use talking? We got to fix things right
here and now. It's for you, as it's for me. We've got to play the game
together. There's no other way. Say, I got to make a trip when the ice
breaks. It's a hell of a trip. It's going to hand us one of the things
held out to us." He laughed harshly. "I've got to grab it for both of
us. I need you to stop around while I'm away. You can run this layout
just as you fancy to. It don't matter a curse to me, so you stop
around."

"What's the trip?" There was a sharpness in the girl's question which
had not been in her tone before. "What's the thing held out that's
for--both of us?"

"Money. Big money."

"Big money?"

In a moment the girl's every faculty became alert.

Nicol realized the change. His temper resented it. But his cunning
robbed him of the retort that leapt to his lips. And all the while the
girl's cold, pretty eyes provoked those passions in him which the dead
mother had dreaded. Keeko could have no understanding of the unbridled
licence rampant in his besotted body.

He nodded.

"It's so big I just can't get all it means--yet. You and me--we're going
to be partners in it."

"Partners?"

"Sure."

"What's needed from me?"

Keeko's suspicions were stirring When Nicol talked of "big money" and
snatching that held out to him, it was not easy to believe in the
honesty of it all.

"Just stop around till I get back."

The girl withdrew her gaze and sat with hands spread out to the warmth
of the stove.

"You best tell me," she said quietly but firmly.

She looked for an explosion and she was not disappointed. The hot blood
rushed to the man's bloated cheeks. His eyes lit furiously. He had
looked for prompt acquiescence. It had been his habit to browbeat the
woman who had followed him throughout a long career of crime, and it
drove him half crazy to find opposition in her daughter. There could be
no doubt of Keeko's determination. She was tacitly demanding her place
in the proposed partnership.

"I'm telling nothing--not a darn thing. It's up to me, and no concern of
anyone else. Get that. We're either partners or crosswise. And I guess
it's not healthy getting crosswise with me. You'll share in the result.
Ain't that good enough? All I need from you is to sit around till I get
back."

Keeko choked back the angry retort she longed to hurl at him. Those
nightmare weeks that lay ahead were uppermost in her mind. They must be
bridged at any cost. So she smiled