Читать книгу Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Arizona; or, Clearing a Rival's Record онлайн

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“Can’t quit. My old man used it, and my grandfather used it. The hankering for the stuff was born in me. What’s bred in the bone, Lenning, is bound to come out in the flesh. No use fighting against the craving. Here, help me to sit up.”

Lenning put his hands under Shoup’s shoulders and lifted him to a sitting posture, twisting him about so he could lean his back against a bowlder. With fingers that trembled from weakness, Shoup pushed up his left sleeve.

The skin of his arm was white as marble, and dotted with little, black, specklike marks. Reaching into an inside pocket of his coat, Shoup drew out a small, worn morocco case.

“Bound to squirt a little more of that poison into your veins, eh?” asked Lenning disgustedly.

As he put the question, he produced a box of cigarettes, lighted one, tossed away the burned match and dropped the box into his pocket. A sneering smile crossed Shoup’s face.

“What’s the difference, Len,” he queried, “whether you inhale the poison or take it my way? It brings us both to the same place, in the end.”