Their lunch had been
prepared at the hotel. Frank fed the mules, then handed Nucky his box
lunch and proceeded to open his own.
"Does it make you sore to have me ask you questions?" asked the boy.
"No! I guess it's more natural for a kid than the sulks you've been
keeping up with Seaton."
"I'm not such a kid. I'm going on fifteen and I've earned my own way
since I was twelve. And I earn it with men, too." Nucky jerked his
head belligerently.
Frank ate a hard boiled egg before speaking. Then, with one eyebrow
raised, he grunted, "What'd you work at?"
"Cards and dice!" this very proudly.
"You poor nut!" Frank's voice was a mixture of contempt and
compassion. Nucky immediately turned sulky and the meal was finished
in silence. When the last doughnut had been devoured, Frank stretched
himself in the warm sand left among the rocks by the river at flood.
"Must be eighty degrees down here," he yawned. "We'll rest for a half
hour, then we'll make the night camp. It's after two now and it will
be dark in this narrow rift by four."
Nucky looked about him apprehensively. The Canyon here was little more
than a gorge whose walls rose sheer and menacing toward the narrow
patch of blue sky above.
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