growing reeds, and clear water between that stretched away
inland. It made a straight line between the water reeds leading up to
a triangle of three trees. There was a little white house in the
middle of the triangle, with two lit windows.
I says: "Monson! Somebody's squatted on it!"
"What!" he says.
Somebody was singing in the house. Monson looked around from his
rowing, and found it very funny to his mind, for he laughed with a
roar, and the singing stopped short.
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