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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/28848-8.txt b/28848-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..694a91c --- /dev/null +++ b/28848-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8575 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The River Prophet, by Raymond S. Spears + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The River Prophet + +Author: Raymond S. Spears + +Illustrator: Ralph Pallen Coleman + +Release Date: May 16, 2009 [EBook #28848] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVER PROPHET *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "_She snatched the automatic pistol from her bosom +and ... fired. The man stumbled back with a cry._"] + + + + +THE RIVER PROPHET + +By + +Raymond S. Spears + +Frontispiece by + +Ralph Pallen Coleman + +Garden City New York + +Doubleday, Page & Company + +1920 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1918, 1920, BY +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF +TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, +INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + + + + +THE RIVER PROPHET + + + + +THE RIVER PROPHET + +CHAPTER I + + +Elijah Rasba lived alone in a log cabin on Temple Run. He was a long, +lank, blue-eyed young man, with curly brown hair and a pale, almost +livid complexion. His eye-brows were heavy and dark brown, and the blue +steel of his gaze was fixed unwaveringly upon any object that it +distinguished. + +Two generations before, Old Abe Rasba had built a church on a little +brook, a tributary of Jackson River, away up in the mountains. The +church was laid up of flat stones, gathered in fields, from ledges of +rock and up the wooded mountain side. It was large enough to hold all +the people for miles around, and the roof was supported by massive hewn +timbers, and some few attempts had been made to decorate the structure. + +Old Abe had called his church "The Temple," had preached from a big +hollow oak stump, and laid down the Law of the Bible, which he had +memorized by heart, and expounded from experience. Elijah Rasba, +grandson of Old Abe, thus came honestly by reverence and religion, but +the strange glory which had surrounded the old Temple had departed from +the ruin, and of all the congregation, only Elijah remained. + +Land-slips had ruined a score of farms cleared on too-steep hills; +lightning had destroyed the overshot grist mill, and the two big stones +had been cracked in the hot flames; a feud had opened graves before the +allotted time of the victims. It seemed to Elijah, sitting there in his +cabin, as though damnation had visited the faithful, and that death was +the reward of belief. + +The ruins of the old Temple stood melancholy where the heavy stone wall, +built by a man who believed in broad, firm foundations, had split an +avalanche, but without avail, for the walls had given way and let the +roof beams drop in. No less certain had been the fate of the +congregation; they, too, were scattered or dead. There remained but one +dwelling in the little valley, with a lone occupant, who was wrestling +with his soul, trying to understand, for he knew in his heart that he +must read the truth and discover the meaning of all this trouble, +privation, disaster, and death. + +He was quite practical about it. He had a field of corn, and a little +garden full of truck; over his fireplace hung a 32-20 repeating rifle, +and in one corner were a number of steel traps, copper and brass wire +for snares, and a home-made mattock with which a rabbit could be +extricated from a burrow, or a skunk-skin from its den. + +An Almanac, a Bible, and a "Resources of Tennessee" comprised the +library on the shelf. The Almanac had come by mail from away off yonder, +about a hundred miles, perhaps--anyhow, from New York. The "Resources of +Tennessee" had come down with a spring freshet in Jackson River, and was +rather stained with mountain clays. The Bible was, of course, an +inheritance. + +It was a very small article, apparently, to create all the disturbances +that seemed to have followed its interpretations there on Temple Run. +Elijah would hold it out at arms length and stare at it with those sharp +eyes of his, wondering in his soul how it could be that the fate of +nations, the future of humanity, the very salvation of every soul rested +within the compass of that leather-covered, gilt-edged parcel of thin +paper which weighed rather less than half as much as a box of +cartridges. + +Elijah did not spare himself in the least. He toiled at whatever task +appeared for him to do. As he required for his own wants fifty bushels +of corn for a year, he planted enough to shuck a hundred bushels. Once, +in the fervour of the hope that he was called upon to raise corn for +humanity, he raised five hundred bushels, only to give it all away to +poor white trash who had not raised enough for themselves. + +Again he felt the call to preach, and he went forth with all the +eagerness of a man who had at last discovered his life's calling. He +went on foot, through storms, over mountains, and into a hundred +schoolhouses and churches, showing his little leather-skinned Bible and +warning sinners to repent, Christians to keep faith, and Baal to lower +his loathly head. + +He had returned from his five months' pilgrimage with the feeling that +his utmost efforts had been futile, and that for all his good will, it +had not been vouchsafed him to leave behind one thought in fertile soil. +The matter had been brought home to him by an incident of the last +meeting he had addressed, over on Clinch. + +In the Painted Church he had volunteered a sermon, and no sermons had +been preached there in years. Feuds, inextricably tangled, had involved +five different families, and members of all those families were in the +church, answering to his challenge. + +They sat there with rifles or shotguns between their knees, with their +pistols on their hips, and eternal vigilance in their eyes. While +listening to his sermon they kept their gaze fastened upon one another, +lest an unwary moment bring upon them the alert shot of an enemy. + +As he had stood there, gaunt in frame, famished of soul, driven by the +torments of an ambition to see the right, to do it, it seemed to him as +though the final burden had been heaped upon him, and that he must +break under the weight on his mind. + +"What can I say to you all?" he burst out with sudden passion. "Theh yo' +set with guns in yo' hands an' murder in yo' souls--to listen to the +word of God! How do yo' expect the Prince of Peace to come to yo' if yo' +set there thataway?" + +His indignation rose as he saw them, and his scorn unbridled his tongue, +so that in a few minutes the congregation watched one another less, the +preacher more, and all settled back, to listen and blink under his +accusations and his declarations. It really seemed, for the time, as +though he had caught and engaged their attention. But when the sermon +ended and he had taken his departure, before he was a hundred yards down +the road he heard loud words, angry shouts, and then the scream of a +woman. + +The next instant there came a salvo of gun and pistol shots and in all +directions up and down the cross-roads people fled on horseback. Three +men had been killed, five wounded and a dozen become fugitives from +justice at the end of the church service. + +Elijah Rasba fled homeward, his will and hopes broken, and sank +dejectedly into a slough of despondency. All his good intentions, all +the inspiration of his endeavour, his very spiritual exaltation had +terminated in a tragedy, as inexplicable as it was depressing. + +His conscience would neither let him rest nor work. He looked at his +Bible, inside and out, the very fibres of his brain struggling by +reason, by effort, by main strength, to discover what his duty was. No +answer soothed his waking hours or gave him rest from his dreams. On him +rested a kind of superstitious scorn and fear, and he began to believe +the whisperings of his neighbours which reached his ears. They said: + +"He's possessed!" + +To his own freighted mind the statement seemed to be true. He did not +know what new sin he had committed, nor could he look back on long years +of his youth and young manhood and discover any sin which he had not +already expiated, over and over again. He had obeyed the scriptural +injunctions to the best of his knowledge, and the reward was this daily +and nightly torment, the scorn of his fellows, and the questioning of +his own soul. + +Worst of all, constructively, he had given feud fighters the chance to +do murder upon one another. Under the guise of preaching for them for +the good of their souls, he had enabled them to meet in antagonism, +watch in wrath, and kill without mercy. Too late he realized that he +should have foreseen the tragedy, and that he should have provided +against it by going first to each faction, preaching to each family, and +then, when he had brought them to their knees, united them in the common +cause of religion. + +"On me is Thy wrath!" he cried out in the anguish of his soul. "Give thy +tortured slave something good to do, ere I go down!" + +There was no reply, immediate or audible; he was near the limits of his +endurance; he drew his arm back to throw the Bible into the flames of +his fireplace, but that he could not do. He tossed it upon the shelf, +drew his hat down upon his ears and at the approach of night started +over the ridges to the Kalbean stillhouse. + +He stalked down a ridge into that split-board shack of infamy. He found +five or six men in the hot, sour-smelling place. They started to their +feet when they saw the mountain preacher among them. + +"Gimme some!" he told Old Kalbean. "I'm a fool! I'm damned. I'll go with +the rest of ye to Hell! Gimme some!" + +"Wha--What?" Old Kalbean choked with horror. "Yo' gwine to drink, +Parson?" + +"Suttinly!" Rasba cried. "Hit ain' no ust for me to preach! I preach, +an' the congregation murders one anotheh! Ef I don't preach, I cayn't +live peaceable! They say hit makes a man happy--I ain' be'n happy, not +in ten, not in twenty yeahs!" + +He caught up the jug that rested on the floor, threw the tin cup to one +side, up-ended the receptacle, and the moonshiner and his customers +stared. + +"Theh!" Rasba grunted, when he had to take the jug down for breath. He +reached into his pocket, drew out a silver dollar, and handed it to the +amazed mountain man. + +"Theh!" he repeated, defiantly. "I've shore gone to Hell, now, an' I +don't give a damn, nuther. S'long, boys! D'rectly, yo'l heah me jes' a +whoopin', yas suh! Jes' a whoopin'!" + +He left them abruptly and he went up into the darkness of the laurels. +They heard him crashing away into the night. When he was gone the men +looked at one another: + +"Yo' 'low he'll bring the revenuers?" one asked, nervously. + +"Bring nothin'!" another grinned. "No man eveh lived could drink fifteen +big gulps, like he done, an' git furder'n a stuck hog, no, suh!" + +They listened for the promised whoops; they strained their ears for the +cries of jubilation; but none came. + +"Co'rse," the stiller explained, as though an explanation were needed, +"Parson Rasba ain' used to hit; he could carry more, an' hit'll take him +longer to get lit up. But, law me, when hit begins to act! That's three +yeah old, boys, mild, but no mewl yo' eveh saw has the kick that's got, +apple an' berry cider, stilled down from the ferment!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Virtue had not been rewarded. This much was clear and plain to the +consciousness of Nelia Carline. Looking at herself in the glass +disclosed no special reason why she should be unhappy and suffering. She +was a pretty girl; everybody said that, and envy said she was too +pretty. It seemed that poor folks had no right to be good-looking, +anyhow. + +If poor folks weren't good-looking, then wealthy young men, with nothing +better to do, wouldn't go around looking among poor folks for pretty +girls. Augustus Carline had, apparently, done that. Carline had a +fortune that had been increased during three generations, and now he +didn't have to work. That was bad in Gage, Illinois. It had never done +any one any good, that kind of living. One of the fruits of the matter +was when Nelia Crele's pretty face attracted his attention. She lived in +a shack up the Bottoms near St. Genevieve, and he tried to flirt with +her, but she wouldn't flirt. + +In some surprise, startled by his rebuff, he withdrew from the scene +with a memory that would not forget. The scene was a wheat field near +the Turkey bayou, where he was hunting wild ducks with a shotgun. She +had been gathering forty pounds of hickory nuts to eke out a meagre food +supply. + +Poor she might be; ill clad was her strong young figure; her face showed +the strain of years of effort; her eyes had the fire of experience in +suffering; and she stood, a supple girl of heightened beauty while the +hunter, sure of his welcome, walked up to her, and, as both her hands +held the awkward bushel basket, ventured to tickle her under the chin. + +She dropped the basket and before it reached the ground she caught the +rash youth broad-handed from cheek to back of the ear, and he stumbled +over a pile of wheat sheaves and fell headlong. As he had dropped his +shotgun, she picked it up and with her thumb on the safety, her finger +on the trigger, and her left hand on the breech, showed him how a $125 +shotgun looks in the hands of one who could and would use it on any +further provocation. + +He took his departure, and she carried the gun and hickory nuts home +with her. Thus began the inauspicious acquaintance of Nelia Crele and +Augustus Carline. The shotgun was very useful to the young woman. She +killed gray and fox squirrels, wild turkeys, geese and ducks, several +saleable fur-bearers, and other game in her neighbourhood. She told no +one how she obtained the weapon, merely saying she had found it; and +Augustus Carline did not pass any remarks on the subject. + +By and by, however, when the tang of the slap and the passion of the +moment had left him, he knew that he had been foolish and cowardly. He +had some good parts, and he was sorry that he had been precipitate in +his attentions. After that encounter, he found the girls he met at +dances lacked a certain appearance, a kindling of the eye, a complexion, +and, a figure. + +He ventured again into the river bottoms across from St. Genevieve and +fortune favoured him while tricking her. He apologized and gave his +name. + +Nelia was poor, abjectly poor. Her father was no 'count, and her mother +was abject in suffering. One brother had gone West, a whisky criminal; a +sister had gone wrong, with the inheritance of moral obliquity. Nelia +had, somehow, become possessed with a hate and horror of wrong. She had +pictured to herself a home, happiness, and a life of plenty, but she +held herself at the highest price a woman demands. + +That price Augustus Carline was only too willing to pay. He had found a +girl of high spirits, of great good looks, of a most amusing quickness +of wit and vigour of mentality. He married her, to the scandal of +everybody, and carried her from her poverty to the fine old French-days +mansion in Gage. + +There he installed her with everything he thought she needed, +and--pursued his usual futile life. Too late she learned that he was +weak, insignificant, and, like her own father, no 'count. Augustus +Carline was a brute, a creature of appetites and desires, who by no +chance rose to the heights of his wife's mental demands. + +Nelia Carline regarded the tragedy of her life with impatience. She +studied the looking glass to see wherein she had failed to measure up to +her duty; she ransacked her mind, and compared it with all the women she +met by virtue of her place as Gus Carline's wife. Those women had not +proved to be what she had expected grand dames of society to be. + +"I want to talk learning," she told herself, "and they talk hairpins and +dirty dishes and Bill-don't-behave!" + +Now one of those women, a kind of a grass widow, Mrs. Plosell, had +attracted Gus Carline, and when he came home from her house, he was +always drunk. When Nelia remonstrated, he was ugly. He had thrown her +down and gone back to the grass widow's the night before. Nelia +considered that grim fact, and, having made up her mind, acted. + +In her years of poverty she had learned many things, and now she put +into service certain practical ideas. She had certain rights, under the +law, since she had taken the name of Augustus Carline. There were, too, +moral rights, and she preferred to exercise her moral rights. + +Part of the Carline fortune was in unregistered stocks and bonds, and +when Gus Carline returned from the widow's one day he found that Nelia +was in great good humour, more attractive than he had ever known her, +and so very pleasant during the two days of his headache that he was +willing to do anything she asked. + +She asked him to have a good time with her, and put down on the table +before him a filled punch bowl and two glasses. He had never known the +refinements of intoxicating liquors. Now he found them in his own home, +and for a while forgot all else. + +He sang, danced, laughed and, in due course, signed a number of papers, +receipts, bills and checks to settle up some accounts. These were sort +of hit-or-miss, between-the-acts affairs, to which he paid little +attention. + +To Nelia, however, they represented a rite as valid as any solemn court +procedure could be, for to her river-trained instinct there was no moral +question as to the justice of her claim upon a part of Carline's +fortune. Her later experience, her reading, had taught her that society +and the law also held with the principle, if not the manner of her +primitive method, for obtaining her rights to separate support. + +When Carline awakened, Nelia was gone. Nelia had departed that morning, +one of the servants said. The girl did not know where she had gone. She +had taken a box of books, two trunks, two suitcases and was dressed up, +departing in the automobile, which she drove herself. + +He had a feeling of alarm, which he banished as unworthy. Finally toward +night he went down to the post office where he found several letters. +One seared his consciousness; + + Gus: + + Don't bother to look for me. I'm gone, and I'm going to stay gone. + You have shown yourself to be a mere soak, a creature of appetite + and vice, and with no redeeming mental traits whatever. I hate you, + and worse yet, I despise you. Get a divorce get another woman--the + widow is about your calibre. But, I give you fair warning, leave me + alone. I'm sick of men. + + Nelia. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Elijah Rasba stalked homeward from the still in the dark, grimly and +expectantly erect. Now he was going to have that period of happiness +which he knew was the chief reason for people drinking moonshine +whiskey. He looked forward to the sensation of exuberant joy very much +as a man would look forward to five hours of happiness, to be followed +by hanging by the neck, till dead. + +The stars were shining, and the over-ridge trail which he followed was +familiar enough under his feet, once he had struck into it from the +immediate vicinity of the lawbreakers. He saw the bare-limbed oak trees +against the sky, and he heard rabbits and other night runners scurrying +away in the dead leaves. The stars fluttering in the sky were stern eyes +whose gaze he avoided with determined wickedness and unrepentance. + +Arriving at his own cabin, he stirred up the big pine-root log, and drew +his most comfortable rocking chair up before the leaping flames. He sat +there, and waited for the happiness of mind which was the characteristic +of his idea of intoxication. + +He waited for it, all ready to welcome it. If it had come into his +cabin, all dressed up like some image of temptation or allurement, he +would not have been in the least surprised. He rather expected a real +and tangible manifestation, a vision of delight, clothed in some fair +figure. He sat there, rigidly, watching for the least symptom of unholy +pleasure. He had no clock by which to tell the time, and his watch was +thoroughly unreliable. + +Again and again he poked up the fire. He was surprised, at last, to +hear a far-away gobble, the welcome of a wild turkey for the first false +dawn. By and by he became conscious of the light which was crowding the +fire flare into a subordinate place. + +Day had arrived, and as yet, the delight which everybody said was in +moonshine whiskey had failed to touch him. However, he knew that he was +not properly in a receptive mood for happiness. His soul was still +stubborn against the allurements of sin. He stirred from his chair, +fried a rabbit in a pan, and baked a batch of hot-bread in a dutch oven, +brewing strong coffee and bringing out the jug of sorghum molasses. + +He ate breakfast. He was conscious of a certain rigidity of action, a +certain precision of motion, ascribing them to the stern determination +which he had that when he should at last discover the whiskey-happiness +in his soul, he would let go with a whoop. + +"Some hit makes happy, and some hit makes fightin' mad!" Rasba suddenly +thought, with much concern, "S'posen hit'd make me fightin' mad?" + +A fluttering trepidation clutched his heart. The bells ringing in his +ears fairly clanged the alarm. He hadn't looked for anything else but +joy from being drunk, and now suppose he should be stricken with a mad +desire to fight--to kill someone! + +No deadlier fear ever clutched a man's heart than the one that seized +Elijah Rasba. Suppose that when the deferred hilarity arrived, he was +made fighting drunk instead of joyous? The thought seized his soul and +he looked about himself wondering how he could chain his hands and save +his soul from murder, violence, fighting, and similar crimes! No +feasible way appeared to his frightened mind. + +He dropped on his knees and began to pray for happiness, instead of for +violence, when the drink that he had had should seize him in its +embrace. He prayed with a voice that roared like thunder and which made +the charcoal fall from the log in the fireplace, and which alarmed the +jays and inquisitive mockingbirds about the little clearing. + +He prayed while his voice grew huskier and huskier, and his head bowed +lower and lower as he wrestled with this peril which he had not +foreseen. All he asked was that when the moonshine began to operate, it +make him laugh instead of mad, but terrible doubts smote him. A glance +at his rifle on the wall made him fairly grovel on the floor, and he +knew that in his hands the andirons, the axe, the very hot-bread rolling +pin would be deadly weapons. + +He hoped that he would not be able to shoot straight, but this hope was +instantly blasted, for a flock of wild turkeys came down into the +cornfield about ninety yards from his cabin, and although he seldom shot +anything in his own clearing, he now tried a shot at the turkey gobbler +and shot it dead where it strutted. If he should be stricken with anger +instead of with joy, no worse man could possibly live! There was no +telling what he would do if the liquor would work "wrong" on him. He +could kill men at two hundred yards! + +He determined that he would see no human beings that day. Few people +ever visited him in his cabin, but he took no chances. He crept up the +mountain and skulking through the woods found an immense patch of +laurels. He crawled into it, and sat down there for hours and hours, so +that no one should have an opportunity to speak to him and stir the +latent devil of violence. + +He returned to his cabin long after dark, and raking some hot coals out +of the ashes, whittled splinters and started a blaze. He was assailed +by hunger, and he baked corn pones and dry-salted pork, then added a +great flapjack of delicious sage sausage to the meal. He brought out +cans of fruit, whose juice assuaged his increasing thirst. Having eaten +heartily he resumed his vigil before the fireplace, and then he noticed +that some one had tied something on the stock of his rifle. + +It was a letter which a passer-by had brought up from the Ford Post +Office, and when he opened it and looked at the writing, remorse +assailed him: + + Dear Parsun: + + Ever senct you preched here I ben sufrin count of my boy JocK. You + know Him for he set right thar, frade of no man, not the Tobblys, + nor the Crents. When tha drawed DOWN to shoot, he stud right thar an + shot back shoot fer shoot, an now he has goned awa down the Rivehs + an I am worited abot his soul because he is a gud boy an neveh was + no whars in all his borned days an an i hear now he is gettin bad + down thataway on Misipy riveh where thas all Bad Peple an i wisht + yud prey fer him so's he wont get bad. Mrs. drones panted church on + Clinch. + +Rasba read the letter for the words at first. Then he went back after +the meaning, and the meaning struck him like a blow in the heart. + +"Me pray fo' any man again," he gasped. "Lawse! Lawse!" + +He didn't feel fit to pray for himself, let alone for any other sinner, +but there came to his memory a picture of Mrs. Drones, a motherly little +woman who had taken him home to a dinner at which seven kinds of +preserved fruit were on the table, and where the family laughed around +the fireplace--only to see Jock a fugitive the next night, and the +terrors of a feud war upon them. + +"And Jock's getting bad down the Mississippi River!" Rasba repeated to +himself, striving to grapple with that fact. He could not think clearly +or coherently. The widow's voice, however, was as clearly speaking in +his thoughts as though she stood there, instead of merely having written +to him. He took to walking up and down the floor, back and forth, on one +plank. + +He had forgotten that there was such a thing for humans as sleep. The +incongruity of his having been wide awake for two days and two nights +did not occur to him till suddenly his eyes turned to the bed in the +corner of the room and its purpose was recalled to his mind. He blinked +at it. His eyes opened with difficulty. He threw chunks on the fire and +went toward the bed, but as he stood by it the world grew black before +his eyes and clutching about him, he sank to the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Nelia Carline would not return to that miserable little river-bottom +cabin where she had grown up in unhappy privation. She had other plans. +She drove the little automobile down to Chester, put it in the Star +Garage, then walked to the river bank and gave the eddy a critical +inspection. + +For years she had lived between the floods of the river and the poverty +of the uplands. Her life had often crossed that of river people, and +although she had never been on the river, she had frequently gone +visiting shanty-boaters who had landed in for a night or a week at the +bank opposite her own shack home. She knew river men, and she had no +illusions about river women. Best of all now, in her great emergency, +she knew shanty-boats, and as she gazed at the eddy and saw the fleet of +houseboats there her heart leaped exultantly. + +No less than a score of boats were landed along the eddy bank, and +instantly her eyes fell upon first one and then another that would serve +her purpose. She walked down to the uppermost of the boats, and hailed +from the bank: + +"U-whoo!" + +A lank, stoop-shouldered woman emerged from the craft and fixed the +well-favoured young woman with keen, bright eyes. + +"You-all know if there's a shanty-boat here for sale--cheap?" Nelia +asked, without eagerness. + +The woman looked at the bank, reflectively. + +"I expect," she admitted at last. "This un yaint, but theh's two spo'ts +down b'low, that's quittin' the riveh, that blue boat theh, but theh's +spo'ts." + +"I 'lowed they mout be," Nelia dropped into her childhood vernacular as +she looked down the bank, "Likely yo' mout he'p me bargain, er +somebody?" + +"I 'low I could!" the river woman replied. "Me an' my ole man he'ped a +feller up to St. Louis, awhile back, who was green on the river, but he +let us kind of p'int out what he'd need fo' a skift trip down this away. +Real friendly feller, kind of city-like, an' sort of out'n the country, +too. 'Lowed he was a writin' feller, fer magazines an' books an' +histries an' them kind of things. Lawsy! He could ask questions, four +hundred kinds of questions, an' writin' hit all down into a writin' +machine onto paper. We shore told him a heap an' a passel, an' he writes +mornin' an' nights. Lots of curius fellers on Ole Mississip'. We'll sort +of look aroun'. Co'se, yo' got a man to go 'long?" + +"No." + +"Wha-a-t! Yo' ain' goin' to trip down alone?" + +"I might's well." + +"But, goodness, gracious sake, you're pretty, pretty as a picture! I +'lowed yo' had a man scoutin' aroun'. Why somethin' mout happen to a +lady, if she didn't have a man or know how to take cyar of herse'f." + +Nelia shrugged her shoulders. Mrs. Tons, the river woman, gazed for a +minute at the pretty, partly averted face. It was almost desperate, +quite reckless, and by the expression, the river woman understood. She +thought in silence, for a minute, and then looked down the eddy at a +boat some distance away. + +"Theh's a boat. Like the looks of it?" + +"It's a fine boat, I 'low," Nelia said. "Fresh painted." + +"Hit's new," the woman said. + +"Is it for sale?" + +"We'll jes walk down thataway," the river woman suggested. "Two ladies +is mostly safe down thisaway." + +"My name's Nelia Crele. We used to live up by Gage, on the Bottoms----" + +"Sho! Co'se I know Ole Jim Crele, an' his woman. My name's Mrs. Tons. We +stopped in thah 'bout six weeks ago. I hearn say yo'd--yo'd married +right well!" + +"Umph!" Nelia shrugged her shoulders, "Liquor spoils many a home!" + +"Yo' maw said he was a drinkin' man, an' I said to myse'f, from my own +'sperience.... Yo' set inside yeah, Nelia. I'll go down theh an' talk +myse'f. We come near buyin' that bo't yistehd'y. Leave hit to me!" + +Nelia sat down in the shanty-boat, and waited. She had not long to wait. +A tall, rather burly man returned with the woman, who introduced the +two; + +"Mis' Crele, this is Frank Commer. His bo't's fo' sale, an' he'll take +$75 cash, for everything, ropes, anchor, stoves, a brass bedstead, an' +everything and I said hit's reasonable. Hit's a pine boat, built last +fall, and the hull's sound, with oak framing. Co'se, hit's small, 22 +foot long an' 7 foot wide, but hit's cheap." + +"I'll take it, then," Nelia nodded. + +"You can come look it over," the man declared. "Tight hull and tight +roof. We built it ourselves. But we're sick of the river, and we'll sell +cheap, right here." + +The three went down to the boat, and Nelia handed him seventy-five +dollars in bills. He and his partner, who came down from the town a few +minutes later, packed up their personal property in two trunks. They +left the dishes and other outfit, including several blankets. + +The four talked as the two packed up. One of them suddenly looked +sharply at Nelia: + +"You dropping down alone?" + +She hesitated, and then laughed: + +"Yes." + +"It's none of my business," the man said, doubtfully, "but it's a mean +old river, some ways. A lady alone might get into trouble. River +pirates, you know." + +It was a challenge. He was a clear-eyed, honest man, hardly twenty-five +years of age, and not an evil type at all. What he had to suggest he did +boldly, sure of his right at such a time, under such circumstances, to +do. He was entirely likeable. In spite of herself, Nelia wavered for a +moment. She knew river people; the woman by her side would have said she +would be safer with him than without his protection. There was only one +reason why Nelia could not accept that protection. + +"I'll have to take care of myself," she shook her head, without rebuke +to the youth. "You see, I'm running away from a mean scoundrel." + +"Hit's so," the river woman approved, and the men took their departure +without further comment. + +The two women, disapproving the men's housekeeping, scrubbed the boat +and washed all the bedding. Nelia brought down her automobile and the +two carried her own outfit on board. Then Nelia took the car back to the +garage, and said that she would call for it in the morning. + +"All right, Mrs. Carline," the garage man replied, without suspicion. + +Back at the landing, Nelia bade the river woman good-bye. + +"I got to be going," she said, "likely there'll be a whole pack after me +directly----" + +"Got a gun?" the woman asked. + +"Two," Nelia smiled. "Bill gave me a goose rifle and Frank let me have +this--he said it's the Law down Old Mississip'!" + +"The Law" was a 32-calibre automatic pistol in perfect condition. + +"Them boys thought a heap of yo', gal!" The river woman shook her head. +"Frank'd sure made you a good man!" + +"Oh, I know it," replied Nelia, "but I'm sick of men--I hate men! I'm +going to go droppin' along, same's the rest." + +"Don't let go of that pistol. Theh's mean, bad men down thisaway, +Nelia!" + +Nelia laughed, but harshly. "I don't give a damn for anything now; I +tell you that!" + +"Don't forget it. Shoot any man that comes." + +Nelia, who could row a skiff with any one, set her shanty-boat sweeps on +their pins, coiled up the two bow lines by which the boat was moored to +the bank, and which the river woman untied, then rowed out of the eddy +and into the main current. + +"It's good floating right down," Mrs. Tons called after her, "till yo' +git to Grand Tower Rock--thirty mile!" + +The river rapidly widened below Chester, and the little houseboat swung +out into mid-stream. Nelia knew the river a little from having been down +on a steamer, and the misery she left behind was in contrast to the +sense of freedom and independence which she now had. + +Stillness, peace, the sense of vast motion in the river torrent +comforted her. The moment of embarking alone on the river had been full +of nervous tenseness and anxiety, but now those feelings were left +behind and she could breathe deeply and confront the future with a calm +spirit. The veil that the blue mist of distance left behind her was +penetrable by memory, but the future was hidden from her gaze, as it was +hidden from her imagination. + +The determination to dwell in the immediate present caught up her soul +with its grim, cold bonds, and as the sun was setting against the sky +beyond the long, sky-line of limestone ledges, she entered the cabin, +and looked about her with a feeling of home such as she had never had +before. + +"I'll stand at the breech of my rifle, to defend it," she whispered to +herself. "Men are mean! I hate men!" + +She found a flat book on a shelf which held a half hundred magazines. +The book was bound in blue boards, and backed with yellow leather. When +she opened it, out of curiosity, she discovered that it was full of +maps. + +"Those dear boys!" she whispered, almost regretfully. "They left this +map book for me, because they knew I'd need it; knew everybody down +thisaway needs a map!" + +They had done more than that; they had left the equally indispensable +"List of Post Lights," and when dusk fell and she saw a pale yellow +light revealed against a bank the little book named it "Wilkinson +Island." She pulled toward the east bank into the deadwater below +Lacours Island, cast over her anchor, and came to rest in the dark of a +starless night. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +In mid-afternoon, the man who had so desperately and as a last resource +tested the efficiency of moonshine whiskey as a palliative for mental +misery awaked gradually, in confusion of mind and aching of body. Noises +filled his ears, and streaking lights blurred the keenness of his eyes. +Reason had but little to do with his first thoughts, and feelings had +nearly everything. There did not seem to be any possible atonement for +him to make. Too late, as it seemed, he realized the enormity of his +offence and the bitterness of inevitable punishment. + +There remained but one thing for him to do, and that was go away down +the rivers and find the fugitive Jock Drones, whose mother feared for +him. No other usefulness of purpose remained in his reach. If he stood +up, now, before any congregation, the imps of Satan, the patrons of +moonshiners, would leer up at him in his pulpit, reminding him that he, +too, was one of them. + +He went over to the corner of his cabin, raised some planks there and +dug down into the earth till he found a jug. He dragged the jug into the +cabin and out of it poured the Rasba patrimony, a hidden treasure of +gold, which he put into a leather money belt and strapped on. There was +not much in the cabin worth taking away, but he packed that little up +and made ready for his departure. + +It was but a few miles over to Tug River, and he readily engaged a wagon +to carry him that far. On the wooded river bank he built a flatboat with +his own hands, and covered one end of it with a poplar-wood cabin, +purchased at a near-by sawmill. He floated out of the eddy in his +shack-boat and began his journey down the rivers to the Mississippi, +where he would perform the one task that remained for him to do in the +service of God. He would find Jock, give him his mother's message, and +after that expiate his own sins in the deserved misery of an exiled +penitent. + +Tug River was in flood, a heavy storm having cast nearly two inches of +rainfall upon part of the watershed. On the crest of the flood it was +fast running and there was no delay, no stopping between dawn and dusk. +Standing all day at the sweeps Rasba cleared the shore in sharp bends, +avoided the obstacles in mid stream, and outran the wave crests and the +racing drift, entering the Big Sandy and emerging into the unimaginable +breadths of the Ohio. + +He had no time to waste on the Ohio. The object of his search was on the +Mississippi, hundreds of miles farther down, and he could not go fast +enough to suit him. But at that, pulling nervously at his sweeps and +riding down the channel line, he "gain-speeded," till his eyes were +smarting with the fury of the changing shores, and his arms were aching +with the pulling and pushing of his great oars, and he neither +recognized the miles that he floated nor the repeated days that ensued. + +Long since he had escaped from his own mountain environment. The trees +no longer overhung his course; railroad trains screamed along endless +shores, bridges overhung his path like menacing deadfalls, and the +rolling thunder of summer storms was mingled with the black smoke of ten +thousand undreamed-of industries. The simplicity of the mountain +cornfields of his youth had become a mystery of production, of activity, +of passing phenomena which he neither knew nor understood. In his +thoughts there was but one beacon. + +His purpose was to reach the Mississippi, take the young man in hand, +and redeem him from the evils into which he had fallen. His object was +no more than that, nor any less. From the confusion of his experiences, +efforts, and humiliations, he held fast to one fact: the necessity of +finding Jock Drones. All things else had melted into that. + +The river banks fell apart along his course; the river ridges withdrew +to wide distances, even blue at times; mere V-gullies or U-gorges, +widened into vast corn fields. A post-office store-house at a rippling +ford gave way to smoking cities, rumbling bridges, paved streets, and +hurrying throngs. The lone fisherman in an 18-foot dugout had changed +insensibly to darting motorboats and to huge, red-wheeled, white-castled +monsters, whose passage in the midst of vast waters was attended by the +sighs of toiling engines and the tossing of troubled seas. + +Except for that one sure demand upon him, Elijah Rasba long since would +have been lost in the confusion and doubts of his transition from narrow +wooded ridges and trembling streamlets to this succession of visions. +But his soul retained its composure, his eyes their quickness to seize +the essential detail, and he rode the Tug River freshet into the Ohio +flood tide bent upon his mission of redeeming one mountain youth who had +strayed down into this far land, of which the shores were washed by the +unimaginable sea of a river. + +When at the end of a day he arrived in a way-side eddy and moored his +poplar-bottom craft against a steep bank and the last twilight had faded +from his vision, he would eat some simple thing for supper, and then, by +lamp-light, try to read his exotic life into the Bible which accompanied +him on his travels. He knew the Book by heart, almost; he knew all the +rivers told about in it; he knew the storms of the various biblical +seas; he knew the Jordan, in imagination, and the Nile, the Euphrates, +the Jabbok, and the Brook of Egypt, but they did not conform in his +imagination with this living tide which was carrying him down its +course, over shoal, around bend and from vale to vale of a size and +grandeur beyond expression. + +Elijah was speechless with amazement; the spies who had gone into +Canaan, holding their tongues, and befriended by women whose character +Elijah Rasba could not identify, were less surprised by the riches which +they discovered than Rasba by the panorama which he saw rolled out for +his inspection day by day. + +Other shanty-boaters were dropping down before the approach of winter. +Sometimes one or another would drift near to Rasba's boat and there +would be an exchange of commonplaces. + +"How fur mout hit be, strangeh?" he would ask each man. "'Low hit's a +hundred mile yet to the Mississippi?" + +A hundred miles! They could not understand that this term in the +mountain man's mind meant "a long ways," if need be a thousand or ten +thousand miles. When one answered that the Mississippi was 670 miles, +and another said it was a "month's floating," their replies were equally +without meaning to his mind. Rasba could not understand them when they +talked of reaches, crossings, wing dams, government works, and chutes +and islands, but he would not offend any of them by showing that he did +not in the least understand what they were talking about. He must never +again hurt the feelings of any man or woman, and he must perform the one +service which the Deity had left for him to perform. + +Little by little he began to understand that he was approaching the +Mississippi River. He saw the Cumberland one day, and two hours later, +he was witness to the Tennessee, and that long, wonderful bridge which a +railroad has flung from shore to shore of the great river. The current +carried him down to it, and his face turned up and up till he was swept +beneath that monument to man's inspiration and the industry of countless +hands. + +Rasba had seen cities and railroads and steamboats, but all in a kind of +confusion and tumult. They had meant but incidents down the river; this +bridge, however, a structure of huge proportions, was clearly one piece, +one great idea fixed in steel and stone. + +"How big was the man who built that bridge?" he asked himself. + +While yet the question echoed in his expanding soul he hailed a passing +skiff: + +"Strangeh! How fur now is it to the Mississippi River?" + +"Theh 'tis!" the man cried, pointing down the current. "Down by that air +willer point!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Those first free days on the Mississippi River revealed to Nelia Crele a +woman she had never known before. Daring, fearless, making no reckoning, +she despised the past and tripped eagerly into the future. It was no +business of any one what she did. She had married a man who had turned +out to be a scoundrel, and when fate treated her so, she owed nothing to +any one or to anything. Even the fortune which she had easily seized +through the alcoholic imbecility of her semblance of a man brought no +gratitude to her. The money simply insured her against poverty and her +first concern was to put that money where it would be safe from raiders +and sure to bring her an income. This, watchfulness and alertness of +mind had informed her, was the function of money. + +She dropped into Cape Girardeau, and sought a man whom she had met at +her husband's house. This was Duneau Menard, who had little interest in +the Carlines, but who would be a safe counsellor for Nelia Crele. He +greeted her with astonishment, and smiles, and told her what she needed +to know. + +"I was just thinking of you, Nelia," he said, "Carline's sure raising a +ruction trying to find you. He 'lows you are with some man who needs +slow killing. He telephoned to me, and he's notified a hundred sheriffs, +but, shucks! he's a mean scoundrel, and I'm glad to see yo'." + +"I want to have you help me invest some money," she said. "It's mine, +and he signed every paper, for me. Here's one of them." + +He took the sheet and read: + + I want my wife to share up with me all my fortune, and I hereby + convey to her stocks, bonds, and cash, according to enclosed signed + certificates, etc. + + Augustus Carline. + +"How come hit?" the man asked. + +"He was right friendly, then," she replied, grimly. "For what you-all +said about the daughter of my mother I come here to claim your help. You +know about money, about interest and dividends. I want it so I can have +money, regular, like Gus did----" + +"I shall be glad to fix that," he said, wiping his glasses. "What you +wish is a diversified set of investments. How much is there?" + +She stacked up before him wads, rolls, briquettes, and bundles. He +counted it, slip by slip and when he had completed the tally and +reckoned some figures on the back of an envelope, he nodded his +approval. + +"I expect that this will bring you around twelve or fifteen hundred +dollars a year, safe, and a leetle besides, on speculation." + +"That'll do," she said, approvingly. + +No one in town connected her with the sensation up around Gage. She was +just one of those shanty-boat girls who come down the Mississippi every +once in a while, especially below St. Louis. In a hundred cities and +towns people were looking for Mrs. Augustus Carline, supposed to be +cutting a dashing figure, and probably in company with a certain Dick +Asunder, who had been seen in Chester, with his big black automobile on +the same day that Mrs. Carline abandoned her husband's automobile +there. + +Of course, the shanty-boaters did not tell, if they knew; the River +tells no tales. Certainly, of all the women in the world this casual +visitor at Attorney Menard's need not attract attention. Menard always +did have strange clients, and it was nothing new to see a shanty-boat +land in and some man or woman walk up to his corner office and sit down +to tell him in legal confidences things more interesting to know than +any one not of his curiosity and sympathy would ever dream. + +Attorney Menard kept faith with river wastrels, floating nomads who are +akin to gypsies, but who are of all bloods--tramps of the running +floods. He listened to narratives stranger than any other attorney; in +his safe he had documents of interest to sweethearts and wives, to +husbands and sons, to fugitives and hunters. Letters came to him from +all parts of the great basin, giving him directions, or notifying him of +the termination of lives whose passing had a significance or a meaning. + +Nelia's mother knew him, and Nelia herself recalled his good-humoured +smile, his weathered face, his appeal to a girl for her confidence, and +the certainty that her confidence would be respected. She had gone to +him as naturally as she would have gone to a decent father or a wise +mother. She took from him his neatly written receipt, but with the +feeling that it was superfluous. In a little while she returned to the +shanty-boat and dropped out of the eddy on her way down the river. She +floated under the big Thebes Bridge, and landed against the west bank +before dark, there to have the luck to shoot a wild goose. The maps +showed that she was approaching the Lower Mississippi. + +When she had left Cape Girardeau, she had noticed a little brick-red +shanty-boat which landed in just below her own. Without looking up, she +discovered that a man leaned against the roof of his low cabin whose +eyes did not cease to watch her every motion while she cast off, coiled +her ropes, and leaned to the light sweeps. + +When she was a safe distance down the river, she ventured to look up +stream, and saw that the little red shanty-boat had left its mooring, +and that the man was coming down the current astern of her. It was a +free river; any one could go whither he pleased, but the certainty that +she had attracted the man's attention revealed to her the necessity of +considering her position there alone and dependent on her own +resources. + +She remembered the two market hunters, and their warnings. The man +astern was a patient, lurking, menacing brute, who might suspect her of +having property enough to make a river piracy worth while; or he might +have other designs, since she was unfortunately good-looking and +attractive. Night would surely be his opportunity and the test of her +soul. + +She could have landed at Commerce, where there were several shanty-boats +and temporary safety; she could have floated on down at night and +slipped into the shore in the dark, her lights out; she could have tried +flight down the river hoping to lose the brick-red boat; she decided +against all these. + +Boldly she pulled into an eddy just before sunset, and had made fast to +a snag and a live root when the little boat came dropping down in the +edge of the current hardly forty feet distant, with the man leaning on +his sweeps, watching her every motion, especially fastening his gaze +upon her trim figure. + +As he came opposite she turned and faced him; her jaws set. + +"Hello, girlie!" he called, leaning upon his sweeps to carry his +skiff-like boat into the same eddy. + +On the instant she snatched the automatic pistol from her bosom and, +dropping the muzzle, fired. The man stumbled back with a cry. He stood +grabbing at his shoulder, his florid face turning white, his eyes +starting with terror and pain. She saw him reel and fall through the +open hatch of his cabin and his boat go drifting on into the crossing +below. It occurred to her numbed brain that she was delivered from that +peril, but as dusk fell she hated the misery of her loneliness. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The Ohio had the Mississippi eddied. The rains that had fallen over the +valleys of Kentucky and southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had brought +a tide down the big branch and as there was not much water running out +of the Missouri and Upper Mississippi, the flood had backed up the +Mississippi for a little while, stopping the current almost dead. + +Elijah Rasba, running full tilt in the mid Ohio current, looked ahead +that afternoon, and he had a full view of the thing to which he had +come, seeking the wandering son of Mrs. Drones. + +He arrived at the moment when the Mississippi, having been banked up +long enough, began to feel the restraint of the Ohio and resent it. The +gathered waters moved down against the Ohio flood and pressed them back +against the Kentucky side. Once more the Mississippi River resumed its +sway. On the loosed waters was a little cigar-box of a shanty-boat, and +Rasba rowed toward it across the saucer-like sucks and depressions where +the two currents of different speeds dragged by each other. + +He pulled alongside, hailed, and, for answer, heard a groan, a weak +cry: + +"Help!" + +He carried a line across to the stranger's deck and made it fast. Then +he saw, stretched upon the floor, a stricken man, from whose side a pool +of blood had run. Working rapidly, Elijah discovered the wound and as +gunshot injuries were only too familiar in his mountain experience he +well knew what he should do. Examination showed that it was a painful +and dangerous shoulder shot. He cleared away the stains, washed the +hole, plucked the threads of cloth out of it, turned the man on his face +and, with two quick slashes of a razor, cut out the missile which had +done the injury. + +Healing liniment, the inevitable concoction of a mountaineer's cabin, +soothed while it dressed the wound. Pads of cotton, and a bandage +supplied the final need, and Rasba stretched his patient upon the +cabin-boat bunk, then looked out upon the world to which he had +drifted. + +It was still a vast river, coming from the unknown and departing into +the unknown. He knew it must be the Mississippi, but he acknowledged it +with difficulty. + +He did not ask the man about the bullet. Born and bred in the mountains, +he knew that that would be an unpardonable breach of etiquette. But the +wounded man was uneasy, and when he was eased of his pain, he began to +talk: + +"I wa'nt doin' nothing!" he explained, "I were jes' drappin' down, up +above Buffalo Island, an' b'low Commerce, an' a lady shot me--bang! Ho +law! She jes' shot me thataway. No 'count for hit at all." + +"A lady you knowed?" Rasba asked. + +"No suh! But she's onto the riveh, into a shanty-boat, purty, too, an' +jes' drappin' down, like she wa'nt goin' no wheres, an' like she mout of +be'n jes' moseyin'. I jes 'lowed I'd drap in, an' say howdy like, an' +she drawed down an' shot--bang!" + +"Was she frightened?" + +"Hit were a lonesome reach, along of Powerses Island," the man admitted, +whining and reluctant. "She didn't own that there riveh. Hain't a man no +right to land in anywheres? She shot me jes' like I was a dawg, an' she +hadn't no feelin's nohow. Jes' like a dawg!" + +"Did you know her?" + +"No, suh. We'd be'n drappin' down, an' drappin' down--come down below +Chester, an' sometimes she'd be ahead, an' sometimes me, an' how'd I +know she wouldn't be friendly? Ain't riveh women always friendly? An' +theh she ups an' shoots me like a dawg. She's mean, that woman, mean an' +pretty, too, like some women is!" + +Rasba wondered. He had been long enough on the Ohio to get the feeling +of a great river. He saw the specious pleading of the wounded wretch, +and his quick imagination pictured the woman alone in a vast, wild wood, +at the edge of that running mile-wide flood. + +"Of co'rse!" he said, half aloud, "of co'rse!" + +"Co'rse what?" the man demanded, querulously. + +"Co'rse she shot," Rasba answered, tartly. "Sometimes a lady jes' +naturaly has to shoot, fearin' of men." + +Rasba landed the two boats in at the foot of a sandbar, and made them +fast to old stakes driven into the top of the low reef. He brought his +patient some hot soup, and after they had eaten supper, he sat down to +talk to him, keeping the man company in his pain, and leading him on to +talk about the river, and the river people. + +In that first adventure at the Ohio's forks Rasba had discovered his own +misconceptions, and the truth of the Mississippi had been partly +revealed to him. What the Tug was to the Big Sandy, what the Big Sandy +was to the Ohio, the Ohio was to the Mississippi. What he had looked to +as the end was but the beginning, and Rasba was lost in the immensity of +the river that was a mile wide, thousands of miles long, and unlike +anything the mountain preacher had ever dreamed of. If this was the +Mississippi, what must the Jordan be? + +"My name's Prebol," the man said, "Jest Prebol. I live on Old +Mississip'! I live anywhere, down by N'Orleans, Vicksburg--everywhere! +I'm a grafter, I am--" + +"A grafter?" Rasba repeated the strange word. + +"Yas, suh, cyards, an' tradin' slum, barberin' mebby, an' mebby some +otheh things. I can sell patent medicine to a doctor, I can! I clean +cisterns, an' anything." + +"You gamble?" Rasba demanded, grasping one fact. + +"Sho!" Prebol grinned. "Who all mout _yo'_ be?" + +"Elijah Rasba," was the reply. "I am seeking a soul lost from the +sheepfold of God. I ask but the strength to find him." + +"A parson?" Prebol asked, doubtfully, his eyes resting a little in their +uneasy flickerings. "One of them missionaries?" + +"No, suh." Rasba shook his head, humbly. "Jes' a mountang parson, +lookin' for one po'r man, low enough fo' me to he'p, maybe." + +Prebol made no reply or comment. His mind was grappling with a fact and +a condition. He could not tell what he thought. He remembered with some +worriment, that he had cursed under the pain of the dressing of the +wound. He knew that it never brought any man good luck to swear within +ear-range of any parson. + +He could think of nothing to do, just then, so he pretended weariness, +which was not all pretense, at that. Rasba left him to go to sleep on +his cot, and went over to his own boat, where, after an audible session +on his knees, he went to bed, and fell into a sound and dreamless +sleep. + +In the morning, when the parson awakened, his first thought was of his +patient, and he started out to look after the man. He looked at the face +of the sandbar reef against which the little red shanty-boat had been +moored. The boat was gone! + +Rasba, studying the hard sand, soon found the prints of bare feet, and +he knew that Prebol had taken his departure precipitately, but the +reason why was not so apparent to the man who had read many a wild +turkey track, deer runway, and trails of other game. + +From sun-up till nearly noon, while he made and ate his breakfast, and +while he turned to the Scriptures for some hint as to this river man's +mind, his thoughts turned again and again to the pictures which Prebol's +tales, boastings, whinings, and condition had inspired. + +He felt his own isolation, strangeness, and ignorance. He could not +understand the man who had fled from assistance and succour; at the same +time the liveliness of his fancy reverted again and again to the woman +living alone in such a desolation, shooting whoever menaced. + +That type was not new to him. Up in his own country he had known of +women who had stood at their rifles, returning shot for shot of feud +raiders. The pathetic courage of the woman who had shot Prebol appealed +to him. + +The wounded man, wicked beyond measure, and the woman assailed, he +realized, were like hundreds of other men and women whose shanty-boats +he had seen down the Ohio River, and which lurked in bends and reaches +on both sides of the Mississippi. + +"Give thyself no rest!" he read, and he obeyed. He believed that he had +a black sin to expiate, and he dared not begin what his soul was +hungering to do, because knowing wickedness, he had deliberately +sinned. + +Alternately, he read his Bible and prayed. Late in the day he dropped +out of the eddy and floated on down. + +"I 'low I can keep on huntin' for Jock Drones," he told himself. "I +shore can do that, yes, indeed!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Having rid herself of the leering river rat, Nelia Crele trembled for a +time in weak dismay, the reaction from her tense and fiery determination +to protect herself at all costs. But she quickly gathered her strength +and, having brewed a pot of strong coffee, thrown together a light +supper, and settled back in her small, but ample, rocking chair, she +reviewed the incidents of her adventure; the flight from her worthless +husband and her assumption of the right to protect herself. + +After all, shooting a man was less than running away from her husband. +She could regard the matter with a rather calm spirit and even a +laughing scorn of the man who had thought to impose himself on her, +against her own will. + +"That's it!" she said, half aloud, "I needn't to allow any man to be +mean to me!" + +She had given her future but little thought; now she wondered, and she +pondered. She was free, she was independent, and she was assured of her +living. She had even been more shrewd than old Attorney Menard had +suspected; the money she had left with him was hardly half of her +resources. She had another plan, by which she would escape the remote +possibility of Menard's proving faithless to his trust, as attorneys +with his opportunities sometimes have proved. + +Nelia Crele could not possibly be regarded as an ordinary woman, as a +mere commonplace, shack-bred, pretty girl. Down through the years had +come a strain of effectiveness which she inherited in its full strength; +she was as inexplicable as Abraham Lincoln. Her stress of mind relieved, +she regarded the shooting of the man with increasing satisfaction, +since by such things a woman could be assured of respect. + +Gaiety had never been a part of her childhood or girlhood; she had +withstood the insidious attacks and menaces that threatened her down to +the day when Gus Carline had come to her. Courted by him, married, and +then living in the clammy splendour of the house of a back-country rich +man, she had found no happiness, but merely a kind of animal comfort. +She had had the Carline library to read, and she had brought with her +the handy pocket volumes which had been her own and her delight. She was +glad of the foresight which enabled her to put into a set of book +shelves the companions which had, alone, been her comfort and +inspiration during the few years of her wedded misery. + +Now, on the Mississippi, in the shanty-boat, she need consult only her +own fancy and whim. Mistress of her own affairs, as she supposed, she +could read or she could think. + +"I do what I please!" she thought, a little defiantly. "It's nobody's +business what I do now; what'd Mrs. Plosell care what people said about +her? I'll read, if I want to, and I'll flirt if I want to--and I'll do +anything I want to----" + +She reckoned without the Mississippi. Everybody does, at first. Her +money was but a means to an end. She knew its use, its value, and the +perfect freedom which it gave her; its protection was not +underestimated. + +At the same time, sloth was no sin of hers. Living on the river insured +physical activity; her books insured her mental engagement. + +She had lived so many years in combat with grim necessity that the +lesson of thrift of all her resources had been brought home to her. +Having been waylaid by circumstance so often, she took grim care now to +count the costs, and to insure her getting what she was seeking. The +trouble was she could not disassociate her feelings from her ideas. They +were inextricably interwoven. The brief years of her wedlock had been in +one way a disillusionment, in another a revelation. + +She had found her own hunger for learning, her own strength and +weakness, and while she had lost to the Widow Plosell, she had clearly +seen that it was not her fault but Gus Carline's meagreness of mind and +shallowness of soul. Instead of losing her confidence, she had found her +own ability. + +For hours she debated there by her pretty lamp, with the curtains down, +and the comforting and reassuring weight of the automatic pistol in her +lap. She knew that she must never have that weapon at arm's length from +her, but as she remembered where it had come from she wondered to think +that she had so easily refused the suggestion of Frank, the market +hunter. + +"It's all right, though," she shrugged her shoulders, "I can take care +of myself, and being alone, I can think things out!" + +In mid-morning she cut loose from the bank and floated away down stream. +The river was very wide, and covered with crossing-ripples. She looked +down what the map showed was the chute of Hacker Tow Head, and then the +current carried her almost to the bank at the head of Buffalo Island. + +Here there was a stretch of caving bank; the earth, undercut by the +river current, was lumping off in chunks and slices. Her boat bobbed and +danced in the waves from the cave-ins, and the rocking pleased her +fancy. + +The names along this bit of river awakened her interest; Blackbird +Island was clearly described: Buffalo Island harked back many years into +tradition; Dogtooth Island was a matter of river shape; but Saladin, +Tow Head and Orient Field stirred her imagination, for they might reveal +the scene of steamboat disasters or some surveyor's memory of the +Arabian Nights. Below Dogtooth Island, under Brooks Point, were a number +of golden sandbars and farther down, in the lower curve of the famous +S-bends she read the name "Greenleaf," which was pretty and +picturesque. + +She was living! Every minute called upon some resource of her brain. She +had read in old books things which gave even the name Cairo, at the foot +of the long, last reach of the Upper Mississippi, a significance of far +lands and Egyptian mysteries. Gratefully she understood that the +Mississippi was summoning ideals which ought to have been called upon +long since when in the longings of her girlhood she had been circumspect +and patient, keeping her soul satisfied with dreams of fairies playing +among the petals of hill-side flowers, or gnomes wandering among the +stalks of toll-yielding cornfields. + +Mature, now; fearless--and, as the word romped through her mind in all +its changes, free--free!--she played with her thoughts. But below +Greenleaf Bend, as another day was lost in waning evening, she early +sought a sandbar mooring at the foot of Missouri Sister Island, where +there were two other shanty-boats, one of them with two children on the +sand. She need not dread a boat where children were found. Possibly she +would be able to talk to another woman, which would be a welcome change, +having had so much of her own thoughts! + +This other woman was Mrs. Disbon, out of the Missouri. She and her +husband had been five years coming down from the Yellowstone, and they +had fished, trapped, and enjoyed themselves in their 35-foot cabin-boat +home. Of course, taking care of two children on a shanty-boat was a good +deal of work and some worry, for one or the other was always falling +overboard, but since they had learned to swim it hadn't been so bad, and +they could take care of themselves. + +"You all alone?" Mrs. Disbon asked. + +"I'm alone," Nelia admitted, having told her name as Nelia Crele. + +"Well, I don't know as I blame you," Mrs. Disbon declared, looking at +her husband doubtfully. "Seems to me that on the average, men are more +of a nuisance than they're worth. It's which and t'other about them. I +see you've had experience?" + +Nelia looked down at her wedding ring. + +"Yes, I've had experience," she nodded. + +"Going clear down?" + +"You mean----?" + +"N'Orleans?" + +"Why, I hadn't thought much about it." + +"The Lower River's pretty bad." Disbon looked up from cleaning his +repeating shotgun. "My first trip was out of the Ohio and down to +N'Orleans. I wouldn't recommend to no woman that she go down thataway, +not alone. Theh's junker-pirates use up from N'Orleans, and, course, +there's always more or less meanness below Cairo. Above St. Louis it +ain't so bad, but mean men draps down from Little Klondike." + +"I haven't made up my mind," Nelia said, adding, with a touch of +bitterness, "I don't reckon it makes so much difference!" + +"Lots that comes down feel thataway," Mrs. Disbon nodded, with sympathy, +"Seems like some has more'n their share, and some considerable less!" + +Nelia remained there three days, for there was good company, and a +two-day rain had set in between midnight and dawn on the following +morning. There was no hurry, and she was going nowhere. She had the +whole family over to supper the second night, and she ate two meals or +so with them. + +The other shanty-boat, about a hundred yards down stream, was an old +man's. He had a soldier's pension, and he lived in serene restfulness, +reading General Grant's memoirs, and poring over the documents of the +Rebellion, discovering points of military interest and renewing his own +memories of his part in thirty-odd battles with Grant before Vicksburg +and down the line with the Army of the Potomac. + +Nelia could have remained there indefinitely, but restlessness was in +her mind, as long as she had so much money on board her little +shanty-boat. Disbon knew so many tales of river piracy that she saw the +wisdom of settling her possessions, either at Cairo or Memphis, +whichever should prove best. + +Landing against the bank just above the ferry, she walked over to Cairo +and sought for a man who had hired her father to help him hunt for wild +turkeys. He was a banker, and would certainly be the right kind of a man +to help her, if he would. + +"Mr. Brankeau," she addressed him in his office, "I don't know if you +remember me, but you came hunting to the River Bottoms below St. +Genevieve, one time, and you and Father went over into Missouri, hunting +turkeys." + +"Remember you?" he exclaimed. "Why--you--of course! Mrs. Carline--Nelia +Crele!" + +She met his questioning gaze unflinchingly. + +"I know I can trust you," she said, simply. "If you'd known Gus +Carline!" + +"I knew his father," Brankeau said. "I reckon as faithless a scoundrel +as ever lived. Old man Carline left his first wife and two babies up in +Indiana--I know all about that family! I saw by the newspapers----" + +"I want some railroad stocks, so I can have interest on my money," she +said by way of nature of her presence there. "When we separated, he let +me have this paper, showing he wanted me to share his fortune----" + +"He was white as that?" Brankeau exclaimed, astonished at the paper +Carline had signed. + +"He was that white," she replied, her eyes narrowing. Brankeau from the +wideness of his experience, laughed. She, an instant later, laughed, +too. + +"So you settled the question between you?" he suggested, "I thought from +the newspapers he hadn't suspicioned--this paper--um-m!" + +"It's not a forgery, Mr. Brankeau," she assured him. "He was one of +those gay sports, you know, and, for a change, he sported around with +me, once. I came away between days. You know his failing." + +"Several of them, especially drink," the man nodded "It's in cash?" + +"Every dollar, taken through his own banks, on his own orders." + +"And you want?" + +"Railroads, and some good industrial or two. Here's the amount----" + +She handed him a neatly written note. He took out a little green covered +book, showing lists of stocks, range of prices, condition of companies, +and, together, they made out a list. When they had finished it, he read +it into the telephone. + +Within an hour the stocks had been purchased, and a week later, he +handed her the certificates. She rented a safe deposit box and put them +into it, subject only to her own use and purposes. + +"Thank you, Mr. Brankeau," she said, and turned to leave. + +"Where are you stopping?" he asked. + +"I'm a shanty-boater." + +"You mean it? Not alone?" + +"Yes," she admitted. + +"I wish I were twenty years younger," he mourned. + +"Do you, why?" she looked at him, and, turning, fled. + +He caught up his top-coat and hat, but he went to the Ohio River, +instead of to the Mississippi, where Nelia stood doubtfully staring down +at her boat from the top of the big city levee. + +At last, she cast off her lines and dropped on down into The Forks. + +She sat on the bow deck of her boat, looking at the place where the +pale, greenish Ohio waters mingled with the tawny Missouri flood. + +A gleam of gold drew her attention, as she glanced downward and she was +startled to see her wedding ring, with its guard ring, still on her left +hand; it had never been off since the day her husband placed it there. + +For a minute she looked at it, and then deliberately, with sustained +calmness, removed the thin guard, and slipped the ring from its place. +She put it upon the same finger of her right hand, where it was snug and +the guard was not necessary. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +A whisper, that became a rumour, which became a report, reached Gage and +found the ears of Augustus Carline, whose wife had disappeared sometime +previously. After two wild days of drinking Carline suddenly sobered up +when the fact became assured that Nelia had gone and really meant to +remain away, perhaps forever. + +The thing that startled him into certainty was the paper which he found +signed by himself, at the bank. He had forgotten all about signing the +papers that night when Nelia had shown herself to be the gayest sport of +them all. Now he found that he had signed away his stocks and bonds, and +that he had given over his cash account. + +The amount was startling enough, but it did not include his real estate, +of which about two thirds of his fortune had been composed. If it had +been all stocks and bonds, he thought he would have been left with +nothing. He considered himself at once fortunate and unlucky. + +"I never knew the old girl was as lively as that!" he told himself, and +having tasted a feast, he could not regard the Widow Plosell as more +than a lunch, and a light lunch, at that. + +Nelia had been easily traced to Chester. Beyond Chester the trail seemed +to indicate that Dick Asunder had eloped with her, but ten days later +Asunder returned home with a bride whom he had married in St. Louis. + +Beyond Chester Nelia had left no trace, and there was nothing even to +indicate whether she had taken the river steamer, the railroad train, or +gone into flight with someone who was unknown and unsuspected. When +Carline, sobered and regretful, began to make searching inquiries, he +learned that there were a score, or half a hundred men for whom Old +Crele had acted as a hunter's and fisher's guide. These sportsmen had +come from far and wide during many years, and both Crele and her wistful +mother admitted that many of them had shown signs of interest and even +indications of affection for the girl as a child and as a pretty maid, +daughter of a poor old ne'er-do-well. + +"But she was good," Carline cried. "Didn't she tell you she was +going--or where she'd go?" + +"Never a word!" the two denied. + +"But where would she go?" the frantic husband demanded. "Did she never +talk about going anywhere?" + +"Well-l," Old Crele meditated, "peahs like she used to go down an' watch +Ole Mississip' a heap. What'd she use to say, Old Woman? I disremember, +I 'clar I do." + +"Why, she was always wishing she knowed where all that river come from +an' where all it'd be goin' to," Mrs. Crele at last recollected. + +"But she wouldn't dare--She wouldn't go alone?" Carline choked. + +"Prob'ly not, a gal favoured like her," Old Crele admitted, without +shame. "I 'low if she was a-picking, she'd 'a' had the pick." + +Cold rage alternated with hot fear in the mind of Gus Carline. If she +had gone alone, he might yet overtake her; on the other hand, if she had +gone with some man, he was in honour bound to kill that man. He was +sensitive, now, on points of honour. The Widow Plosell, having succeeded +in creating a favourable condition, from her viewpoint, sought to take +advantage of it. She was, however, obliged to go seeking her recent +admirer, only to discover that he blamed her--as men do--for his +trouble. She consulted a lawyer to see if she could not obtain financial +redress for her unhappy position, only to learn of her own financial +danger should Mrs. Carline determine upon legal revenge. + +Carline, between trying to convince himself that he was the victim of +fate and the innocent sufferer from a domestic tragedy brought upon +himself by events over which he had no control, fell to hating liquor as +the chief cause of his discomfiture. + +Then a whisper that became a rumour, which at last seemed to be a fact, +said that Nelia Carline was somewhere down Old Mississip'. Someone who +knew her by sight was reported to have seen her in Cape Girardeau, and +the husband raced down there in his automobile to see if he could not +learn something about the missing woman, whose absence now proved what a +place she had filled in his heart. + +There was no doubt of it. Nelia had been there, but no one had happened +to think to tell Carline about it. She had landed in a pretty +shanty-boat, the wharf-master said, and had pulled out just before a +river man in a brick-red cabin-boat of small size had left the eddy. The +river man had dropped in just behind her, and, according to the +wharf-master: + +"I shore kept my eyes on that man, for he was a riveh rat!" + +The thought was sickening to Carline. His wife floating down the river +with a river rat close behind presented but two explanations: she was +being followed for crime, or the two were just flirting on the river, +together. + +He bought a pretty 28-foot motorboat, 22-inch draft with a 7-foot beam +and a raised deck cabin. Having stocked up with supplies, he started +down the Ohio to find his woman. + +He could not tell what his intention was, not even to himself; his mind, +long weakened and depraved by liquor, lacked clarity of thought and +distinctiveness of purpose. One hour he raged with anger, and murder +blackened his heart; another minute, his shattered nerves left him in a +panic of fears and remorse, and he hoped for nothing better than to beg +his wife and sweetheart for forgiveness. At all times dread of what he +might find at the end of the trail tormented him from terror to +despair. + +His anguish overcame all his other sensations. It even overcame his lust +for liquor. He grew sturdier under his affliction, so that when he +arrived at Cairo, and swung his craft smartly up to the wharf-boat, his +eyes were clear and his skin was honestly coloured by sunshine and pure +winds. Here fortune favoured him with more news of his wife. The +engineer of the Cairo-Missouri ferryboat had seen a young and pretty +woman moored at the bank some distance from the landing. She had +remained there upward of a week, having no visitors, and making daily +visits over the levee into the little city. + +"One day she stood there, I bet half an hour, looking back, like she was +waiting," the engineer said. "I seen her onto the levee top. Then she +come down, jumped aboard with her lines, an' pulled out to go on +trippin' down. I wondered then wouldn't some man be following of her." + +When Carline passed below the sandbar point, at which the Ohio and +Mississippi mingle their waters, and the human flotsam from ten thousand +towns is caught by swirling eddies, he found himself subdued by a shadow +that fell athwart his course, dulling the fire of his own spirit with a +doubt and an awe which he had never before known. + +His wife had gone past the Jumping Off Place; he had heard a thousand +jests about that fork of the rivers, without comprehending its deeper +meaning, till in his own experience he, too, was flung down the tide by +forces now beyond his control, though he himself had set them in motion. +His suffering was no less acute, his mind was no less active, but it +dawned slowly on him that, after all, the acute pain which was in his +heart was no greater than the sorrow, the suffering, the poisoned +deliriums of the thousands who had given themselves to this mighty +flood, which was so vast and powerful that it dwarfed the senses of +mortals to a feeling of the proper proportion of their affairs in the +workings of the universe. + +Insensibly, but surely, his pride began to fade and his selfishness +began to give way to better understanding and kindlier counsels. That +much the River Spirit had done for him. He would not give up the search, +but rather would he increase its thoroughness, and redouble his efforts. +But he would never again be quite without sympathy, quite without +understanding of sensations and experiences which were not of his own +heart and soul. + +The river was a mile wide; its current surged from the deeps; it +flowed down the bend and along the reach with a noiselessness, a +resistlessness, a magnitude that seemed to carry him out of his whole +previous existence--and so it did carry him. Still human, still finite, +prone to error and lack of comprehension, nevertheless Augustus +Carline entered for the moment upon a new life recklessly and +willingly. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +For a minute Elijah Rasba, as the Mississippi revealed itself to him, +contemplated a greater field for service than he had ever dreamed of. +Then, humbled in his pride at the thought of great success, he felt that +it could not be; for such an opportunity an Apostle was needed, and +Rasba's cheeks warmed with shame at the realization of the vanity in his +momentary thought. + +He was grateful for the privilege of seeing the panorama that unrolled +and unfolded before his eyes with the same slow dignity with which the +great storm clouds boiled up from the long backs of the mountains of his +own homeland. He missed the elevations, the clustered wildernesses, and +ledges of stone against a limited sky, but in their places he saw the +pale heavens in a dome that was uninterrupted from horizon to horizon. +There seemed to be hardly any earth commensurate with the sky, and the +river seemed to be flowing between bounds so low and insignificant that +he felt as though it might break through one side or the other and fall +into the chaos beyond the brim of the world. + +Instinctively he removed his hat in this Cathedral. Familiar from +childhood with mountains and deep valleys, the sense of power and motion +in the river appealed to him as the ocean might have done. He looked +about him with curiosity and inquiry. He felt as though there must be +some special meaning for him in that immediate moment, and it was a long +time before he could quite believe that this thing which he witnessed +had continued far back beyond the memory of men, and would continue into +the unquestionable future. + +He floated down stream from bend to bend, carried along as easily as in +the full run of time. He looked over vast reaches, and hardly recognized +other houseboats, tucked in holes along the banks, as craft like his +own. The clusters of houses on points of low ridges did net strike him +as veritable villages, but places akin to those of fairyland. + +All the rest of the day he dropped on down, not knowing which side he +should land against, and filled with doubts as to where his duty lay. +Once he caught up his big oars and began to row toward a number of +little shanty-boats moored against a sandbar, close down to a wooded +bank, only to find that the river current carried him away despite his +most muscular endeavours, so he accepted it as a sign that he should not +land there. + +For a time Rasba thought that perhaps he had better just let the river +carry him whither it would, but upon reflection he remembered what an +old raftsman, who had run strands of logs down Clinch and Holston, told +him about the nature of rivers: + +"Come a falling tide, an' she drags along the banks and all that's +afloat keeps in the middle; but come a fresh an' a risin' tide, an' the +hoist of the water is in the mid-stream, and what's runnin' rolls off to +one side or the other, an' jams up into the drift piles." + +The philosophy of that was, for this occasion, that if Old Mississip' +was falling, Elijah Rasba might never get ashore, not in all the rest of +his born days, unless he stirred his boots. So catching up his sweep +handles he began to push a long stroke toward the west bank, and his +boat began to move on the river surface. Under the two corners of his +square bow appeared little swirls and tiny ripples as he approached the +bank and drifted down in the edge of the current looking for a place to +land. + +Before he knew it, a big patch of woods grew up behind him, and when he +felt the current under the boat slacken he discovered that he had run +out of the Mississippi River and was in a narrow waterway no larger than +Tug Fork. + +"Where all mout I be?" he gasped, in wonderment. + +He saw three houseboats just below him, moored against a sandbar, with +hoop nets drying near by, blue smoke curling out of tin pipes, and two +or three people standing by to look at the stranger. + +He rowed ashore and carried out a big roped stone, which he used as +anchor; then he walked down the bar toward the man who watched his +approach with interest. + +"I am Elijah Rasba," he greeted him. "I come down out of Tug River; I am +looking for Jock Drones; he's down thisaway, somewheres; can yo' all +tell me whichaway is the Mississippi River?" + +"I don't know him," the fisherman shook his head. "But this yeah is Wolf +Island Chute; the current caught you off of Columbus bluffs, and you +drifted in yeah; jes' keep a-floatin' an' d'rectly you'll see Old +Mississip' down thataway." + +"It's near night," Rasba remarked, looking at the sun through the trees. +"I'm a stranger down thisaway; mout I get to stay theh?" + +"Yo' can land anywhere's," the man said. "No man can stop you all!" + +"But a woman mout!" Rasba exclaimed, with sudden humour. "Yistehd'y +evenin', up yonway, by the Ohio River, I found a man shot through into +his shanty-boat. He said he 'lowed to land along of the same eddy with a +woman, an' she shot him almost daid!" + +"Ho law!" the fisherman cried, and another man and three or four women +drew near to hear the rest of the narrative. "How come hit?" + +Rasba stood there talking to them, a speaker to an audience. He told of +his floating down into the Mississippi, and of his surprise at finding +the river so large, so without end. He said he kind of wanted to ask the +way of a shanty-boat, for a poor sinner must needs inquire of those he +finds in the wilderness, and he heard a groan and a weak cry for help. + +"I cyard for him, and he thanked me kindly; he said a woman had shot him +when he was trying to be friendly; a pretty woman, young and alone. +Co'rse, I washed his wound and I linimented it, and I cut the bullet out +of his back; law me, but that man swore! Come night, an' he heard say I +was a parson, he apologized because he cursed, and this mo'nin' he'd +done lit out, yas, suh! Neveh no good-bye. Scairt, likely, hearin' me +pray theh because I needed he'p, an' 'count of me being glad of the +chanct to he'p any man in trouble." + +"Sho! Who all mout that man be, Parson?" + +"He said his name were Jest Prebol----" + +"Ho law! Somebody done plugged Jest Prebol!" one of the women cried out, +laughing. "That scoundrel's be'n layin' off to git shot this long time, +an' so he's got hit. I bet he won't think he's so winnin' of purty women +no more! He's bad, that man, gamblin' an' shootin' craps an' workin' the +banks. Served him right, yes, indeedy. But he'd shore hate to know a +parson hearn him cussin' an' swearin' around. Hit don't bring a gambler +any luck, bein' heard swearin', no." + +"Nor if any one else hears him; not if he thinks swearin' in hisn's +heart!" Rasba shook his head gravely. "How come hit yo' know that man?" + +"He's used down this riveh ten-fifteen years; besides, he married my +sister what's Mrs. Dollis now. Hit were a long time ago, though, 'fore +anybody knowed he wa'n't no good. I bet we hearn yo' was comin', +Parson. Whiskey Williams said they was a Hallelujah Singer comin' down +the Ohio--said he could hear him a mile. I bet yo' sing out loud +sometimes?" + +"Hit's so," Rasba admitted. "I sung right smart comin' down the Ohio. +Seems like I jest wanted to sing, like birds in the posey time." + +"Prebol shore should git to a doctor, shot up thataway. He didn't say +which lady shot him, Parson?" a woman asked. + +"No; jes' a lady into an eddy into a lonesome bend." Rasba shook his +head. "A purty woman, livin' alone on this riveh. Do many do that?" + +"Riveh ladies all do, sometimes. I tripped from Cairo to Vicksburg into +a skift once," a tall, angular woman said. "My man that use to be had +stoled the shanty-boat what I'd bought an' paid for with my own money. I +went up the bank at Columbus Hickories, gettin' nuts; I come back, an' +my boat was gone. Wa'n't I tearin' an' rearin'! Well, I hoofed hit down +to Columbus, an' I bought me a skift, count of me always havin' some +money saved up." + +"I bet Vicksburg's a hundred mile!" Rasba mused. + +"A hundred mile!" the woman said with a guffaw. "Hit's six hundred an' +sixty-three miles from Cairo to Vicksburg, yes, indeed. A hundred mile! +I made hit in ten days, stoppin' along. I ketched it theh." + +"You found yo' man?" + +"Shucks! Hit wa'n't the man I wanted, hit were my boat--a nice, reg'lar +pine an' oak-frame boat. I bet me I chucked him ovehbo'd, an' towed back +up to Memphis. Hit were a good $300 bo't, sports built, an' hits on the +riveh yet--Dart Mitto's got hit, junkin'. You'll see him down by +Arkansaw Old Mouth if yo's trippin' right down." + +"I expect to," Rasba replied, doubtfully. Never in his life before had +he talked in terms of hundreds of miles, cities, and far rivers, + +"Yo'll know that boat; he's went an' painted hit a sickly yeller, like a +railroad station. I hate yeller! Gimme a nice light blue or a right +bright green." + +"Hyar comes anotheh bo't!" one of the men remarked, and all turned to +look up the chute, where a little cabin-boat had drifted into sight. + +No one was on deck, and it was apparent that the Columbus banks had +shunted the craft clear across the river and down the chute, just as +Rasba himself had been carried. The shadow of the trees on the west side +of the chute fell across the boat and immediately brought the tripper +out of the cabin. + +A shadow is a warning on wide rivers. It tells of the nearness of a +bank, or towhead, or even of a steamboat. In mid-stream there is little +need for apprehension, but when the current carries one down into a +caving bend and close to overhanging trees or along the edges of short, +boiling eddies, it is time to get out and look for snags and +jeopardies. + +Seeing the group of people on the sandbar, the journeyer, who was a +woman, took the sweeps of her boat and began to work over to them. + +"Hit handles nice, that bo't!" one of the fishermen said. "Pulls jes' +like a skift. Wonder who that woman is?" + +"I've seen her some'rs," the powerful, angular woman, Mrs. Cooke, said +after a time. "Them's swell clothes she's got on. She's all alone, too, +an' what a lady travels alone down yeah for I don't know. She's purty +enough to have a husband, I bet, if she wants one." + +"Looks like one of them Pittsburgh er Cincinnati women," Jim Caope +declared. + +"No." Mrs. Caope shook her head. "She's off'n the riveh. Leastwise, she +handles that bo't reg'lar. I cayn't git to see her face, but I seen her +some'rs, I bet. I can tell a man by hisns walk half a mile." + +In surprise she stared at the boat as it came nearer, and then walked +down to the edge of the bar to greet the newcomer. + +"Why, I jes' knowed I'd seen yo' somers! How's yer maw?" she greeted. +"Ho law! An' yo's come tripping down Ole Mississip'! I 'clare, now, I'd +seen yo', an' I knowed hit, an' hyar yo' be, Nelia Crele. Did yo' git +shut of that up-the-bank feller yo' married, Nelia?" + +"I'm alone," the girl laughed, her gaze turning to look at the others, +who stood watching. + +"If yo' git a good man," Mrs. Caope philosophized, "hang on to him. +Don't let him git away. But if yo' git somebody that's shif'less an' no +'count, chuck him ovehbo'd. That's what I b'lieve in. Well, I declare! +Hand me that line an' I'll tie yo' to them stakes. Betteh throw the +stern anchor over, fo' this yeah's a shallows, an' the riveh's eddyin', +an' if hit don't go up hit'll go down, an'----" + +"Theh's a head rise coming out the Ohio," someone said. "Yo' won't need +no anchor over the stern!" + +"Sho! I'm glad to see yo'!" Mrs. Caope cried, wrapping her arms around +the young woman as she stepped down to the sand, and kissing her. "How +is yo' maw?" + +"Very well, indeed!" Nelia laughed, clinging to the big river woman's +hand. "I'm so glad to find someone I know!" + +"You'll know us all d'rectly. Hyar's my man, Mr. Caope--real nice +feller, too, if I do say hit--an' hyar's Mrs. Dobstan an' her two +darters, an' this is Mr. Falteau, who's French and married May, there, +an' this feller--say, mister, what is yo' name?" + +"Rasba, Elijah Rasba." + +"Mr. Rasba, he's a parson, out'n the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy, comin' +down. Miss Nelia Crele, suh. I disremember the name of that feller yo' +married, Nelia." + +"It doesn't matter," Nelia turned to the mountain man, her face +flushing. "A preacher down this river?" + +"I'm looking for a man," Rasba replied, gazing at her, "the son of a +widow woman, and she's afraid for him. She's afraid he'll go wrong." + +"And you came clear down here to look for him--a thousand, two thousand +miles?" she continued, quickly. + +"I had nothing else to do--but that!" he shook his head. "You see, +missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!" + +He turned and walked away with bowed head. They all watched him with +quick comprehension and real sympathy. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Jest Prebol, sore and sick with his bullet wound, but more alarmed on +account of having sworn so much while a parson was dressing his injury, +could not sleep, and as he thought it over he determined at last to cut +loose and drop on down the river and land in somewhere among friends, or +where he could find a doctor. But the practised hand of Rasba had +apparently left little to do, and it was superstitious dread that +worried Prebol. + +So the river rat crept out on the sandbar, cast off the lines, and with +a pole in one hand, succeeded in pushing out into the eddy where the +shanty-boat drifted into the main current. Prebol, faint and weary with +his exertions, fell upon his bunk. There in anguish, delirious at +intervals, and weak with misery, he floated down reach, crossing, and +bend, without light or signal. In olden days that would have been +suicide. Now the river was deserted and no steamers passed him up or +down. His cabin-boat, but a rectangular shade amidst the river shadows, +drifted like a leaf or chip, with no sound except when a coiling jet +from the bottom suckled around the corners or rippled along the sides. + +The current carried him nearly six miles an hour, but two or three times +his boat ran out of the channel and circled around in an eddy, and then +dropped on down again. Morning found him in mid-stream, between two +wooded banks, as wild as primeval wilderness, apparently. The sun, which +rose in a white mist, struck through at last, and the soft light poured +in first on one side then on the other as the boat swirled around. Once +the squirrels barking in near-by trees awakened the man's dim +consciousness, but a few minutes later he was in mid-stream, making a +crossing where the river was miles wide. + +He passed Hickman just before dawn, and toward noon he dropped by New +Madrid, and the slumping of high, caving banks pounded in his ears down +three miles of changing channel. Then the boat crossed to the other side +and he lay there with eyes seared and staring. He discovered a grave +stone poised upon the river bank, but he could not tell whether it was +fancy or fact that the ominous thing bent toward him and fell with a +splash into the river, while a wave tossed his boat on its way. He heard +a quavering whine that grew louder until it became a shriek, and then +fell away into silence, but his senses were slow in connecting it with +one of the Tiptonville cotton gins. He heard a voice, curiously human, +and having forgotten the old hay-burner river ferry, worried to think +that he should imagine someone was driving a mule team on the +Mississippi. For a long time he was in acute terror, because he thought +he was blind, and could not see, but to his amazed relief he saw a river +light and knew that another night had fallen upon him, so he went to +sleep once more. + +Voices awakened him. He opened his eyes, and the surroundings were +familiar. He smelled iodine, and saw a man looking over a doctor's case. +Leaning against the wall of the cabin-boat was a tall, slender young man +with arms folded. + +"How's he comin' Doc'?" the young man was saying. + +"He'll be all right. How long has he been this way?" + +"Don't know, Doc; he come down the riveh an' drifted into this eddy. I +see his lips movin', so I jes' towed 'im in an' sent fo' yo'!" + +"Just as well, for that wound sure needed dressing. I 'low a horse +doctor fixed hit first time," the physician declared. "He'll need some +care now, but he's comin' along." + +"Oh, we'll look afteh him, Doc! Friend of ourn." + +"I'll come in to-morrow. It's written down what to do, and about that +medicine. You can read?" + +"Howdy," Prebol muttered, feebly. + +"He's a comin' back, Doc!" the young man cried, starting up with +interest. + +"Well, old sport, looks like you'd got mussed up some?" the doctor +inquired. + +"Yas, suh," Prebol grinned, feebly, his senses curiously clear. "Hit +don't pay none to mind a lady's business fo' her, no suh!" + +"A lady shot you, eh?" + +"Yas, suh," Prebol grinned. "'Peahs like I be'n floatin' about two mile +high like a flock o' ducks. Where all mout I be?" + +"Little Prairie Bend." + +"Into that bar eddy theh?" + +"Yas, suh--the short eddy." + +"Much obliged, Doc. Co'se I'll pay yo'----" + +"Your friend's paid!" + +"Yas, suh," Prebol whispered, sleepily, tired by the exertion and +excitement. + +"Sleep'll do him good," the doctor said, and returned to his little +motorboat. + +The young man went on board his own boat which was moored just below +Prebol's. As he entered the cabin, a burly, whiskered man looked up and +said: + +"How's he coming, Slip?" + +"Doc says he's all right. Jest said a woman shot him for tryin' to mind +her business, kind-a laughed about hit." + +"Theh! I always knowed a man that'd chase women the way he done'd git +what's comin'. A woman'll make trouble quicker'n anything else on Gawd's +earth, she will." + +"Sho! Buck, yo's soured!" + +"Hit's so 'bout them women!" Buck protested. + +"If a man'd mind his business, an' not try to mind their business, +women'd be plumb amusin'," Slip laughed. + +"Wait'll yo've had experience," Buck retorted. + +"Shucks! Ain't I had experience?" + +"Eveh married?" + +"No-o." + +"Eveh have a lady sic' yo' onto some'n bigger'n yo' is?" + +"No-o; reckon I pick my own people to scrap." + +"Theh! That shows how much yo' don't know about women. Never had no +woman yo' 'lowed to marry?" + +"Huh! Catch me gittin' married--co'se not." + +"Sonny, lemme tell yo'; hit ain't yo'll do the catchin', an' hit won't +be yo' who'll be decidin' will yo' git married. An' hit won't be yo' +who'll decide how long yo'll stay married, no, indeed." + +"Peah's like yo' got an awful grouch ag'in women, Buck." + +"Why shouldn't I have?" Buck started up from shuffling and throwing a +book of cards. "Look't me. If Jest Prebol's shot most daid by a woman, +look't me. Do you know me--where I come from, where the hell I'm goin'? +Yo' bet you don't. I've been shanty-boatin' fifteen years, but I ain't +always been a shanty-boater, no, I haven't. Talk to me about women. When +I think what I've took from one woman--Sho!" + +He stared at the floor, his teeth clenched and his strong face set. +Slip stared. His pal had disclosed a new phase of character. + +Buck turned and glared into Slip's eyes. + +"I'll tell you, Slip, you're helpless when it comes to women. They've +played the game for ten thousand years, practised it every day, wearing +down men's minds and men never knew it. Read history, as I've done. +Study psychology, as I have. Go down into the fundamentals of human +experience and human activities, and learn the lesson. Fifteen years +I've been up and down these rivers, from Fort Benton to the Passes, from +the foothills of the Rockies to the headwaters of Clinch and Holston in +the Appalachians. Why? Because one woman sang her way into my heart, and +because she tied my soul to her little finger, and when she found that I +could not escape--when she had--when she had--What do you know about +women?" + +Slip stared at him. His pal, partner in river enterprises, an old river +man, who talked little and who played the slickest games in the slickest +way, had suddenly emerged like a turtle's head, and spoken in terms of +science, education, breeding--regular quality folks' talk--under stress +of an argument about women. And they had argued the subject before with +jest and humour and without personal feeling. + +Buck turned away, bent and shivering. + +"I 'low I'll roast up them squirrels fo' dinner?" Slip suggested. + +"They'll shore go good!" Buck assented. "I'll mux around some hot-bread, +an' some gravy." + +"I got to make some meat soup for that feller, too." + +"Huh! Jest Prebol's one of them damned fools what tried to forget a +woman among women," Buck sneered. + +At intervals during the day Slip went over and gave Prebol his medicine, +or fed him on squirrel meat broth; toward night they floated their +35-foot shanty-boat out into the eddy, and anchored it a hundred yards +from the bank, where the sheriff of Lake County, Tennessee, no longer +had jurisdiction. In the late evening Slip lighted a big carbide light +and turned it toward the town on the opposite bank. + +Pretty soon they heard the impatient dip of skiff oars, a river +fisherman came aboard, and stood for a minute over the heater stove, +warming his fingers. He soon went to the long, green-topped crap table +in the end of the room, and Slip stood opposite, to throw bones against +him. A tiny motorboat crossed a little later; and three men, two heavy +set and one a slim youth, entered, to sit down at one of the little +round tables and play a game. + +One by one other patrons appeared, and soon there were fourteen or +fifteen. Slip and Buck glided about among them quietly, their eyes +alert, their hats drawn down over their eyes, taking a hand here, +throwing bones there, poking up the coal fire, putting on coffee, making +sandwiches, every moment on the _qui vive_, communicating with each +other by jerks of the hand, lifting of shoulders, or the faintest of +whisperings. + +A jar against the side of the boat sent one or other of the two out to +look, to greet a newcomer or to fend off a drift log. A low whistle from +the stern took Buck through the aisle between the staterooms to the +kitchen where a rat-eyed little man waited him on the stern deck, + +"Lo, Buck! I'm drappin' down in a hurry; I learn yo' was heah. Theh's a +feller drapping down out the Ohio; he's lookin' fo' a feller name of +Jock Drones--didn't hear what for. Yo' know 'im?" + +"Nope, but I'll pass the word around." + +"S'long!" + +"Jock Drones--huh!" Buck repeated, turning into the lamp-lit kitchen +where Slip was sniffing the coffee pot. + +"Friend of mine just stopped," Buck whispered. "There's a detective +coming down out of the Ohio. Told me to pass the word around. He's after +somebody by the name of Drones, Dock or Jock Drones." + +Slip started, turned white, and his jaws parted. Buck's eyes opened a +little wider. + +"S'all right, Slip! Keep your money in your belt, to be ready to run or +swim. It's a long river." + +Slip could not trust himself to speak. Buck, patting him on the +shoulder, went on into the card room and closed the kitchen door behind +him, drawing the aisle curtains shut, too, so that no one would go back +until Slip had recovered his equilibrium. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Augustus Carline instinctively slowed down his motorboat and took to +looking at the wide river, its quivering, palpitating surface; its +vistas at which he had to "look twice to see the end," as the river man +says with whimsical accuracy. + +Negligent and thoughtless, he could now feel some things which had never +occurred to him before: his loneliness, his doubts, his very +helplessness and indecision. His wife had been like an island around +which he sailed and cruised, sure in his consciousness that he could +return at any time to that safe mooring. He had returned to find the +island gone, himself adrift on a boundless ocean, and he did not know +which way to turn. The cays and islets, the interesting rocks and the +questionable coral reefs supplied him with not the slightest semblance +of shelter, support, or safety. + +He did not even know which side of the river to go to, nor where to +begin his search. He was wistful for human companionship, but as he +looked at the distant shanty-boats, and passed a river town or two, he +found himself diffident and shamed. + +He saw a woman in a blue mother-hubbard dress leaning against the cabin +of her low, yellow shanty-boat, a cap a-rake on her head, one elbow +resting on her palm, and in the other a long-stemmed Missouri +meerschaum. Her face was as hard as a man's, her eyes were as blue and +level as a deputy sheriff's in the Bad Lands, and her lips were straight +and thin. How could a man ask her if she had seen his wife going down +that way? + +He stopped his motor and let his boat drift. He wondered what he could +or would say when he overtook Nelia. There struck across his +imagination the figure of a man, the Unknown who had, perhaps, promised +her the care he had never given her, the affection which she had almost +never had from him. Having won her, this Unknown would likely defy him +down there in that awful openness and carelessness of the river. + +He found a feeling of insignificance making its way into his mind. He +had been vain of his looks, but what did looks amount to down there? He +had been proud of his money, but what privilege did money give him on +that flood? He had rejoiced in his popularity and the attention women +paid him, but the indifferent gaze of that smoking Amazon chilled his +self-satisfaction. He cringed as he seemed to see Nelia's pretty eyes +glancing at him, her puzzled face as she apparently tried to remember +where she had seen him. The river wilted the crumpling flower of his +pride. + +As his boat turned like a compass needle in the surface eddies he saw a +speck far up stream. He brought out his binoculars and looked at it, +thinking that it was some toy boat, but to his astonishment it turned +out to be a man in a skiff. + +It occurred to Carline that he wished he could talk to someone, to any +one, about anything. He had no resources of his own to draw on. He had +always been obliged to be with people, talk to people, enjoy people; the +silences of his wife's tongue had been more difficult for him to bear +than her edged words. The skiff traveller, leisurely floating in that +block of river, drew him irresistibly. He kicked over the flywheel and +steered up stream, but only enough partly to overcome the speed of the +current. The sensation of being carried down in spite of the motor +power, complicated with the rapid approach of the stranger in his skiff, +was novel and amusing. When he stopped the motor, the rowboat was +within a hundred feet of him, and the two men regarded each other with +interest and caution. + +The traveller was unusual, in a way. On his lap was a portable +typewriter, in the stern of the boat a bundle of brown canvas; a brass +oil stove was on the bottom at the man's feet; behind him in the bow +were a number of tins, cans, and boxes. + +Neither spoke for some time, and then Carline hailed: + +"Nice, pretty day on the river!" + +"Fine!" the other replied. "Out the Ohio?" + +"No--well, yes--I started at Evansville, where I bought this boat, but I +live up the Mississippi, at Kaskaskia--Gage, they call it now." + +"Yes? I stopped at Menard's on my way down from St Louis." + +"When was that?" + +"About ten days ago--tell you in a minute--Monday a week!" A big quarto +loose-leaf notebook had revealed the day and date. + +"Well, say--I----?" Carline's one question leaped to his lips but +remained unasked. For the minute he could not ask it. The thing that had +been his rage, and then his wonder, suddenly drew back into his heart as +a secret sorrow. + +"Won't you come over?" Carline asked, "it'd be company!" + +"Yes, it'll be company," the other admitted, and with a pull of his oars +brought the skiff alongside. He climbed aboard, painter in hand, and +making the light line fast to one of the cleats, sat down on the locker +across from his host. + +"My name's Carline." + +"Mine's Lester Terabon; a newspaper let me come down the river to write +stories about it; it's the biggest thing I ever saw!" + +"It's an awful size!" Carline admitted, looking around over his +shoulder, and Terabon watched the face. + +"Are you a river man?" the visitor asked. + +"No. My father was a big farmer, and he made some money when they put a +railroad through one of his places." + +"Just tripping down to see the river?" + +"No-o--well----" Carline hesitated, looking overside at the water. + +"That must be Wolf Island over there?" the reporter suggested. + +Carline looked at the island. He looked down the main river and over +toward the chute toward which the Columbus bluffs had shunted them. Then +he started the motor and steered into the main channel to escape the +rippling shoals which flickered in the sunshine ahead of them, past an +island sandbar. + +"I don't know if it's Wolf Island." Carline shook his head. "I'm looking +for somebody--somebody who came down this way." + +The traveller waited. He looked across the current to the bluffs now +passing up stream, Columbus and all. + +"I don't suppose you find very much to write about, coming down?" +Carline changed his mind. + +For answer Terabon drew his skiff alongside and reached for his +typewriter. As he began to write, he said: "I write everything down--big +or little. A man can't remember everything, you know." + +"Make good money writing for the newspapers?" + +"Enough to live on," Terabon replied, "and, of course, it's living, +coming down Old Mississip'!" + +"You like it travelling in that skiff? Where do you sleep?" + +"I stretch that canvas between the gunwales in those staples; I put +those hoops up, and draw a canvas over the whole length of the boat. I +can sleep like a baby in its cradle." + +"Well, that's one way," Carline replied, doubtfully. "If I owned this +old river, you could buy it for two cents." + +Terabon laughed, and after a minute Carline joined in, but he had told +the truth. He hated the river, and he was cowed by it; yet he could not +escape its clutches. + +"I fancy it hasn't always treated you right," Terabon remarked. + +"Treated me right!" Carline doubled his fists and stiffened where he +sat. "It's!--it's----" + +He could not speak for his emotion, but his little pointed chin trembled +a minute later as he relaxed and looked over his shoulder again. The +typewriter clicked along for minutes, Terabon's fingers dancing over the +keys as he put down, word for word, and motion for motion, the man who +was afraid of the river and yet was tripping down it. It seemed as +though the man afraid must have some kind of courage, too, because he +was going in spite of his fears. + +"It's passing noon, and I think I'll get something to eat," Terabon +suggested; "I'll get up my----" + +"I forgot to eat!" Carline said. "I've got everything, and that knob +there is a three-burner oil stove. We'll eat on board. Never mind your +stuff, I've got so much it'll spoil--but I ain't much of a cook!" + +"I'm the original cook the Cæsars wanted to buy for gold!" Terabon +boasted. "I got some squirrels, there, I killed up on Buffalo Island, +and we'll fry them." + +Nor did he fail to make his boast good, for he soon had hot-bread, gravy +browned in the pan, boiled sweet potatoes, and canned corn ready for the +table. When they sat down to eat, Carline confessed that he hadn't had +a real meal for a week except one he ate in a Cairo restaurant. + +"I could have got a kind of a meal," he admitted, "but you see I was +worried a good deal. Did you stop at Stillhouse Island?" + +"Where's that?" + +"Just above Gage, kind of across from St. Genevieve." + +"Let's see--oh, yes. There was an old fellow there, what's his name? He +told me if I happened to see his daughter I should tell her to write +him, for her mother wanted to hear." + +"He said that! And you--it was Crele, Darien Crele said that?" + +"That's the name--Nelia, his daughter." + +"Yes, sir. I know. I guess I know! She's my wife--she was--It's +her----" + +"You're looking for?" + +"Yes, sir; she ran away and left me. She came down here." + +"Kind of a careless girl, I imagine?" + +"Careless! God, no! The finest woman you ever saw. It was me--I was to +blame. I never knew, I never knew!" + +For a minute he held up his arms, looking tensely at the sky, struggling +to overcome the emotion that long had been boiling up in his heart, +rending the self-complacency of his mind. Then he broke down--broke down +abjectly, and fell upon the cabin floor, crying aloud in his agony, +while the newspaper man sitting there whispered to himself: + +"Poor devil, here's a story! He's sure getting his. I don't want to +forget this; got to put this down. Poor devil!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +"And he says he's a sinner himself," Nelia repeated, when she returned +on board her cabin-boat in the sheltering safety of Wolf Island chute, +with Mamie Caope, Parson Rasba, and the other shanty-boaters within a +stone's toss of her. + +Till she was among them, among friends she trusted, she had not noticed +the incessant strain which she endured down those long, grim river +miles. Now she could give way, in the privacy of her boat, to feminine +tears and bitterness. Courage she had in plenty, but she had more +sensitiveness than courage. She was not yet tuned to the river +harmonies. + +Something in Rasba's words, or it was in his voice, or in the quick, +full-flood of his glance, touched her senses. + +"You see, missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!" + +What had he meant? If he had meant that she, too, was a sinner, was that +any of his business? Of course, being a parson--she shrugged her +shoulders. Her thoughts ran swiftly back to her home that used-to-be. +She laughed as she recalled the deprecatory little man who had preached +in the church she had occasionally attended. She compared the trim, +bird-like perspicuity and wing-flap gestures of Rev. Mr. Beeve with the +slow, huge turn and stand-fast of Parson Rasba. + +She was glad to escape the Mississippi down this little chute; she was +glad to have a phrase to puzzle over instead of the ever-present problem +of her own future and her own fate; she was glad that she had drifted in +on Mrs. Mame Caope and Jim and Mr. Falteau and Mrs. Dobstan and Parson +Rasba, instead of falling among those other kinds of people. + +Mrs. Caope was an old acquaintance of her mother who had lived all her +life on the rivers. She was a better boatman than most, and could pilot +a stern-wheel whiskey boat or set hoop nets for fish. + +"If I get a man, and he's mean," Mrs. Caope had said often, "I shift +him. I 'low a lady needs protection up the bank er down the riveh, but I +'low if my cookin' don't pay my board, an' if fish I take out'n my nets +ain't my own, and the boat I live in ain't mine--well, I've drapped two +men off'n the stern of my boat to prove hit!" + +Mrs. Caope had not changed at all, not in the years Nelia could recall, +except to change her name. It was the custom, to ask, perfectly +respectfully, what name she might be having now, and Mrs. Mame never +took offence, being good natured, and understanding how hard it was to +keep track of her matrimonial adventures, episodes of sentiment but +without any nonsense. + +"Sho!" Mrs. Caope had said once, "I disremember if I couldn't stand him +er he couldn't stand me!" + +Nelia, adrift in her own life, and sure now that she never had really +cared very much for Gus Carline, admitted to herself that her husband +had been only a step up out of the poverty and misery of her parents' +shack. + +"You see, missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!" + +Her ears had caught the depths of the pathos of his regret and sorrow, +and she pitied him. At the same time her own thoughts were ominous, and +her face, regular, bright, vivacious, showed a hardness which was alien +to it. + +Nelia went over to Mrs. Caope's for supper, and Parson Rasba was there, +having brought in a wild goose which he had shot on Wolf Island while +going about his meditations that afternoon. Mrs. Caope had the goose +sizzling in the big oven of her coal range--coal from Pittsburgh barges +wrecked along the river on bars--and the big supper was sweeter smelling +than Rasba ever remembered having waited for. + +Mrs. Caope told him to "ask one of them blessin's if yo' want, Parson!" +and the four bowed their heads. + +Jim Caope then fell upon the bird, neck, wings, and legs, and while he +carved Mrs. Caope scooped out the dressing, piled up the fluffy +biscuits, and handed around the soup tureen full of gravy. Then she +chased the sauce with glass jars full of quivering jellies, reaching +with one hand to take hot biscuits from the oven while she caught up the +six-quart coffee pot with the other. + +"I ain't got no patience with them women that don't feed their men!" she +declared. "About all men want's a full stomach, anyhow, an' if you could +only git one that wa'n't lazy, an' didn't drink, an' wasn't impedent, +an' knowed anything, besides, you'd have something. Ain't that so, +Nelia?" + +"Oh, indeed yes," Nelia cried, from the fullness of her experience, +which was far less than that of the hostess. + +After they had eaten, they went from the kitchen into the sitting room, +where Rasba turned to Nelia. + +"You came down the river alone?" he asked. + +"Yes," she admitted. + +"I wonder you wouldn't be scairt up of it--nights, and those lonesome +bends?" + +"It's better than some other things." Nelia shook her head. "Besides, +you've come alone down the Ohio yourself." + +He looked at her, and Mrs. Caope chuckled. + +"But--but you're a woman!" Rasba exclaimed. + +"Suppose a mean man came aboard your boat, and--and tried to rob you," +Nelia asked, level voiced, "what would you do?" + +"Why, course, I'd--I'd likely stop him." + +"You'd throw him overboard?" + +"Well--if hit were clost to the bank an' he could swim, I mout." + +Nelia and the Caopes laughed aloud, and Rasba joined in the merriment. +When the laughter had subsided, Rasba said: + +"The reason I was asking, as I came by the River Forks I found a little +red boat there with a man on the cabin floor shot through----" + +"Dead?" Nelia gasped. + +"No, just kind of pricked up a bit, into one shoulder. He said a lady +shot him because he 'lowed to land into the same eddy with her." + +"But--where----?" Nelia half-whispered. "Where did he go?" + +"Hit were Jest Prebol," Mrs. Caope said. "You was tellin' of him, +Parson." + +"Hit were Prebol," Rasba nodded, "an' he shore needed shooting!" + +"Yas, suh. That kind has to be shot some to make 'em behave +theirselves," Mrs Caope exclaimed, sharply. "If it wa'n't fer ladies +shootin' men onct in awhile, down Old Mississip', why, ladies couldn't +git to live here a-tall!" + +"And women, sometimes, don't do men any good," Rasba mused, aloud, "I've +wondered right smart about hit. You see, a parson circuit rides around, +an' he sees a sight more'n he tells. Lawse, he shore do!" + +The two women glared at him, but he was studying his huge hands, first +the backs and then the calloused palms. He was really wondering, so the +two women glanced at each other, laughing. The idea that probably some +men needed protection from women could not help but amuse while it +exasperated them. + +"Prebol said," Rasba continued, "hit were a pretty woman, young an' +alone. 'How'd I know?' he asked. 'How'd I know she were a spit-fire an' +mean, theh all alone into a lonesome bend? How'd I know?'" + +"I 'low he shore found out," Mrs. Caope spoke up, tartly, and Nelia +looked at her gratefully. "Hit takes a bullet to learn fellers like Jest +Prebol--an' him thinkin' he's so smart an' such a lady killer. I bet he +knows theh's some ladies that's men killers, too, now. Next time he +meets a lady he'll wait to be invited 'fore he lands into the same eddy +with her, even if hit's a three-mile eddy." + +"Theh's Mrs. Minah," Jim Caope suggested. + +"Mrs. Minah!" Mrs. Caope exclaimed. "Talk about riveh ladies--theh's +one. She owns Mozart Bend. Seventeen mile of Mississippi River's her'n, +an' nobody but knows hit, if not to start with, then by the end. She +stands theh, at the breech of her rifle, and, ho law, cayn't she shoot! +She's real respectable, too, cyarful an' 'cordin' to law. She's had +seven husbands, four's daid an' two's divorced, an' one she's got yet, +'cordin' to the last I hearn say about it. I tell you, if a lady's got +any self-respect, she'll git a divorce, an' she'll git married ag'in. +That's what I say, with divorces reasonable, like they be, an' costin' +on'y $17.50 to Mendova, or Memphis, er mos' anywheres." + +"How long--how long does it take?" Nelia asked, eagerly. + +"Why, hardly no time at all. You jes' go theh, an' the lawyer he takes +all he wants to know, an' he says come ag'in, an' next day, er the next +trip, why, theh's yo' papers, an' all for $17.50. Seems like they's got +special reg'lations for us shanty-boaters." + +"I'm glad to know about that," Nelia said. "I thought--I never knew much +about--about divorces. I thought there was a lot of--of rigmarole and +testimony and court business." + +"Nope! I tell yo', some of them Mendova lawyers is slick an' +'commodatin'. Why, one time I was in an awful hurry, landin' in 'long of +the upper ferry, an' I went up town, an' seen the lawyer, an' told him +right how I was fixed. Les' see, that wa--um-m----Oh, I 'member now, +Jasper Hill. I'd married him up the line, I disremember--anyhow, 'fore +I'd drapped down to Cairo, I knowed he'd neveh do, nohow, so I left him +up the bank between Columbus an' Hickman--law me, how he squawked! Down +by Tiptonville, where I'd landed, they was a real nice feller, Mr. +Dickman. Well, we kind of co'ted along down, one place an anotheh, an' +he wanted to git married. I told how hit was, that I wasn't 'vorced, an' +so on, but if he meant business, we'd drap into Mendova, which we done. +He wanted to pay for the divorce, but I'm independent thataway. I think +a lady ought to pay for her own 'vorces, so I done hit, an' I was +divorced at 3 o'clock, married right next door into the Justice's, an' +we drapped out an' down the riveh onto our honeymoon. Mr. Dickman was a +real gentleman, but, somehow, he couldn't stand the riveh. It sort of +give him the malary, an' he got to thinking about salmon fishin' so he +went to the Columbia. We parted real good friends, but the Mississippi's +good 'nough for me, yes, indeed. I kind of feel zif I knowed hit, an' +hit's real homelike." + +"It is lovely down here," Nelia remarked. "Everything is so kind +of--kind of free and easy. But wasn't it dreadful--I mean the first +time--the first divorce, Mamie?" + +"Course, yes, course," Mrs. Caope admitted, slowly, with a frown, "I +neveh will forget mine. I'd shifted my man, an' I was right down to +cornmeal an' bacon. Then a real nice feller come along, Mr. Darlet. I +had to take my choice between a divorce an' a new weddin' dress, an' I +tell you hit were real solemocholy fer me decidin' between an' betwixt. +You know how young gals are, settin' a lot by dresses an' how they look, +an' so on. Young gals ain' got much but looks, anyhow. Time a lady gits +experience, she don't set so much store by looks, an' she don't have to, +nohow. Well, theh I was, with a nice man, an' if I didn't divorce that +first scoundrel where'd I be? So I let the dress go, an' mebby you'll +b'lieve hit, an' mebby yo' won't, but I had $18.97, an' I paid my $17.50 +real reg'lar, an' I had jest what was left, $1.47, an' me ready to bust +out crying, feelin' so mean about marryin' into an old walking skirt. + +"I was all alone, an' I had a good notion to run down the back way, an' +trip off down the riveh without no man, I felt so 'shamed. An' theh, +right on the sidewalk, was a wad of bills, $99 to a penny. My lan'! I +wropped my hand around hit, an' yo' should of seen Mr. Darlet when he +seen me come walking down, new hat, new dress, new shoes, new silk +stockings--the whole business new. I wa'n't such a bad-lookin' gal, +afteh all. That taught me a lesson. I've always be'n real savin' sinct +then, an' I ain't be'n ketched sinct with the choice to make of a 'vorce +er a weddin' dress. No, indeed, not me!" + +Parson Rasba looked at her, and Nelia, her eyes twinkling, looked at the +Parson. Nelia could understand the feelings in all their minds. She had +her own viewpoint, too, which was exceedingly different from those of +the others. The strain of weeks of questioning, weeks of mental +suffering, was relieved by the river woman's serious statement and +Parson Rasba's look of bewilderment at the kaleidoscopic matrimonial +adventuring. At the same time, his wonder and Mrs. Caope's unconscious +statement stirred up in her thoughts a new questioning. + +When Nelia returned on board her boat, and sat in its cabin, a freed +woman, she very calmly reckoned up the advantages of Mrs. Caope's +standards. Then seeing that it was after midnight, and that only the +stars shone in that narrow, wooded chute, she felt she wanted to go out +into the wide river again, to go where she was not shut in. She cast off +her lines and noiselessly floated out and down the slow current. + +She saw Parson Rasba's boat move out into the current behind her and +drift along in the soft, autumn night. Her first thought was one of +indignation, but when a little later they emerged into the broad river +current and she felt the solitude of the interminable surface, her mood +changed. + +What the big, quizzical mountain parson had in mind she did not know. It +was possible that he was a very bad man, indeed. She could not help but +laugh under her breath at his bewilderment regarding Mrs. Caope, which +she felt was a genuine expression of his real feelings. At the same +time, whatever his motive in following her, whether it was to protect +her--which she could almost believe--or to court her, which was not at +all unlikely, or whether he had a baser design, she did not know, but +she felt neither worry nor fear. + +"I don't care," she shook her head, defiantly, "I like him!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Carline recovered his equilibrium after a time. His nerves, long on the +ragged edge, had given way, and he was ashamed of his display of +emotion. + +"Seems as though some things are about all a man can stand," he said to +Terabon, the newspaper man. "You know how it is!" + +"Oh, yes! I've had my troubles, too," Terabon admitted. + +"It isn't fair!" Carline exclaimed. "Why can't a man enjoy himself and +have a good time, and not--and not----" + +"Have a headache the next day?" Terabon finished the sentence with a +grave face. + +"That's it. I'm not what you'd call a hard drinker; I like to take a +cocktail, or a whiskey, the same as any man. I like to go out around and +see folks, talk to 'em, dance--you know, have a good time!" + +"Everybody does," Terabon admitted. + +"And my wife, she wouldn't go around and she was--she was----" + +"Jealous because you wanted to use your talents to entertain?" + +"That's it, that's it. You understand! I'm a good fellow; I like to joke +around and have a good time. Take a man that don't go around, and he's a +dead one. It ain't as though she couldn't be a good sport--Lord! Why, +I'd just found out she was the best sport that ever lived. I thought +everything was all right. Next day she was gone--tricky as the devil! +Why, she got me to sign up a lot of papers, got all my spare cash, +stocks, bonds--everything handy. Oh, she's slick! Bright, too--bright's +anybody. Why, she could talk about books, or flowers, or birds--about +anything. I never took much interest in them." + +"And brought up in that shack on Distiller's Island?" + +"Stillhouse Island, yes, sir. What do you know about that?" + +"A remarkable woman!" + +"Yes, sir--I--I've got some photographs," and Carline turned to a +writing desk built into the motorboat. He brought out fifteen or twenty +photographs. Terabon looked at them eagerly. He could not associate the +girl of the pictures with the island shack, with this weakling man, nor +yet with the Mississippi River--at least not at that moment. + +"She's beautiful," he exclaimed, sincerely. + +"Yes, sir." Carline packed the pictures away. + +He started the motor, straightened the boat out and steered into +mid-stream, looking uncertainly from side to side. + +"There's no telling," he said, "not about anything." + +"On the river no one can tell much about anything!" Terabon assented. + +"You're just coming down, I suppose, looking for hist'ries to write?" + +"That's about it. I just sit in the skiff, there, and I write what I +see, on the machine: A big sandbar, a flock of geese, a big oak tree +just on the brink of the bank half the roots exposed and going to fall +in a minute or a day--everything like that!" + +"I bet some of these shanty-boaters could tell you histories," Carline +said. "I tell you, some of them are bad. Why, they'd murder a man for +ten dollars--those river pirates would." + +"No doubt about it!" + +"But they wouldn't talk, 'course. It must be awful hard to make up them +stories in the magazines." + +"Oh, if a man gets an idea, he can work it up into a story. It takes +work, of course, and time." + +"I don't see how anybody can do it." Carline shook his head. "There's a +man up to Gage. He wants to write a book, but he ain't never been able +to find anything to write about. You see, Gage ain't much but a little +landing, you might say." + +"Chester, and the big penitentiary is just below there, isn't it?" + +"Oh, yes!" + +"I'd think there might be at least one story for him to write there." + +"Oh, he don't want to write about crooks; he wants to write about nice +people, society people, and that kind, and big cities. He says it's +awful hard to find anybody to write about." + +"You've got to look to find heroes," Terabon admitted. "I came more than +a thousand miles to see a shanty-boat." + +"You di-i-d? Just to see a shanty-boat!" Carline stared at Terabon in +amazement. + +In spite of Terabon being such a queer duck he made a good companion. He +was a good cook, for one thing, and when they landed in below Hickman +Bend, he went ashore and killed three squirrels and two black ducks in +the woods and marsh beyond the new levee. + +When he returned, he found a skiff landed near by on the sandbar. +Carline was talking to the man, who had just handed over a gallon jug. +The man pulled away swiftly and disappeared down the chute. Carline +explained: + +"He's a whiskey pedlar; a man always needs to have whiskey on board; +malaria is bad down here, and a fellow might catch cold. You see how it +is if a man don't have some whiskey on board." + +"I understand," Terabon admitted. + +After supper Carline decided that there was a lot of night air around, +and that a man couldn't take too many precautions against that deadly +river miasma whose insidious menace so many people have ignored to their +great cost. As for himself, Carline didn't propose to be taken bad when +he had so universal a specific, to take or leave alone, just as he +wanted. + +Terabon, having put up the hoops of his skiff and stretched the canvas +over them, retired to his own boat and spent two hours writing. + +In the morning, when he stirred out, he found Carline lying in the +engine pit, oblivious to the night air that had fallen upon him, +protected as he was by his absorption of the sure preventive of night +air getting him first. The jug was on the floor, and Terabon, after a +little thought, poured out about two and a half quarts which he replaced +with distilled water from the motorboat's drinking bottle. Then he +dropped down the chute into the main river to resume his search for +really interesting "histories." + +The river had never been more glorious than that morning. The sun shone +from a white, misty sky. It was warm, with the slight tang of autumn, +and the yellow leaves were fluttering down; squirrels were barking, and +a flock of geese, so high in the air that they sparkled, in the +sunshine, were gossiping, and the music of their voices rained upon the +river surface as upon a sounding board. + +Terabon was approaching Donaldson's Point, Winchester Chute, Island No. +10, and New Madrid. An asterisk on his map showed that Slough Neck was +interesting, and sure enough, he found a 60-foot boat just above Upper +Slough Landing, anchored off the sandbar. This was a notorious whiskey +boat, and just below it was a flight of steps up the steep bank. No +plantation darky ever used those steps. He would rather scramble in the +loose silt and risk his neck than climb that easy stairway--yes, +indeed! + +Terabon, drifting by, close at hand, gazed at the scene. From that craft +Negroes had gone forth to commit crime; white men had gone out to do +murder, and one of them had rolled down those steps, shot dead. On the +other side of Slough Neck, just outside of Tiptonville, there was a tree +on which seven men had been lynched. + +He pulled across to the foot of Island No. 10 sandbar, to walk up over +that historic ground, and to visit the remnants of Winchester Chute +where General Grant had moored barges carrying huge mortars with which +to drop shells into the Confederate works on Island No. 10. + +He hailed a shanty-boat just below where he landed, and as the window +opened and he saw someone within, he asked: + +"Will you kindly watch my skiff? I'm going up over the island." + +"Yes, glad to!" + +"Thank you." He bowed, and went upon his exploration. + +It was hard to believe that this sandbar, grown to switch willows which +increased to poles six or seven inches in diameter, had once been a big +island covered with stalwart trees, with earthworks, cannon, and +desperate soldiers. Its serene quiet, undulating sands and casual +weed-trees, showing the stain of floods that had filled the bark with +sediment, proved the indifference of the river to fleeting human +affairs--the trifling work of human hands had been washed away in a +spring tide or two, and Island No. 10 was half way to the Gulf by this +time. + +Terabon returned to his skiff three or four hours later, and taking up +his typewriter, began to write down what he had seen, elaborating the +pencil notes which he had made. As he wrote he became conscious of an +observer, and of the approach of someone who was diffident and +curious--a familiar enough sensation of late. + +He looked up, started, and reached for his hat. It was a woman, a young +woman, with bright eyes, grace, dignity--and much curiosity. + +"I didn't mean to disturb you," she apologized. "I was just wondering +what on earth you could be doing!" + +"Oh, I'm writing--making notes----" + +"Yes. But--here!" + +"I'm a newspaper writer," he made his familiar statement. "My name is +Lester Terabon. I'm from New York. I came down here from St. Louis to +see the Mississippi." + +"You write for newspapers?" she repeated. + +She came and sat down on the bow deck of his skiff, frankly curious and +interested. + +"My name's Nelia Crele," she smiled. "I'm a shanty-boater. That's my +boat." + +"I'm sure I'm glad to meet you," he bowed, "Mrs. Crele." + +"You find lots to write about?" + +"I can't write fast enough," he replied, enthusiastically, "I've been +coming six weeks--from St. Louis. I've made more than 60,000 words in +notes already, and the more I make the more I despair of getting it all +down. Why, right here--New Madrid, Island 10, and--and----" + +"And me?" she asked. "Did you stop at Gage?" + +"At Stillhouse Island," he admitted, circumspectly. "Mr. Crele there +said I should be sure and tell his daughter, if I happened to meet her, +that her mother wanted her to be sure and write and let her know how she +is getting along." + +"Oh, I'll do that," she assured him. "I was just writing home when you +landed in. Isn't it strange how everybody knows everybody down here, and +how you keep meeting people you know--that you've heard about? You knew +me when you saw me!" + +"Yes--I'd seen your pictures." + +"Mammy hadn't but one picture of me!" She stared at him. + +"That's so," he thought, unused to such quick thought. + +"Isn't it beautiful?" she asked him, looking around her. "Do you try to +write all that, too--I mean this sandbar, and those willows, and that +woods down there, and--the caving bank?" + +"Everything," he admitted. "See?" + +He handed her the page which he had just written. Holding it in one +hand--there was hardly a breath of air stirring--she read it word for +word. + +"Yes, that's it!" She nodded her head. "How do you do it? I've just been +reading--let me see, '... the best romance becomes dangerous if by its +excitement it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, +and--and----' I've forgotten the rest of it. Could anything make this +life down here--anything written, I mean--seem uninteresting?" + +He looked at her without answering. What was this she was saying? What +was this shanty-boat woman, this runaway wife, talking about? He was +dazed at being transported so suddenly from his observations to such +reflections. + +"That's right," he replied, inanely. "I remember reading +that--somewhere!" + +"You've read Ruskin?" she cried. "Really, have you?" + +"Sesame and Lilies--there's where it was!" + +"Oh, you know?" she exclaimed, looking at him. He caught the full flash +of her delight, as well as surprise, at finding someone who had read +what she quoted, and could place the phrase. + +"The sun's bright," she continued. "Won't you come down on my boat in +the shade? I've lots of books, and I'm hungry--I'm starving to talk to +somebody about them!" + +It was a pretty little boat, sweet and clean; the sitting room was +draped with curtains along the walls, and there was a bookcase against +the partition. She drew a rocking chair up for him, drew her own little +sewing chair up before the shelves, and began to take out books. + +He had but to sit there and show his sympathy with her excitement over +those books. He could not help but remember where he had first heard her +name, seen the depressed woman who was her mother. And the bent old +hunter who was her father. It was useless for him to try to explain +her. + +Just that morning, too, he had left Nelia Crele's husband in an +alcoholic stupor--a man almost incredibly stupid! + +"I know you don't mind listening to me prattle!" she laughed, archly. +"You're used to it. You're amused, too, and you're thinking what a story +I will make, aren't you, now?" + +"If--if a man could only write you!" he said, with such sincerity that +she laughed aloud with glee. + +"Oh, I've read books!" she declared. "I know--I've been miserable, and +I've been unhappy, but I've turned to the books, and they've told me. +They kept me alive--they kept me above those horrid little things which +a woman--which I have. You've never been in jail, I suppose?" + +"What--in jail? I've been there, but not a prisoner. To see prisoners." + +"You couldn't know, then, the way prisoners feel. I know. I reckon most +women know. But now I'm out of jail. I'm free." + +He could not answer; her eyes flashed as they narrowed, and she fairly +glared at him in the intensity of her declaration. + +"Oh, you couldn't know," she laughed, "but that's the way I feel. I'm +free! Isn't the river beautiful to-day? I'm like the river----" + +"Which is kept between two banks?" he suggested. + +"I was wrong," she shook her head. "I'm a bird----" + +"I can well admit that," he laughed. + +"Oh," she cried, in mock rebuke, "the idea!" + +"It's your own--and a very brilliant one," he retorted, and they laughed +together. + +There was no resisting the gale of Nelia Crete's effervescent spirits. +It was clear that she had burst through bonds of restraint that had +imprisoned her soul for years. Terabon was too acute an observer to +frighten the sensitive exhilaration. It would pass--he was only too sure +of that. What would follow? + +The sandbar was miles long, miles wide; six or seven miles of caving +bend was visible below them, part of it over another sandbar that +extended out into the river. There was not a boat, house, human being, +or even fence in sight in any direction. Across the river there was a +cotton field, but so far away it was that the stalks were but a purple +haze under the afternoon sun. + +"You think I'm queer?" she suddenly demanded. + +"No, but I would be if----" + +"If what?" + +"If I didn't think you were the dandiest river tripper in the world," he +exclaimed. + +"You're a dear boy," she laughed. "You don't know how much good you've +done me already. Now we'll get supper." + +"I've two black ducks," he said. "I'll bet they'll make a good----" + +"Roast," she took his word. "I'll show you I'm a dandy cook, too!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The Mississippi River brings people from the most distant places to +close proximity; Pittsburg and even Salamanca meet Fort Benton and St. +Paul at the Forks of the Ohio. On the other hand, with uncanny +certainty, those most eager to meet are kept apart and thrown to the +ends of the world. + +Parson Rasba saw Nelia Crele's boat drift out into the current and drop +down the Chute of Wolf Island, and impelled by solitude and imagination +he followed her. She had awakened sensations in his heart which he had +never before known, so he acted with primitive directness and moved out +into the Mississippi. + +The river carried him swiftly toward a town whose electric lights +sparkled on a high bluff, Hickman, and he saw the cabin-boat of the +young and venturesome woman clearly outlined between him and the town. +For nearly an hour he was conscious of the assistance of the river in +carrying him along at an even pace, permitting him to remain as guardian +of the woman. He felt that she needed him, that he must help her, and +there grew in his heart an emotion which strangely made him desire to +sing and to shout. + +He watched the cabin-boat drift down right into the pathway of +reflections that fell from the lights on Hickman bluffs. His eyes were +apparently fixed upon the boat, and he could not lose sight of it. The +river carried him right into the same glare, and for a few minutes he +looked up at the arcs, and shaded his eyes to get some view of the town +whose sounds consisted of the mournful howling of a dog. + +Rasba looked back at the town, and felt the awe which a sleeping +village inspires in the thoughts of a passer-by. He thought perhaps he +would never again see that town. He wondered if there was a lost soul +there whose slumberings he could disturb and bring it to salvation. He +looked down the river, and the next instant his boat was seized as by a +strong hand and whirled around and around, and flung far from its +course. He remembered the phenomenon at the Forks of the Ohio, and again +at Columbus bluff's. With difficulty he found his bearings. + +He looked around and saw to his surprise that he was drifting up stream. +He looked about him in amazement. He searched the blackness of the +river, and stared at the blinding lights of the town. He began to row +with his sweeps, and look down stream whither had disappeared the +cabin-boat whose occupant he had felt called upon to guard and protect. + +That boat was gone. In the few minutes it had disappeared from his view. +He surmised, at last, that he had been thrust into an eddy, for the +current was carrying him up stream, and he rowed against it in vain. +Only when he had floated hundreds of yards in the leisurely reverse +current below the great bar of Island No. 6 and had drifted out into the +main current again, almost under the Hickman lights once more, was he +able in his ignorance to escape from the time-trap into which he had +fallen. + +Standing at his oars, and rowing down stream, he tried to overtake the +young woman whose good looks, bright eyes, sympathetic understanding, +and need of his spiritual tutoring had caught his mind and made it +captive. + +Dawn, following false dawn, saw him passing New Madrid, still rowing +impatiently, his eyes staring down the wild current, past a graveyard +poised ready to plunge on the left bank, and then down the baffling +crossing at Point Pleasant and through the sunny breadths up to +Tiptonville, half sunk in the river, only to fall away toward Little +Cypress--and still no sight of the lost cabin-boat. + +In mid-afternoon, weary and worn by sleeplessness and expectancy, he +pulled his boat into the deadwater at the foot of an eddy and having +thrown over his stone anchor, sadly entered his cabin and, without +prayer, subsided into sleep. + +If he dreamed he was not awakened to consciousness by his visions. He +slept on in the deep weariness which followed the wakefulness that had +continued through a night of undiminished anxiety into a day of doubt +and increasing despair. It had not occurred to him, in his simplicity, +that the young woman would escape from him. The shadow and the gloom +next to the bank on either side had not suggested his passing by the +object of his intention. His thought was that she must have gone right +on down stream, though he might have divined from his own condition that +she, too, long since must have been weary. + +He awakened some time in the morning, after twelve hours or so of +uninterrupted slumber. He turned out into the fascinating darkness of +early morning on the Mississippi. A gust of chill wind swept down out of +the sky, rippling the surface and roaring through the woods up the bank. +The gust was followed by a raw calm and further blanketing of the few +stars that penetrated the veil of mist. + +He had in mind the further pursuit of Nelia, and hauling in his anchor +he pulled out into mid-current and then by lamp-light prepared his +breakfast. While he worked, he discovered that dawn was near, and at +lengthening intervals he went out to look ahead, hoping to see the +object of his pursuit. Perhaps he would have gone on down to New +Orleans, only it is not written in Mississippi weather prophecies that +the tenor of one's way shall be even. + +He heard wind blowing, and felt his boat bobbing about inexplicably. He +went out to look about him, and in the morning twilight he discovered +that the whole aspect of the Mississippi had changed. With the invisible +sunrise had come an awe-inspiring spectacle which excited in his mind +forebodings and dismay. + +First, there was the cold wind which penetrated his clothes and +shrivelled the very meat of his bones. The river's surface, which he had +come to regard as a shimmering, polished floor, was now rumpled and +broken into lumpy waves, like mud on a road, and the waves broke into +dull yellow foam caps. There was not a light gleam on the whole surface, +and dark shadows seemed to crawl and twist about in the very substance +of the heavy and turgid waters. + +Rasba stared. Born and trained in mountains, where he remembered clear +streams of pale, beautiful green, catching reflections of white clouds +and clean foliage, with only occasional patches of sullen clay-bank +wash, he refused to acknowledge the great tawny Mississippi at its best, +as a relation of the streams he knew. Certainly this menacing dawn +reminded him of nothing he had ever witnessed. Waves slapped against his +boat, waves which did not conceal, but rather accentuated, the sullen +and relentless rush of the vast body of the water. While the surface +leaped and struggled, wind-racked, the deeps moved steadily on. Elijah +saw that his boat was being driven into a river chute, and seizing his +sweeps, he began to row toward a sandbar which promised shoal water and +a landing. + +He managed to strike the foot of the bar, and threw out his anchor rock. +He let go enough line to let the boat swing, and went in to breakfast. +While he was eating, he noticed that the table turned gray and that a +yellowish tinge settled upon everything. When he went out to look +around, he found that the air was full of a cloud that filled his eyes +with dust, and that a little drift of sand had already formed on the +deck of his boat, gritting under his feet. The cloud was so thick that +he could hardly see the river shores; a gale was blowing, and a whole +sandbar, miles long, was coming down upon him from the air. The sandbar, +when he looked at it, seemed fairly to be running, like water. + +Parson Rasba remembered the storms of biblical times, and better +understood the wrath that was visited upon the Children of Israel. + +He dwelt in that storm all that day. He shut the door to keep the sand +out, but it spurted through the cracks. He could see the puffing gusts +as they burst through the keyhole, and he could hear the heavier grains +rattling upon the thin, painted boards of his roof. His clothes grayed, +his hands gritted, his teeth crunched fine stone; he pondered upon the +question of what sin he had committed to bring on him this ancient +punishment. + +For a long time his finite mind was without inspiration, without +understanding, and then he choked with terror and regret. He had +beguiled himself into believing that it was his duty to take care of +Nelia Crele, the fair woman of the river. He had believed only too +readily that his duty lay where his heart's desire had been most eager. +He sat there in dumb horror at the sin which had blinded him. + +"I come down yeah to find Jock Drones for his mother!" He reminded +himself by speaking his mission aloud, adding, "And hyar I've be'n +floating down looking for a woman, looking for a pretty woman!" + +And because he could remember her shoes, the smooth leather over those +exquisite ankles, Parson Rasba knew that his sin was mortal, and that no +other son of man had ever strayed so far as he. + +No wonder he was caught in a desert blizzard where no one had ever said +there was a desert! + +"Lord God," he cried out, "he'p this yeah po'r sinner! He'p! He'p!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Jock, _alias_ "Slip," Drones, was discovering how small the world really +is. Like many another man, he had figured that no one would know him, no +one could possibly find him, down the Mississippi River, more than a +thousand miles from home. Having killed, or at least fought his man in a +deadly feud war, he had escaped into the far places. His many months of +isolation had given him confidence and taken the natural uneasiness of +flight from his mind. + +Now someone was coming down the Mississippi inquiring for Jock Drones! A +detective, as relentless, as sure as a bullet in the heart, was coming. +He might even then be lurking in the brush up the bank, waiting to get a +sure drop. He might be dropping down that very night. He might step in +among the players, unnoticed, unseen, and wait there for the moment of +surprise and action. + +Slip's mind ransacked the far places of which he had heard: Oklahoma, +the Missouri River, California, the Mexican border, Texas. Far havens +seemed safest, but against their lure he felt the balance of Buck's +comradeship. + +Caruthersville had a sporting crowd with money, lots of money. The +people there were liberal spenders, and they liked a square game better +than any other sport in the world. The boat was making good money, big +money. The two partners had only to break even in their own play to make +a big living out of the kitty in the poker tables, and there was always +a big percentage in favour of the boat, because Buck and Slip understood +each other so well. Slip's share often amounted to more in a week than +he had earned in two years up there in the mountains felling trees, +rafting them in eddies, and tripping them down painfully to the +sawmills. These never did pay the price they were advertised to pay for +timber, and one had to watch the sealers to see that they didn't short +the measure in the under water and goose-egg good logs. + +He remembered Jest Prebol, who was lying shot through in the boat +alongside, and he went over to the boat, lighted the lamp, and sat down +by the wounded man. Prebol was a little delirious, and Slip went over on +his own boat, and called Buck out. + +"We got a sick man on our hands," he whispered. "Ain't Doc Grell come +oveh yet?" + +"Come the last boat," Buck said, and called the doctor out. + +"Say, Doc, that sick feller out here, will you look't him?" + +Doctor Grell went over to the boat. He looked at the wounded man, and +frowned as he took the limp wrist. He tried the temperature, too, and +then shook his head. + +"He's a sick man, Slip," he said. "Thought he was coming all right last +night. Now----" + +He looked at the wound, and gazed at the great, blue plate around the +bullet hole. + +"He's bad?" Slip said, in alarm. "Poison's workin', Doc?" + +"Mighty bad!" + +There was nothing for it. Doctor Grell's night of pleasure had turned +into one of life-saving and effort. He sent Slip over to drag away one +of the young men from his game, and they rigged up two square trunks and +a waterproof tarpaulin into an operating table. Then, as Slip was faint +and sick, the two drove him back to the gambling boat, while they, the +graduate and the student, entered upon a gamble with a human life the +stake. + +Of that night's efforts, fighting the "poison" with the few sharp +weapons at their command--later reinforced by a hasty trip across the +river to get others--the two need never tell. While they worked, they +could hear at intervals the shout of a winner in the other boat. In +moments of perfect quiet they heard the quick rustling of shuffled +cards; they heard the rattling of dice in hard, muffled boxes; they +heard, at intervals, the rattling of stove lids and smelt the soft-coal +smoke which blew down on them from the kitchen chimney. Slip, not +forgetful of them, brought over pots of black coffee and inquired after +the patient. He found the two men paler on each visit, and stripped down +more and more, till they were merely in their sweaty undershirts. + +Toward morning the wind began to blow; it began to grow cold. The noises +on the neighbouring boat grew fainter in the low rumble of a stormy wind +out of the northwest, and the shanty-boat lifted at intervals on a wave +that rolled out of the main current and across the eddy, making their +operating room even more unstable. + +Under their onslaught the death which was taking hold of Jest Prebol was +checked, and the river rat whose life had been forfeited for his sly +crimes became the object of a doctor's sentiment and belief in his own +training. + +Long after midnight, when some few of the patrons of the games had +already taken their departure, the doors opened oftener and oftener, +letting the geometrical shaft of the yellow light flare out across the +waters, and the grotesque shadows of those who departed stood out +against the night and waters as the men shivered in the wind and bent to +feel their way into the boats. + +After dawn Doctor Grell and his assistant, peaked and white, limp with +their tremendous effort, and shivering with exhaustion of mind and body, +walked out of the little shanty-boat, up to the big one, sat down with +Buck and Slip to breakfast, and then took their own course across the +ruffled and tumble-surfaced river. + +"I 'low he'll pull through," Doctor Grell admitted, almost reluctantly. +"He's in bad shape, though, with the things the bullet carried into him, +but we sure swabbed him out. How'd the game go to-night, boys?" + +"Purty good." Buck shook his head. "Tammer sure had luck his way--won a +seventy-dollar pot onct." + +"I sure wanted to play," Grell shook his head, "but in my profession you +aren't your own, and you cayn't quit." + +"We owe you for it," Buck said. "He's our friend----" + +"And he's ourn, too," Grell declared, "so we'll split the difference. I +expect it was worth a hundred dollars what we two did to-night. That'll +be fifty, boys, if it's all right." + +"Yes, suh," Slip said, handing over five ten-dollar bills, and Grell +handed two of them to his companion, who shook his head, saying: + +"Nope, Doc! Ten only to-night. My first fee!" + +"And you'll never have a more interesting case," Grell declared. "No, +indeed! You'll see cases, come you go to college, but none more +interesting, and if we've pulled him through, you'll never have better +reason for satisfaction." + +The two got into a little motorboat and went bounding and rocking in the +wind and waves toward the town behind the levee on the far bank. The +two gamblers watched the little boat rocking along till it was but a +black fleck in the midst of the weltering brown waters. + +"I don't reckon any one'll drap down to-day," Slip muttered, looking up +the river. + +"We'll keep our eyes open," Buck replied. "You needn't to worry, you're +plumb worn out, Slip. Git to bed, now, an' I'll slick up around." + +It was a cold, dry gale. From sharp gusts with near calms between the +wind grew till it was a steady, driving storm that flattened against the +shanty-boat sides, and whistled and roared through the trees up the +bank. And instead of dying down at dusk, it increased so much that the +big acetylene light was not hung out, and if any one came down to the +opposite shore he saw that there would be no game that night. + +Buck went in and sat down by the wounded man's bed, giving him the +medicines Doctor Grell had left. For the attentions Prebol, in lucid +intervals, showed wondering looks of gratitude, like an ugly dog which +has been trapped and then set free. What he had suffered during the +night even he could hardly recall in the enfeebled condition of his +mind, but the spoonfuls of broth, the medicine that thrilled his body, +the man's very companionship, lending strength, took away the feeling of +despair which a man in the extremities of anguish and alone in the world +finds hardest to resist. + +Buck, sitting there, gazed at the wan countenance, studying it. Prebol +had forgotten, but when Buck first arrived on the river, the pirate, a +much younger man then, had carelessly and perhaps for display told the +stranger and softpaw many things about the river which were useful. It +occurred to Buck that he was now paying back a debt of gratitude. + +Something boiled up in his thoughts, and he swore to himself that +he owed nothing, that the world owed him, and he bridged the years of +his disappointment and desolation back to the hour when he had stormed +out of the life he had known, to come down the Mississippi to be a +gambler. Prebol, in his lapses into delirium, called a woman's name, +Sadie--always Sadie! And if he would have cursed that name in his +consciousness, out of the depths of his soul it came with softness and +gentleness of affection. + +Buck wondered what Jest Prebol had done to Sadie that she had driven him +down there, and he cursed with his own lips, while he stifled in the +depths of his own soul another name. His years, his life, had been +wasted, just as this man Prebol's life was wasted, just as Slip's life +was being wasted. Buck gave himself over to the exquisite torture of +memories and reflections. He wondered what had become of the woman for +love of whom he had let go all holds and degenerated to this heartless +occupation of common gambler? + +True to Slip, he had watched the river for the stranger whose inquiries +had been carried down in fair warning to all the river people--and Buck, +suddenly conscious of his own part in that river system, laughed in +surprise. + +"Why," he said to himself, "humans are faithful to one another! It's +what they live for, to be faithful to one another!" + +It was an incredible, but undeniable theory. In spite of his own wilful +disbelief in the faith of mankind, here he was sitting by one poor +devil's bed while he kept his weather eye out upon the rough river in +the interests of another--a murderer! He pondered on the question of +whether any one kept faith with him. His mind cried out angrily, "No!" +but on second thought, in spite of himself, he realized distinctly that +he had let one person's faithlessness overcome his trust of all others. + +No day on the Mississippi is longer than the cold, bleak monotone of a +dry gale out of the north. There is an undertone to the voices which +depresses the soul as the rank wind shrivels the body. On whistling +wings great flocks of wild fowl come driving down before the wintry +gales, or they turn back from the prospect of an early spring. +Steamboats are driven into the refuge of landing or eddy, and if the +power craft cannot stand the buffetings, much less are the exposed +little houseboats, toys of current and breeze, able to escape the +resistless blasts. So the wind possesses itself of the whole river +breadth and living creatures are driven to shelter. + +Prebol, shot through and conscious of the reward of his manner of +living; Slip, a fugitive under the menace of a murderer's fate; and +Buck, given over to melancholy, were but types on the lengths and +tributaries of the indifferent flood. + +Nothing happened, nothing could happen. The arrival of Slip from his +restless bunk relieved Buck of his vigil, and he went to bed and slept +into the dawn of another day--a day like the previous one, and fit to +drive him up the bank, into the woods, and among the fallen branches of +rotten trees seeking in physical activity to check the mourning and +tauntings of a mind over which he found, as often before, that he had no +control. + +And yet, when the storm suddenly blew itself out with a light puff and a +sudden flood of sunshine, just as the sun went down, Prebol's condition +took a sudden turn for the better, Slip forgot his fears, and Buck burst +into a gay little whistled tune, which he could never whistle except +when he was absurdly and inexplicably merry. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Terabon's notebooks held tens of thousands of words describing the +Mississippi River and the people he had met. He had drifted down long, +lonely bends, and he had surprised a flock of wild geese under a little +bluff on an island sandbar just above Kaskaskia, in the big cut-off +there. Until this day the Mississippi had been growing more and more +into his consciousness; not people, not industries, not corn, wheat, or +cotton had become interesting and important, but the yellow flood +itself. + +His thought had been, when he left St. Louis, to stop in towns and +gather those things which minds not of the newspaper profession lump +under the term of "histories," but now, after his hundreds of miles of +association with the river, his thought took but brief note of those +trifling and inconspicuous appearances known as "river towns." He had +passed by many places with hardly a glance, so entrancing had been the +prospect of endless miles of earth-bound flood!--bound but wearing away +its bonds. + +Now, in one of the most picturesque of all the scenes he had witnessed, +in the historic double bend above New Madrid, he found himself with a +young and attractive woman. He realized that, in some way, the +Mississippi River "spirit"--as he always quoted it in his calm and +dispassionate remarks and dissertations and descriptions--had +encompassed him about, and, without giving him any choice, had tied him +down to what in all the societies he had ever known would have been +called a "compromising position." + +That morning he had left the husband of this pretty girl lying in a +drunken stupor, and now in the late evening the fugitive wife was +taking it for granted that he would dine with her on her boat--and he +had himself entered upon a partnership with her for that meal which +could not by any possibility be called prosaic or commonplace. He had a +vivid recollection of having visited a girl back home--he thought the +phrase with difficulty--and he remembered the word "chaperon" as from a +foreign language, or at least from an obsolete and forgotten age. + +His familiarity with newspaper work did not relieve him of a feeling of +uncertainty. In fact, it emphasized the questionableness of the +occasion. "I'll show you I'm a dandy cook," she had said, and while he +followed her on board the boat, with the two big black ducks to help +prepare, he wondered and remembered and, in spite of his life-long +avoidance of all appearance of evil, submitted to this irresistible +circumstance, wherever it might lead. + +So he built the fire in her kitchen stove. She mixed up dressing and +seasoned the birds, made biscuit batter for hot-bread, brought out +stacks and stores of things to eat, or to eat with, and they set the +table, ground the coffee, and got the oven hot for the roasting and +baking. + +One thing took the curse off their position: They had to have all the +windows and doors wide open so that they seemed fairly to be cooking on +an open sandbar at the edge of the river. Terabon took an inward +satisfaction in that fact. It is not possible to feel exceedingly wicked +or depraved when there is a mile-wide Mississippi on the one hand and a +mile-wide sandbar on the other side, and the sun is shining calmly upon +the bright and innocent waters. + +As the ducks were young and tender, their cooking took but an hour, or a +little more, and the interim was occupied in the countless things that +must be done to prepare even a shanty-boat feast. He stirred some +cranberry sauce, and she had to baste the ducks, get the flour stirred +with water, and condensed cream for gravy, besides setting the table and +raising the biscuits, to have them ready for the ducks. She must needs +wonder if she'd forgotten the salt, and for ten minutes she was almost +in a panic at the thought, while he watched her in breathless +wonderment, and took covert glances up the Mississippi River, fearful +of, and yet almost wishing to see, that pursuing motorboat come into +view. + +When at last the smoking viands were on the ample table and they sat +with their knees under it, and he began to carve the ducks and dish out +the unblessed meal, he glanced up stream through the cabin window on his +right. He caught a glimpse of a window pane flashing miles distant in +the light of the setting sun--the whiskey boat without doubt. He saw a +flock of ducks coming like a great serpent just above the river surface, +then a shadow lifted as out of the river, swept up the trees in the lost +section of Kentucky opposite, and from spattering gold the scene turned +to blue which rapidly became purple, darkening visibly. + +Through the open doors and windows swept the chill of twilight, and +while she lighted the big lamp he did her bidding and closed the doors +and windows. Those shelves of books, classics and famous, time-tried +fiction, leered at him from their racks. The gold of titles, the blues +and reds and greens of covers fairly mocked him, and he saw himself +struggling with the menace of sin; he saw an honourable career and +carefully nurtured ambition fading from view, for did not all those +master minds warn the young against evil? + +But they talked over the ducks of what a pity it was that all towns +could not engage themselves in thought the way Athens used to do, and +they wondered to each other when the hurrying passion of greed and its +varying phenomena would become reconciled to a modest competence and the +simplicity which they, for example, were enjoying down the Mississippi. + +When he looked up from his meat sometimes he caught her eyes looking at +him. He recognized her superiority of experience and position; she made +him feel like a boy, but a boy of whom she was really quite fond, or at +least in whom she was interested. For that feeling he was grateful, +though there was something in her smile which led him to doubt his own +success in veiling or hiding the doubts or qualms which had, unbidden, +risen in his thoughts at the equivocal nature of their position. + +Having dined on the best meal he had had since leaving home, they talked +a little while over the remains of the sumptuous repast. But their mood +grew silent, and they kept up the conversation with difficulty. + +"I think I'd better put up my canvas top," he blurted out, and she +assented. + +"And then you must come back and help me wash this awful pile of +dishes," she added. + +"Oh, of course!" he exclaimed. + +"I'll help with the canvas," she said, and he dared not look at her. + +By the light of his lantern they put up the canvas to protect the boat +from dew. Then they looked around at the night; stars overhead, the +strange haze from the countless grains of sand which wavered over the +bar, and the river in the dark, running by. + +They looked at the river together, and they felt its majesty, its power, +its resistlessness. + +"It's overwhelming," he whispered. "When you can't see it you hear it, +or you feel it!" + +"And it makes everything else seem so small, so unimportant, so +perfectly negligible," she added, consciously, and then with vivacity: +"I'll not make you wipe those dishes, after all. But you must take me +for a walk up this sandbar!" + +"Gladly," he laughed, "but I'll help with the dishes as well!" + +She put on a jacket, pinned on a cap, and together, in merry mood, they +romped up the sandbar. It was all sand; there was not a log of timber, +not a drift barrel, not a stick of wood anywhere as far as they could +see. But as they walked along every foot of the sandbar was different, +wind-rifts, covering long, water-shaped reefs; or rising knolls, like +hills, and long depressions which held shadows darker by far than the +gloom of the night. They walked along, sometimes yards apart, sometimes +side by side. They forgot Ruskin and Carlyle--they remembered Thoreau's +"Cape Cod" and talked of the musical sands which they could hear now +under their own feet. In the silence they heard river voices; murmurings +and tones and rhythms and harmonies; and Terabon, who had accumulated a +vast store of information from the shanty-boaters, told her some of the +simple superstitions with which the river people beguile themselves and +add to the interest and difficulties of their lives. + +"An old river man can look at the river and tell when a headrise is +coming," he told her. "He knows by the looks of the water when the river +is due to fall again. When he dreams, he says he knows what is going to +happen, and where to find buried treasure, and if there is going to be +an earthquake or a bad storm." + +"They get queer living alone!" she said, thoughtfully. "Lots of them +used to stop in at our slough on Kaw River. I was afraid of them!" + +"You afraid of anything!" he exclaimed. "Of any one!" + +"Oh, that was a long time ago--ages ago!" She laughed, and then gave +voice to that most tragic riverside thought. "But now--nothing at all +matters now!" + +She said it with an intonation which was almost relief and laughing, +that Terabon, whose mind had grappled for years with one of Ruskin's +most touching phrases, understood how it could be that the heart of a +human being could become so used to sorrows that no misery could bring +tears. + +He knew in that very moment, as by revelation, that he had caught from +her lips one of the bitterest phrases which the human mind is capable of +forming. He was glad of the favour which fate had bestowed upon him, and +he thrilled, while he regretted, that in that hour he could not forget +that he was a seeker of facts, a gatherer of information. + +To match her mood was beyond his own power. By a simple statement of +fact she had given herself a place in his thought comparable to--he went +at making ideas again, despite himself--comparable to one of those +wonderful widows which are the delight, while they rend to tatters the +ambitions of delvers into the mysteries of Olympian lore. This bright, +pretty, vivacious young woman had suffered till she had arrived at a +Helen's recklessness--nothing mattered! + +There was a pause. + +"I think you are in a fair way to become unforgetable in connection with +the Mississippi River," he suggested, with even voice. + +"What do you mean?" she demanded, quickly. + +"Well, I'll tell you," with the semblance of perfect frankness. "I've +been wondering which one of the Grecian goddesses you would have been +if you had lived, say, in Homer's time." + +"Which one of them I resemble?" she asked, amused. + +"Exactly that," he declared. + +"Oh, that's such a pretty compliment," she cried. "It fits so well into +the things I've been thinking. The river grows and grows on me, and I +feel as though I grew with it! You don't know--you could never +know--you're a man--masculine! For the first time in my life I'm +free--and--and I don't--I don't care a damn!" + +"But the future!" he protested, feebly. + +"That's it!" she retorted. "For a river goddess there is no future. It's +all in the present for her, because she is eternal." + +They had walked clear up to the southernmost tip of the sandbar point. +They could hear someone, perhaps a chorus of voices, singing on the +whiskey boat at the Upper Landing. They could see the light of the +boat's windows. There they turned and started back down the sandbar, +reaching the two boats moored side by side in the deadwater. + +"Shall I help with those dishes to-night?" he asked. + +"No, we'll do them in the morning," she replied without emphasis and as +a matter of course, which left him unassisted in his obvious +predicament. + +"Well," he drawled, after a time, "it's about midnight. I must say a +river goddess is--is beyond my most vivid dreams. I wonder----" + +"What do you wonder?" + +"If you'll let me kiss you good-night now?" + +"Yes," she answered. + +The stars twinkled as he put his arm around her and took the kiss which +her lips gave--smiling. + +"I'll help with those dishes in the morning," he said, helping her up +the gang plank of her boat. "Good-night!" + +"Good-night," she answered, and entered the cabin, the dim light of her +turned-down lamp flashing across the sandbar and revealing his face for +a moment. Then the door closed between them. + +He went to his skiff, raised the cover, and crawled into his canvas +hammock which was swung from both sides of his boat. Before going to +sleep he looked under the canvas at the river, at the stars, at the dark +cabin-boat forty feet distant in the eddy. + +At the same moment he saw a face against a window pane in the cabin. + +"What does it mean?" he asked himself, but there was no answer. The +river, when asked, seldom answers. Just as he was about to go to sleep, +he started up, wide awake. + +For the first time on the river, he had forgotten to post up his notes. +He felt that he had come that day, as never before, to the forks in the +road--when he must choose between the present and the future. He lighted +his lantern, sat up in his cot, and reached for his typewriter. + +He wrote steadily, at full speed, for an hour. When he had those +wonderful and fleeting thoughts and observations nailed down and safe, +he again put out his lantern, and turned in once more. + +Then he heard a light, gay laugh, clear and distinct-a river voice +beyond question--full of raillery, and yet beneath the mocking note was +something else which he could neither identify nor analyze, which he +hoped was not scorn or mere derision, which he wished might be +understanding and sympathy--till he thought of his making those notes. + +Then he despised himself, which was really good for his soul. His +conscience, instead of rejoicing, rebuked him as a cad. He swore under +his breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Augustus Carline was a long time recovering even his consciousness. A +thousand dreams, a thousand nightmares tormented his thoughts while the +mangling grip of unnumbered vises and ropes sank deep into his flesh; +ploughs and harrows dragged through his twisted muscles. + +Yet he did rise at last out of his pit and, leaning against the cabin of +his boat, look about him to see what hell he had escaped into. The sun +was shining somewhere, blinding his eyes, which were already seared. A +river coiled by, every ripple a blistering white flame. He heard birds +and other music which sounded like an anvil chorus performing in the +narrow confines of a head as large as a cabin. + +He remembered something. It was even worse than what he was undergoing, +but he could not quite call the horror to the surface of the weltering +sea of his feelings; he did not even know his name, nor his place, nor +any detail except the present pain--and he didn't want to know. He +fought against knowing, till the thing pressed exuberantly forward, and +then he knew that the beautiful girl, the woman he loved and to whom he +was married, had left him. That was the exquisite calamity of his soul, +and he flinched from the fact as from a blow. He was always flinching, +he remembered. He was always turning from the uncomfortable and the +bothering to seek what was easy and unengaging. Now, for the moment, he +could not undertake any relief from his present misery. + +Acres and lakes of water were flowing by, but his thirst was worse than +oceans could quench. He wanted to drink, but the thought of drinking +disgusted him beyond measure. It seemed to him that a drop of water +would flame up in his throat like gasolene on a bed of coals, and at +that moment his eyes fell upon the jug which stood by the misty engine +against the intangible locker. The jug was a monument of comfort and +substantiality. + +At the odour which filled the air when he had taken out the cork his +very soul was filled with horror. + +"But I got to drink it!" he whimpered. "It's the only thing that'll cure +me, the only thing I can stand. If I don't I'll die!" + +Not to drink was suicide, and to drink was living death! He could not +choose between the suggestions; he never had been trained to face fate +manfully. His years' long dissipation had unfitted him for every +squarely made decision, and now with horror on one side and terror on +the other, he could not procrastinate and wonder what folly had brought +him to this state. + +"Why couldn't it smell good!" he choked. "The taste'll kill me!" + +Taste he must, or perish! The taste was all that he had anticipated, and +melted iron could hardly have been more painful than that first torture +of cold, fusil acid. Gulping it down, he was willing to congratulate +himself on his endurance and wisdom, his very heroism in undertaking +that deadly specific. + +After it was over with, however, the raw chill, which the heat of the +sun did not help, began to yield to a glow of warmth. He straightened +his twisted muscles and after a hasty look around retreated into his +cabin and flung himself on his bunk. + +What length of time he spent in his recovery from the attacks of his +enemy, or rather enemies of a misspent youth, he could not surmise. He +did at last stir from his place and look with subdued melancholy into a +world of woe. He recalled the visitor, the man who wrote for newspapers, +and in a panic he searched for his money. + +The money was gone; $250, at least, had disappeared from his pockets. An +empty wallet on the cabin floor showed with what contemptuous calm the +funds had been abstracted from his pockets. He turned, however, to a +cunning little hiding place, and found there his main supply of +currency--a thousand dollars or more. + +No man likes to be robbed, and Carline, fixing upon his visitor Terabon +as his assailant, worked himself into a fine frenzy of indignation. The +fellow had purposely encouraged him to drink immoderately--Carline's +memory was clear and unmistaken on that point--and then, taking +advantage of his unconsciousness, the pseudo writer had committed +piracy. + +"I'd ought to be glad he didn't kill me!" Carline sneered to himself, +looking around to conjure up the things that might have been. + +The prospect was far from pleasing. The sky was dark, although it was +clearly sometime near the middle of a day--what day, he could but guess. +The wind was raw and penetrating, howling through the trees, and +skipping down the chute with a quick rustling of low, breaking waves. +The birds and animals which he had heard were gone with the sunshine. + +When Carline took another look over his boat, he found that it had been +looted of many things, including a good blanket, his shot gun and rifle, +ammunition, and most of his food supply--though he could not recall that +he had had much food on board. + +He lighted the coal-oil heater to warm the cabin, for he was chilled to +the bone. He threw the jug overboard, bound now never again to touch +another drop of liquor as long as he lived--that is, unless he happened +to want a drink. + +Wearily he set about cleaning up his boat. He was naturally rather +inclined to neatness and orderliness. He picked up, folded, swept out, +and put into shape. He appeased his delicate appetite with odds and ends +of things from a locker full of canned goods which had escaped the +looter. + +As long as he could, Carline had not engaged his thoughts with the +subject of his runaway wife. Now, his mind clearing and his body numb, +his soul took up the burden again, and he felt his helplessness thrice +confounded. He did not mind anything now compared to the one fact that +he had lost and deserved to lose the respect of the pretty girl who had +become his wife. He took out the photographs which he had of her, and +looked at them, one by one. What a fool he had been, and what a +scoundrel he was! + +He could not give over the pursuit, however; he felt that he must save +her from herself; he must seek and rescue her. He hoisted in his anchor +and starting the motor, turned into the chute and ran down before the +wind into the river. Never had he seen the Mississippi in such a dark +and repellent mood. + +When he had cleared the partial shelter of Island No. 8, he felt the +wind and current at the stern of his boat, driving it first one way then +the other. Steering was difficult, and fear began to clutch at his +heart. He felt his helplessness and the hopelessness of his search down +that wide river with its hundred thousand hiding places. He knew nothing +of the gossiping river people except that he despised them. He could not +dream that his ignorance of things five or ten miles from his home was +not typical of the shanty-boaters; he could not know that where he was a +stranger in the next township to his own home, a shanty-boater would +know the landing place of his friends a thousand miles or so down +stream. + +Without maps, without knowledge, without instinct, he might almost as +well have been blind. His careless, ignorant glance swept the eight or +nine miles of shoreline of sandbar from above Island No. 10 clear down +to the fresh sloughing above Hotchkiss's Landing, opposite the dry +Winchester Chute--in which deep-draft gun-barges had been moored fifty +years or so before. He did not even know it was Island No. 10, +Donaldson's Point; he didn't know that he was leaving Kentucky to skirt +Tennessee; much less did he dream that he was passing Kentucky again. He +looked at a shanty-boat moored at the foot of a mile-long sandbar; saw, +without observing, a skiff against the bar just above the cabined scow. +His gaze discovered smoke, houses, signs of settlement miles below, and +he quickened the beat of his motor to get down there. + +He longed for people, for humanity, for towns and cities; and that was a +big sawmill and cotton-gin town ahead of him, silhouetted along the top +of a high bank. He headed straight for it, and found his boat +inexplicably slowed up and rebuffed. Strangers on the river always do +find themselves baffled by the big New Madrid eddy, which even power +boats engage with difficulty of management. He landed at last against a +floating dock, and found that it was a fish market. + +Having made fast, he went up town and spent hours, till long after dark, +buying supplies, talking to people, getting the lonesomeness out of his +system, and making veiled inquiries to learn if anything had been heard +about a woman coming down the Mississippi. He succeeded in giving the +impression that he was a detective. In the restaurant he talked with a +cocky little bald-headed man all spruced up and dandyish. + +"I'm from Pittsburgh," the man said. "My name's Doss, Ronald Doss; I'm a +sportsman, but every winter I drop down here, hunting and fishing; +sometimes on the river, sometimes back in the bottoms. I suppose, Mr. +Carline, that you're a stranger on the river?" + +"Why, yes-s, down this way; I live near it, up at Gage." + +"I see, your first trip down. Got a nice gasolene boat, though!" + +"Oh, yes! You're stopping here?" + +"Just arrived this morning; trying to make up my mind whether I'll go +over on St. Francis, turkey-and deer-hunting, or get a boat and drop +down the Mississippi. Been wondering about that." + +"Well, say, now--why can't you drop down with me?" + +"Oh, I'd be in the way----" + +"Not a bit----" + +"Costs a lot to run a motorboat, and I'd have to----" + +"No, you wouldn't! Not a cent! Your experience and my boat----" + +"Well, of course, if you put it that way. If it'd be any accommodation +to you to have an old river man--I mean I've always tripped the river, +off and on, for sport." + +"It'd be an education for me, a great help!" + +"Yes, I expect it would be an education, if you don't know the river." +Doss smiled. + +They walked over to the river bank. An arc light cast its rays upon the +end of the street, down the sloping bank, and in a light circle upon the +rocking, muddy waters where the fish dock and several shanty-boats +rested against the bank. + +Doss whistled a little tune as he rested on his cane. + +The front door of the third houseboat up the eddy opened and closed. A +man climbed the bank and passed the two with a basket on his arm. + +"Come on down," Carline urged. + +"Not to-night," Doss said. "I've got my room up at the hotel, and I'll +have to get my stuff out of the railroad baggage room. But I'll come +down about 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning. Then we'll fit up and drop +down the river. Good-night!" + +Doss watched Carline go down to the dock and on to his boat. Then he +went up the street and held earnest confab with a man who had a basket +on his arm. They whispered ten minutes or so, then the man with the +basket returned to his shanty-boat, and within half an hour was back up +town, carrying two suitcases, a gun case, and a duffle bag. + +Doss went to the smaller hotel with these things and registered. He +walked down to the river in the morning and noticed that the third +shanty-boat had dropped out into the river during the night, in spite of +the storm that was blowing up. He went down and ate breakfast with +Carline, and the two went up and got Doss's outfit at the hotel. They +returned to the motorboat, and, having laid in a supply of groceries, +cast off their lines and steered away down the river. + +"Yes, sir, we'll find that girl if it takes all winter!" the fish-market +man heard Doss tell Carline in a loud voice. + +That afternoon a man in a skiff came down the river and turned into the +dock. As he landed, the fish-market man said to him: + +Yes. + +"If you see any lady coming down, tell her a detector is below, lookin' +fo' her. He's a cheap skate, into a motorboat--but I don't expect he'll +be into hit long, 'count of some river fellers bein' with him. But he +mout be bad, that detector. If you should see a nice lady, tell her." + +"You bet!" the skiff man, who was Lester Terabon, exclaimed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +For long hours Parson Rasba endured the drifting sand and the biting +wind which penetrated the weather-cracks in his poplar shanty-boat. It +was not until near nightfall that it dawned on him that he need not +remain there, that it was the simplest thing in the world to let go his +hold and blow before the wind till he was clear of the sandblast. + +He did haul in his anchor and float away. As he rode the waves and +danced before the wind the clouds of sand were flung swiftly down upon +the water, where the surface was covered with a film and a sheet of +dust. + +Standing at his sweeps, he saw that he was approaching the head of +another sandbar, and as he felt the water shoaling under the boat he +cast over the anchor and rode in clear air again. He was not quite +without a sense of humour. + +Shaking the dust out of his long hair and combing it out of his +whiskers, he laughed at his ignorance and lack of resource. He swept the +decks and floor of his cabin, and scooped the sand up with an ash shovel +to throw overboard. A lesson learned on the Mississippi is part of the +education of the future--if there is anything in the pupil's head to +hold a memory of a fact or experience. + +Even though he knew it was his own ignorance that had kept him a +prisoner in that storm, Parson Rasba did not fail to realize that his +ignorance had been sin, and that his punishment was due to his +absorption in the fate of a pretty woman. + +Certainly after such a sharp rebuke he could not fail to return to his +original task, imposed upon him because of his fault in bringing the +feud fighters of his home mountains together, untrained and +unrepentant, to hear the voice of his pride declare the Word for the +edification of sinners. Parson Rasba did not mince his words as he +contemplated the joy he had felt in being eloquent and a "power" of a +speaker from the pulpits of the mountain churches. The murdering by the +feud fighters had taught him what he would never forget, and his frank +acknowledgment of each rebuke gave him greater understanding. + +While the gale lasted he watched the river and the sky. The wild fowl +flying low, and dropping into woods behind him led to forays seeking +game, and in a bayou a mile distant he drew down with deadly aim on one +of a flock of geese. He killed that bird, and then as its startled and +lumbering mates sought flight, he got two more of them, missing another +shot or two in the excitement. + +The three great birds made a load for him, and he returned to his boat +with a heart lighter than he had known in many a day because it seemed +to him a "sign" that he need not hate himself overmuch. The river +consoled him, and its constancy and integrity were an example which he +could not help but take to heart. + +Gales might blow, fair weather might tempt, islands might interpose +themselves in its way, banks and sandbars might stand against the flood, +but come what might, the river poured on through its destined course +like a human life. + +He entertained the whimsical fancy, as his smallest goose was roasting, +that perhaps the Mississippi might sin. In so many ways the river +reminded him of humankind. He had stood beside a branch of the +Mississippi which was so small and narrow that he could dam it with his +ample foot, or scoop it up with a bucket--and yet here it was a mile +wide! In its youth it was subject to the control of trifling things, a +stone or a log, or the careless handiwork of a man. Down here all the +little threads of its being had united in a full tide of life still +subject to the influences of its normal course, but wearing and tearing +along beyond any power to stop till its appointed course was run. + +Insensibly Parson Rasba felt the resources of his own mind flocking to +help him. Just being there beside that mighty torrent helped him to get +a perspective on things. Tiny things seemed so useless in the front of +that overwhelming power. What were the big things of his own life? What +were the important affairs of his existence? + +He could not tell. He had always meant to do the right thing. He could +see now, looking back on his life, that his good intentions had not +prevented his ignorance from precipitating a feud fight. + +"I should have taken them, family by family, and brought them to their +own knees fustest," he thought, grimly. "Then I could have helt 'em all +together in mutual repentance!" + +Having arrived at that idea, he shrugged his shoulders almost +self-contemptuously. "I'm a learnin'. That's one consolation, I'm a +learnin'!" + +And then Rasba heard the Call! + +It was Old Mississip's voice; the river was heaping duties upon him more +and more. So far, he had been rather looking out for himself, now he +recalled the houseboats which he had seen moored down the reaches and in +the bends. Those river people, dropping down incessantly with the river +current, must sometimes need help, comfort, and perhaps advice. His +humility would not permit him to think that he could preach to them or +exhort them. + +"Man to man, likely I could he'p some po'r sinner see as much as I can +see. If I could kind of get 'em to see what this big, old riveh is like! +Hit's carryin' a leaf er a duck, an' steamboats an' shanty-bo'ts; hit +carries the livin' an' hit carries the daid; hit begrudges no man it's +he'p if he comes to it to float down a log raft er a million bushels of +coal. If Ole Mississip'll do that fo' anybody, suttin'ly hit's clear an' +plain that God won't deny a sinner His he'p! Yas, suh! Now I've shore +found a handle to keep hold of my religion!" + +Peace of mind had come to him, but not the peace of indolence and +neglect. Far from that! He saw years of endless endeavour opening before +him, but not with multitudes looking up to him as he stood, grand and +noble, in the bright light of a thousand pulpits, circuit riding the +earth. Instead, he would go to a sinning man here, a sorrowing woman +there, and perhaps sit down with a little child, to give it comfort and +instruction. + +People were too scattered down the Mississippi to think of +congregations. All days were Sunday, and for him there could be no +day of rest. If he could not do big work, at least he could meet +men and women, and he could get to know little children, to +understand their needs. He knew it was a good thought, and when he +looked across the Mississippi, he saw night coming on, but between +him and the dark was sunset. + +The cold white glare changed to brilliant colours; clouds whose +gray-blue had oppressed the soul of the mountain man flashed red and +purple, growing thinner and thinner, and when he had gazed for a minute +at the glow of a fixed government light he was astonished by the +darkness of night--only the night was filled with stars. + +Thus the river, the weather, the climate, the sky, the sandbars, and the +wooded banks revealed themselves in changing moods and varying lights to +the mountain man whose life had always been pent in and narrowed, +without viewpoint or a sense of the future. The monster size of the +river dwarfed the little affairs of his own life and humbled the pride +which had so often been humbled before. At last he began to look down on +himself, seeing something of the true relation of his importance to the +immeasurable efforts of thousands and millions of men. + +The sand clouds carried by the north wind must ever remain an epoch in +his experience. Definitely he was rid of a great deal of nonsense, +ignorance, and pride; at the same time it seemed, somehow, to have +grounded him on something much firmer and broader than the vanities of +his youth. + +His eyes searched the river in the dark for some place to begin his +work, and as they did so, he discovered a bright, glaring light a few +miles below him across the sandbar at the head of which he had anchored. +He saw other lights down that way, a regular settlement of lights across +the river, and several darting firefly gleams in the middle of the +stream which he recognized were boats, probably small gasolene craft. + +In forty minutes he was dipping his sweep blades to work his way into +the eddy where several small passenger craft were on line-ends from a +large, substantial craft which was brightly lighted by lanterns and a +big carbide light. Its windows were aglow with cheeriness, and the +occupants engaged in strange pastimes. + +"Come, now, come on, now!" someone was crying in a sing-song. "Come +along like I said! Come along, now--Seven--Seven--Seven!" + +Parson Rasba's oar pins needed wetting, for the strain he put on the +sweeps made them squeak. The splash of oars down the current was heard +by people on board and several walked out on the deck. + +"Whoe-e-e!" one hailed. "Who all mout yo' be?" + +"Rasba!" the newcomer replied. "Parson Elijah Rasba, suh. Out of the +Ohio!" + +"Hi-i-i!" a listener cried out, gleefully, "hyar comes the Riveh Prophet +after yo sinners. Hi-i-i!" + +There was a laugh through the crowd. Others strolled out to see the +phenomenon. A man who had been playing with fortune at one of the poker +tables swore aloud. + +"I cayn't neveh git started, I don't shift down on my luck!" he whined. +"Las' time, jes' when I was coming home, I see a piebald mewl, an' now +hyar comes a parson. Dad drat this yeah ole riveh! I'm goin' to quit. +I'm gwine to go to Hot Springs!" + +These casual asides were as nothing, however, to the tumult that stirred +in the soul of Jock Drones, who had been cutting bread to make +boiled-ham sandwiches for their patrons that night. His acute hearing +had picked up the sound of the coming shanty-boat, and he had felt the +menace of a stranger dropping in after dark. Few men not on mischief +bent, or determined to run all night, run into shanty-boat eddies. + +He even turned down the light a little, and looked toward the door to +see if the way was clear. The hail relieved the tension of his mind +strain, but only for a minute. Then he heard that answer. + +"Rasba!" he heard. "Parson Elijah Rasba, suh. Out of the Ohio!" + +In a flash he knew the truth! Old Rasba, whose preaching he had +listened to that bloody night away up in the mountains, had come down +the rivers. A parson, none else, was camping on the mountain fugitive's +trail. That meant tribulation, that meant the inescapableness of sin's +punishment--not in jails, not in trial courts, not on the gallows, but +worse than that! + +"Come abo'd, Parson!" someone shouted, and the boats bumped. There was a +scramble to make a line fast, and then the trampling of many feet, as +the Prophet was introduced to that particular river hell, amid stifled +cries of expectancy and murmurs of warning. Next to being raided by the +sheriff of an adjacent county, having a river prophet come on board is +the greatest excitement and the smartest amusement of the bravados down +the river. + +"Hyar's the Prophet!" a voice shouted. "Now git ready fo' yo' eternal +damnation. See 'im gather hisse'f!" + +Rasba gathering himself! Jock could not help but take a peep. It was +Rasba, gaunt, tall, his head up close to the shanty-boat roof and his +shoulders nearly a head higher than the collars of most of those men who +stood by with insolence and doubtful good humour. + +"Which'd yo' rather git to play, Parson?" someone asked, slyly. "Cyards +er bones er pull-sticks?" + +"I've a friend down yeah, gentlemen." The Prophet ignored the insult. +"His mother wants him. She's afeared likely he mout forget, since he was +jes' a boy friendly and needing friends. He's no runt, no triflin' +no-'count, puppy man, like this thing," in the direction whence the +invitation had come, "but tall an' square, an' honourable, near six +foot, an' likely 160 pounds. Not like this little runt thing yeah, but a +real man!" + +There was a yell of approval and delight. + +"Who all mout yo' friend be?" Buck asked, respectfully, seeing that this +was not a raid, but a visit. + +"Jock, suh, Jock Drones, his mammy wants him, suh!" + +Buck eyed the visitor keenly for a minute. Someone said they never had +heard of him. Buck, who saw that the visitor was in mind to turn back, +suggested: + +"Won't yo' have a cup of coffee, suh? Hit's raw outside to-night, fresh +and mean. Give him a chair, boys! I'm friendly with any man who takes a +message from a mother to her wandering son." + +A dozen chairs were snatched out to the stove, and when Parson Rasba had +accepted one, Buck stepped into the kitchen. He found Slip, _alias_ Jock +Drones, standing with beads of sweat on his forehead. No need to ask the +first question; Buck poured out a cup of coffee and said: + +"What'll I tell him, Slip?" + +"I cayn't go back, Buck!" Slip whimpered. "Hit's a hanging crime!" + +"Something may have changed," Buck suggested. + +"No, suh, I've heard. Hit were my bullet--I've heard. Hit's a trial, an' +hit's--hit's hanging!" + +"Sh-h! Not so loud!" Buck warned. "If it's lawyer money you need?" + +"I got 'leven hundred, an' a trial lawyer'll cost only a thousand, Buck! +Yo's a friend--Lawse! I'd shore like to talk to him. He's no detector, +Parson Rasba yain't. Why, he's be'n right into a stillhouse, drunk the +moonshine--an' no revenue hearn of hit, the way some feared. My sister +wrote me. I want to talk to him, Buck, but--but not let them outside +know." + +"I'll fix it," Buck promised, carrying out steaming coffee, a plate of +sandwiches, and two big oranges for the parson. + +He returned, filled up the trays for the others, and took them out. Soon +the crowd were sitting around, or leaning against the heavy crap table, +talking and listening. + +"Yo' come way down from the mountangs to find a mammy's boy?" someone +asked, his tone showing better than his words how well he understood the +sacrifice of that journey. + +"Hit's seo," Rasba nodded. "I'm partly to blame, myse'f, for his coming +down. I was a mountain preacher, exhorter, and I 'lowed I knowed hit +all. One candlelight I had a congregation an' I hit 'er up loud that +night, an' I 'lowed I'd done right smart with those people's souls. +But--but hit were no such thing. This boy, Jock, he runned away that +night, 'count of my foolishness, an' we know he's down thisaway; if I +could git to find him, his mammy'd shore be comforted. She's a heap more +faith in me'n I have, but I come down yeah. Likely I couldn't do much +for that boy, but I kin show I'd like to." + +"Trippin' a thousand miles shows some intrust!" somebody said. + +"I lived all my life up theh in the mountangs, an' hit's God's country, +gem'men! This yeah--" he glanced around him till his glance fell upon +the card cabinet on the wall between two windows, full of decks of cards +and packets of dice and shaker boxes--"this yeah, sho! Hit ain't God's +country, gem'men! Hit's shore the Devil's, an' he's shore ketched a +right smart haul to-night! But I live yeah now!" + +Buck, who had been coming and going, had stopped at the parson's voice. +He did not laugh, he did not even smile. The point was not missed, +however. Far from it! He went out, bowed by the truth of it, and in the +kitchen he looked at Slip, who was sitting in black and silent +consideration of that cry, carried far in the echoes. + +"You're one of us, Parson!" a voice exclaimed in disbelief. + +"Yas, suh," Rasba smiled as he looked into the man's eyes, "I'm one of +you. I 'low we uns'll git thar together, 'cordin' as we die. Look! This +gem'men gives me bread an' meat; he quenches my thirst, too. An' I take +hit out'n his hands. 'Peahs like he owns this boat!" + +"Yas, suh," someone affirmed. + +"Then I shall not shake hit's dust off my feet when I go," Rasba +declared, sharply. Buck stared; Rasba did not look at even his shoes; +Buck caught his breath. Whatever Rasba meant, whatever the other +listeners understood, Buck felt and broke beneath those statements which +brought to him things that he never had known before. + +"He'll not shake the dust of this gambling dive from his feet!" Buck +choked under his breath. "And this is how far down I've got!" + +Rasba, conscious only of his own shortcomings, had no idea that he had +fired shot after shot, let alone landed shell after shell. He knew only +that the men sat in respectful, drawn-faced silence. He wondered if they +were not sorry for him, a preacher, who had fallen so far from his +circuit riding and feastings and meetings in churches. It did not occur +to him that these men knew they were wicked, and that they were +suffering from his unintentional but overwhelming rebuke. + +They turned away impatiently, and went in their boats to the village +landing across the river; a night's sport spoiled for them by the coming +of a luck-breaking parson. Others waited to hear more of what they knew +they needed, partly in amusement, partly in curiosity, and partly +because they liked the whiskery fellow who was so interesting. At the +same time, what he said was stinging however inoffensive. + +"Game's closed for the night!" Buck announced, and the gamesters took +their departure. They made no protest, for it was not feasible to +continue gambling when everyone knows a parson brings bad luck to a +player. + +The outside lights were extinguished, and Buck brought Slip from the +kitchen inside to Rasba. + +"This is Slip," Buck explained, and the two shook hands, the fugitive +staring anxiously at the other's face, expecting recognition. + +"Don't yo' know me, Parson?" Slip exclaimed. "Jock Drones. Don't yo' +know me?" + +"Jock Drones?" Rasba cried, staring. "Why, Sho! Hit is! Lawse--an' I +found yo' right yeah--thisaway!" + +"Yassuh," Jock turned away under that bright gaze, "but I'm goin' back, +Parson! I'm goin' back to stand trial, suh! I neveh knowed any man, not +a blood relation would think so much of me, as to come way down yeah to +tell me my mammy, my good ole mammy, wanted me to be safe----" + +"An' good, Jock!" Rasba cried. + +"An' good, suh," the young man added, obediently. + +"I'd better go over and see our sick man," Buck turned to Slip. + +"A sick man?" Rasba asked. "Where mout he be?" + +"In that other shanty-boat, that little boat," Slip exclaimed. "We'll +all go!" + +When they entered the little boat, which sagged under their combined +weights, Slip held the light so it would shine on the cot. + +"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "Hyar's my friend who got shot by a lady!" + +"Yes, suh, Parson!" Prebol grinned, feebly. "Seems like I cayn't get +shut of yo' nohow, but I'm shore glad to see yo'. These yeah boys have +took cyar of me great. Same's you done, Parson, but I wa'nt your kind, +swearin' around, so I pulled out. Yo' cayn't he'p me much, but +likely--likely theh's some yo' kin." + +"I'd shore like to find them," Rasba declared, smoothing the man's +pillow. "But there's not so many I can he'p. Yo' boys are tired; I'll +give him his medicine till to'd mornin'. Yo'd jes' soon, Prebol?" + +"Hit'd be friendly," Prebol admitted. "Yo' needn't to sit right +yeah----" + +"I 'low I shall," Rasba nodded. "I got some readin' to do. I'll git my +book, an' come back an' set yeah!" + +He brought his Bible, and looking up to bid the two good-night, he +smiled. + +"Hit's considerable wrestle, readin' this yeah Book! I neveh did git to +understand hit, but likely I can git to know some more now. I've had +right smart of experiences, lately, to he'p me git to know." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Terabon possessed a newspaper man's feeling of aloofness and detachment. +When he went afloat on the Mississippi at St. Louis he had no intention +of becoming a part of the river phenomena, and it did not occur to his +mind that his position might become that of a participator rather than +an observer. + +The great river was interesting. It had come to his attention several +years before, when he read Parkman's "La Salle," and a little later +he had read almost a column account of a flood down the Mississippi. +The A. P. had collected items from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Memphis, +Cairo, Natchez, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, and fired +them into the aloof East. New York, Boston, Bangor, Utica, Albany, and +other important centres had learned for the first time that a +"levee"--whatever that might be--had suffered a cravasse; a steamboat +and some towbarges had been wrecked, that Cairo was registering 63.3 on +the gauge; that some Negroes had been drowned; that cattle thieves were +operating in the Overflow, and so on and so forth. + +The combination of La Salle's last adventure and the Mississippi flood +caught the fancy of the newspaper man. + +"Shall I ever get out there?" Terabon asked himself. + +His dream was not of reporting wars, not of exploring Africa, not of +interviewing kings and making presidents in a national convention. Far +from it! His mind caught at the suggestion of singing birds in their +native trees, and he could without regret think of spending days with a +magnifying glass, considering the ant, or worshipping at the stalk of +the flowering lily. + +He was astonished, one day, to discover that he had several hundred +dollars in the Chambers Street Savings Bank. It happened that the city +editor called him to the desk a few minutes later and said: + +"Go see about this conference." + +"You go to hell!" the reporter replied, smilingly, gently replacing the +slip on the greenish desk. + +"T-t-t-t-t----" Mr. Dekod sputtered. There _is_ something new under the +sun! + +Lester Terabon strolled forth with easy nonchalance, and three days +later he was in the office of the secretary of the Mississippi River +Commission, at St. Louis, calmly inquiring into the duties and +performance thereof, involving the efforts of 100,000 Negroes, 40,000 +mules, 500 contractors, 10,000 government officials, a few hundred +pieces of floating plant, and sundry other things which Terabon had +conceived were of importance. + +He had approached the Mississippi River from the human angle. He knew of +no other way of approach. His first view of the river, as he crossed the +Merchants Bridge, had not disturbed his equilibrium in the least, and he +had floated out of an eddy in a 16-foot skiff still with the +human-viewpoint approach. + +Then had begun a combat in his mind between all his preconceived ideas +and information and the river realities. Faithfully, in the notebooks +which he carried, he put down the details of his mental disturbances. + +By the time he reached Island No. 10 sandbar he had about resigned +himself to the whimsicalities of river living. He had, however, +preserved his attitude of aloofness and extraneousness. He regarded +himself as a visiting observer who would record the events in which +others had a part. It still pleased his fancy to say that he was +interviewing the Mississippi River as he might interview the President +of the United States. + +But as Lester Terabon rowed his skiff back up the eddy above New Madrid, +and breasted the current in the sweep of the reach to that little +cabin-boat half a mile above the Island No. 10 light, his attitude was +undergoing a conscious change. While he had been reporting the +Mississippi River in its varying moods something had encircled him and +grasped him, and was holding him. + +For some time he had felt the change in his position; glimmerings of its +importance had appeared in his notes; his mind had fought against it as +a corruption, lest it ruin the career which he had mapped out for +himself. + +When the New Madrid fish-dock man told him to carry the warning that a +"detector" was hunting for a certain woman, and that the detective had +gone on down with some river fellows, his place as a river man was +assured. River folks trusted and used him as they used themselves. +Moreover, he was possessed of a vital river secret. + +Nelia Crele, _alias_ Nelia Carline, was the woman, and they were both +stopping over at the Island No. 10 sandbar. He knew, what the fish-dock +man probably did not know, that the pursuer was the woman's husband. + +"What'll I tell her?" Terabon asked himself. + +With that question he uncovered an unsuspected depth to his feelings. It +was a dark, dull day. The waves rolled and fell back, sometimes the wind +seeming the stronger and then the current asserting its weight. With the +wind's help over the stern, Terabon swiftly passed the caving bend and +landed in the lee above the young woman's boat. + +He carried some things he had bought for her into the kitchen and they +sat in the cabin to read newspapers and magazines which he had +obtained. + +"I heard some news, too," he told her. + +"Yes? What news?" + +"The fish-dock man at New Madrid told me to tell the people along that a +detective has gone on down, looking for a woman." + +"A detective looking for a woman?" she repeated. + +"A man the name of Carline----" + +"Oh!" she shrugged her shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me!" + +He flushed. Almost an hour had elapsed since he had returned. He had +found it difficult to mention the subject. + +"I did not tell you either," he apologized, "that I happened to meet Mr. +Carline up at Island No. 8, when I had no idea the good fortune would +come to me of meeting you, whose--whose pictures he showed me. I could +not--I saw----There was----" + +"And you didn't tell me," she accused him. + +"It seemed to me none of my affair. I'm a newspaper man--I----" + +"And did that excuse you from letting me know of his--of that pursuit of +me?" + +His newspaper impartiality had failed him, and he hung his head in doubt +and shame. She claimed, and she deserved, his friendship; the last +vestige of his pretence of mere observation was torn from him. He was a +human among humans--and he had a fervid if unexpected thought about the +influence and exasperation of the river out yonder. + +"I could not tell you!" he cried. "I didn't think--it seemed----" + +"You know, then, you saw why I had left him?" + +"Liquor!" he grasped at the excuse. "Oh, that was plain enough." + +"Perhaps a woman could forgive liquor," she suggested, thoughtfully, +"but not--not stupidity and indifference. He never disturbed the dust on +any of the books of his library. Oh, what they meant my books mean to +me!" + +She turned and stared at her book shelves. + +"Suppose you hadn't found books?" he asked, glad of the opportunity for +a diversion. + +"I'd be dead, I think," she surmised, "and one day, I did deliberately +choose." + +"How was that?" + +"Get your notebook!" she jeered. "I thought if he was going to rely on +the specious joys of liquor I would, and tried it. It was a blizzard day +last winter. He had gone over to see the widow, and there was a bottle +of rum in the cupboard. I took some hot milk, nutmeg, sugar, and rum. +I've never felt so happy in my life, except----" + +"With what exception?" he asked. + +"Yesterday," she answered, laughing, "and last night and to-day! You +see, I'm free now. I say and do what I please. I don't care any more. +I'm perfectly brazen. I don't love you, but I like you very much. You're +good company. I hope I am, too----" + +"You are--splendid!" he cried, almost involuntarily, and she shivered. + +"Let's go walking again, will you?" she said. "I want to get out in the +wind; I want to have the sky overhead, a sandbar under my feet, and all +outdoors at my command. You don't mind, you'd like to go?" + +"To the earth's end!" he replied, recklessly, and her gay laugh showed +how well he had pleased her mood. + +They kept close up to the north side of the bar because down the wind +the sand was lifting and rolling up in yellow clouds. They went to +Winchester Chute, and followed its winding course through the wood +patch. There was a slough of green water, with a flock of ducks which +left precipitately on their approach. They returned down to the sandbar, +and pressed their way through the thick clump of small willows into the +switch willows and along the edge of the unbroken desert of sand. They +could see the very surface of the bar rolling along before the wind, and +as they walked along they found their feet submerged in the blast. + +But when they arrived at the boat night was near at hand, and the +enveloping cold became more biting and the gloom more depressing. + +Just when they had eaten their supper together, and had seated +themselves before the fire, and when the whirl and whistle of the wind +was heard in the mad music of a river storm, a motorboat with its +cut-out open ploughed up the river through the dead eddy and stopped to +hail. + +Jim Talum, a fisherman whose line of hoop nets filled the reach of +Island No. 9 for eight or ten miles, was on his way to his tent which he +had pitched at the head of Winchester Chute. + +He tramped aboard, and welcomed a seat by the fire. + +"'Lowed I'd drap in a minute," he declared. "Powerful lonesome up on the +chute where I got my tent. Be'n runnin' my traps down the bank, yeah, +an' along of the chute, gettin' rats. Yo' trappin'?" + +"No, just tripping," Terabon replied. "I was down to New Madrid this +morning." + +"I'm just up from there. Ho law! Theh's one man I'd hate to be down +below. I expect yo've hearn tell of them Despard riveh pirates? No! +Well, they've come drappin' down ag'in, an' they landed into New Madrid +yestehd'y evenin'. Likely they 'lowed to raid some commissary down +b'low--cayn't tell what they did 'low to do. But they picked good +pickin's down theh! Feller come down lookin' fo' a woman, hisn's I +expect. Anyhow, he's a strangeh on the riveh. He's got a nice power +boat, an' likely he's got money. If he has, good-bye! Them Despards'd +kill a man for $10. One of 'em, Hilt Despard's onto the bo't with him, +pretendin' to be a sport, an' they've drapped out. The rest the gang's +jes' waitin' fo' the wind to lay, down b'low, an' down by Plum P'int, +some'rs, Mr. Man'll sudden come daid." + +The fisherman had been alone so much that the pent-up conversation of +weeks flowed uninterruptedly. He told details; he described the +motorboat; he laughed at the astonishment the man would feel when the +pirates disclosed their intentions with a bullet or knife; and he +expected, by and by, to hear the story of the tragedy through the medium +of some whiskey boater, some river gossip coming up in a power boat. + +For an hour he babbled and then, as precipitately as he had arrived, he +took his departure. When he was gone, Nelia Crele turned to Terabon with +helpless dismay. Augustus Carline was worthless; he had been faithless +to her; he had inflicted sufferings beyond her power of punishment or +forgiveness. + +"But he's looking for me!" she recapitulated, "and he doesn't know. He's +a fool, and they'll kill him like a rat! What can I do?" + +Obviously there was nothing that she could do, but Lester Terabon rose +instantly. + +"I'd better drop down and see if I can't help him--do something. I know +that crew." + +"You'll do that for me!" her voice lifted in a cry of thankfulness. "Oh, +if you would, if you would. I couldn't think of his being--his being +killed, trying to find me. Get him; send him home!" + +"I'd better start right down," Terabon said, "it's sixty or seventy +miles, anyhow. They'll not hurry. They can't, for the gang's in a +shanty-boat." + +She walked up to him with her arms raised. + +"How can I thank you?" she demanded. "You do this for me--a stranger!" + +"Why not, if I can help?" he asked. + +"Where shall I see you again?" + +He brought in his book of river maps, and together they looked down the +tortuous stream; he rested the tip of his pencil on Yankee Bar below +Plum Point. + +"It's a famous pirate resort, this twenty miles of river!" he said. +"I'll wait at Fort Pillow Landing. Or if you are ahead?" + +"We'll meet there!" she cried. "I'll surely find you there. Or at +Mendova--surely at Mendova." + +She followed him out on the bow deck. + +"Just a minute," she whispered, "while I get used to the thought of +being alone again. I did not know there were men like you who would +rather do a favour than ask for kisses." + +"It isn't that we don't like them!" he blurted out. "It's--it's just +that we'd rather deserve them and not have them than have them and not +deserve them!" + +She laughed. "Good-bye--and don't forget, Fort Pillow!" + +"Does a man forget his meals?" he demanded, lightly, and with his duffle +packed low in his skiff he rowed out into the gray river and the black +night. + +Having found a lee along the caving bank above New Madrid he +gain-speeded down the current behind the sandbar, but when he turned the +New Madrid bend he pulled out into mid-river and with current and wind +both behind him, followed the government lights that showed the +channel. + +He had expected to linger long down this historic stretch of river with +its Sunk Lands of the New Madrid earthquakes, with its first glimpse of +the cotton country, and with its countless river phenomena. + +"But Old Mississip' has other ideas," he said to himself, and miles +below he was wondering if and when he would meet the girl of Island No. +10 again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Pirates have infested the Mississippi from the earliest days. The +stranger on the river cannot possibly know a pirate when he sees one, +and even shanty-boaters of long experience and sharp eyes penetrate +their disguises with difficulty. How could Gus Carline suspect the +loquacious, ingratiating, and helpful Renald Doss? + +Lonely; pursued by doubts, ignorance, and a lurking timidity, Carline +was only too glad to take on a companion who discoursed about all the +river towns, called river commissioners by their first names, knew all +the makes of motors, and called the depth of the water in Point Pleasant +crossing by reading the New Madrid gauge. + +He relinquished the wheel of his boat to the dapper little man, and fed +the motor more gas, or slowed down to half speed, while he listened to +volumes of river lore. + +"You've been landing along down?" Doss asked. + +"All along," Carline replied, "everywhere." + +"Seen anybody?" + +"I should say so; there was a fellow come down pretending to be a +reporter. He stopped over with me, got me full's a tick, and then robbed +me." + +"Eh--_he_ robbed you?" + +"Yes, sir! He got me to drinking heavy. I like my stew a little, but he +fixed me. Then he just went through me, but he didn't get all I had, you +bet!" + +This was rich! + +"Lucky he didn't hit you on the head, and take the boat, too!" Doss +grinned. + +"I suppose so." + +"Yes, sir! Lots of mean men on this river, they play any old game. They +say they're preachers, or umbrella menders, or anything. Every once in a +while some feller comes down, saying he's off'n some magazine. They come +down in skiffs, mostly. It's a great game they play. Everybody tells 'em +everything. If I was going to be a crook, I bet I'd say I was a hist'ry +writer. I'd snoop around, and then I'd land--same's that feller landed +on you. Get much?" + +"Two--three hundred dollars!" + +The little man laughed in his throat. He handled the boat like a river +pilot. His eyes turned to the banks, swept the sandbars, gazed into the +coiling waters alongside, and he whispered names of places as he passed +them--landings, bars, crossings, bends, and even the plantations and log +cuttings. He named the three cotton gins in Tiptonville, and stared at +the ferry below town with a sidelong leer. + +Carline would have been the most astonished man on the Mississippi had +he known that nearly all his money was in the pockets of his guest. He +babbled on, and before he knew it, he was telling all about his wife +running away down the Mississippi. + +"What kind of a boat's she in?" Doss asked. + +"I don't know." + +"How do you expect to find her if you don't know the boat?" + +"Why--why, somebody might know her; a woman alone!" + +"She's alone?" + +"Why--yes, sir. I heard so." + +"Good looker?" + +Without a word Carline handed the fellow a photograph. Doss made no +sign. For two minutes he stared at that fine face. + +"I bet she's got an awful temper," he half whispered. + +"She's quick," Carline admitted, fervently. + +"She'd just soon shoot a man as look at him," Doss added, with a touch +of asperity. + +"Why--she----" Carline hesitated. He recalled a day in his own +experience when she took his own shot gun from him, and stood a fury, +flaming with anger. + +"Yes, sir, she would," Doss declared, with finality. + +Doss had seen her. By that time a thousand shanty-boaters had heard +about that girl's one shot of deadly accuracy. The woman folks on a +thousand miles of reach and bend had had a bad example set before them. +Doss himself felt an anger which was impotent against the woman who had +shot Jest Prebold down. Probably other women would take to shooting, +right off the bat, the same way. He despised that idea. + +Carline, doubtful as to whether his wife was being insulted, +congratulated, or described, gazed at the photograph. The more he +looked, the more exasperated he felt. She was a woman--what right had +she to run away and leave him with his honour impugned? He felt as +though he hadn't taught her her place. At the same time, when he looked +at the picture, he discovered a remembrance of his feeling that she was +a very difficult person to teach anything to. Her learning always had +insulted his own meagreness of information and aptness in repartee. Next +to not finding her, his big worry had become finding her. + +They steered down the river without great haste. Doss studied the +shanty-boats which he saw moored in the various eddies, large and small. +Some he spoke of casually, as store-boats, fishermen, market hunters, +or, as they passed between Caruthersville and the opposite shore, a +gambling boat. Even the river pirate, gloating over his prey, and +puzzled only as to the method of making the most of his victim, could +not penetrate the veil which it happened the Mississippi River +interposed between them and the river gambling den--for the moment. +There is no use seeking the method of the river, nor endeavouring to +discover the processes by which the lives of thousands who go afloat +down the Mississippi are woven as woof and warp in the fabric of river +life and river mysteries. The more faithful an effort to select one of +the commonest and simplest of river complications, the more improbable +and fanciful it must seem. + +Doss, in intervals when he was not consciously registering the smile of +good humour, the generosity of an experienced man toward the chance +visitor, and the willingness to defer to the gentleman from Up the Bank, +brought his expression unconsciously to the cold, rough woodenness of +blank insensitiveness--the malignance of a snapping turtle, to mention a +medium reptilian face. A whim, and the necessity of delay, led Doss to +suggest that they take a look up the Obion River as a likely hiding +place. Of course, Doss knew best, and they quit the tumbling Mississippi +for the quiet wooded aisle of the little river. + +When they emerged, two days later, Augustus Carline could well thank his +stars, though he did not know it, that he was still on the boat. All +unconscious of the real nature and habits of river rats he had given the +little wretch a thousand opportunities to commit one of the many crimes +he had in mind. But he developed a reluctance to choose the easiest one, +when from hint after hint he understood that a mere river piracy and +murder would be folly in view of the opportunity for a more profitable +stake which a man of means offered. + +As he steered by the government boat which was surveying Plum Point +bars, Doss showed his teeth like an indignant cat. Five or six miles +below he offered the supine and helpless Carline the information: + +"There's Yankee Bar. We'll swing wide and land in below, so's not to +scare up any geese or ducks that may be roosting there." + +Eagerly Doss searched through the switch willows for a glimpse of the +setback of the water beyond the bar. Away down in the old eddy he +discovered a shanty-boat, and to cover his involuntary exclamation of +satisfaction he said: + +"Shucks! There's somebody theh. I hoped we'd have it to ourselves but +they may be sports, too. If they are, we'll sure have a good time. Some +of these shanty-boaters are great sports. We'll soon find out!" + +He steered into the eddy and the two men stepped out on the flat boat's +deck to greet them. + +"Seems like I've seen them before," Doss said in a low voice; "I believe +they're old timers. Hello, boys! Hunting?" + +"Yes, suh! Lots of game. Sho, ain' yo' Doss, Ren Doss?" + +"You bet. I knew you! I told Mr. Carline, here, that I knew you, that +I'd seen you before! I'm glad to see you boys again. Catch a line +there." + +No doubt about it, they were old friends. In a minute they were shaking +hands all around, then went into the shanty-boat, and they sat down in +assorted chairs, and Doss, Jet, and Cope exchanged the gossip of a river +year. + +Carline's eyes searched about him with interest, and the three men +watched him more and more openly. When he walked toward the bow of the +boat, where the slope of the yellow sand led up to the woods of Flower +Island, one of them casually left his seat and followed. + +Carline looked at the stand of guns in the cabin corner and started +with surprise. He reached and picked up one of them to look at it. + +"Why," he shouted, "this is my shot gu----" + +No more. His light went out on the instant and he felt that he was +suspended in mid-air, poised between the abyss and the heavens. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Fortune, or rather the Father of Waters, had favoured Parson Elijah +Rasba in the accomplishment of his errand. It might not have happened in +a decade that he locate a fugitive within a hundred miles of Cairo, +where the Forks of the Ohio is the jumping-off place of the stream of +people from a million square miles. + +Rasba knew it. The fervour of the prophets was in his heart, and the +light of understanding was brightening in his mind. Something seemed to +have caught the doors of his intelligence and thrown them wide open. + +In the pent-up valleys of the mountains, with their little streams, +their little trails, their dull and hopeless inhabitants, their wars +begun in disputes over pigs and abandoned peach orchards, their +moonshine and hate of government revenues, there had been no chance for +Parson Rasba to get things together in his mind. + +The days and nights on the rivers had opened his eyes. When he asked +himself: "If this is the Mississippi, what must the Jordan be?" he found +a perspective. + +Sitting there beside the wounded Jest Prebol, by the light of a big +table lamp, he "wrestled" with his Bible the obscurities of which had +long tormented his ignorance and baffled his mental bondage. + +The noises of the witches' hours were in the air. Wavelets splashed +along the side and under the bow of the Prebol shanty-boat. The mooring +ropes stretched audibly, and the timber heads to which they were +fastened squeaked and strained; the wind slapped and hissed and whined +on all sides, crackling through the heavy timber up the bank. The great +river pouring by seemed to have a low, deep growl while the wind in the +skies rumbled among the clouds. + +No wonder Rasba could understand! He could imagine anything if he did +not hold fast to that great Book which rested on his knees, but holding +fast to it, the whisperings and chucklings and hissings which filled the +river wilderness, and the deep tone of the flood, the hollow roar of the +passing storm, were but signs of the necessity of faith in the presence +of the mysteries. + +So Rasba wrestled; so he grappled with the things he must know, in the +light of the things he did know. And a kind of understanding which was +also peace comforted him. He closed the Book at last, and let his mind +drift whither it would. + +Panoramas of the river, like pictures, unfolded before his eyes; he +remembered flashes taken of men, women, and children; he dwelt for a +time on the ruin of the church up there in the valley, standing vainly +against a mountain slide; his face warmed, his eyes moistened. His mind +seized eagerly upon a vision of the memory, the pretty woman, whose +pistol had shot down the deluded and now stricken wretch there in the +cabin. + +The anomaly of the fact that he was caring for her victim was not lost +on his shrewd understanding. He was gathering up and helping patch the +wreckage she was making. It was a curious conceit, and Elijah Rasba, +while he smiled at the humour of it, was at the same time conscious of +its sad truth. + +Her presence on the river meant no good for any one; Prebol was but one +of her victims; perhaps he was the least unfortunate of them all! Others +might perish through her, while it was not too much to hope that Prebol, +through his sufferings, might be willing to profit by their lesson. +Rasba was glad that he had not overtaken her that night of inexplicable +pursuit. Her brightness, her prettiness, her appeal had been +irresistible to him, and he could but acknowledge, while he trembled at +the fact, that for the time he had been possessed by her enchantment. + +Thus he meditated and puzzled about the things which, in his words, had +come to pass. Before he knew it, daylight had arrived, and Jock Drones +came over to greet him with "Good mo'nin', Parson!" Prebol was sleeping +and there was colour in his cheeks, enough to make them look more +natural. When Doctor Grell arrived, just as the three sat down to +breakfast, he cheered them with the information that Prebol was coming +through though the shadow had rested close to him. + +None of them admitted, even to himself, the strain the wounded man had +been and was on their nerves. Under his seeming indifference Buck was +near the breaking point; Jock, victim of a thousand worries, was bent +under his burdens. Grell, having fought the all-night fight for a human +life, was still weak with weariness from the effort. Rasba, a newcomer, +brought welcome reserves of endurance, assistance, and confidence. + +"Yo' men shore have done yo' duty by a man in need," he told them, and +none of them could understand why that truthful statement should make +them feel so very comfortable. + +They left the sick man to go on board the gaming boat, and they sat on +the stern deck, where they looked across the river and the levee to the +roofs of Caruthersville. If they looked at the horizon, their attention +was attracted and their gaze held by the swirling of the river current. +Their eyes could not be drawn away from that tremendous motion, the rush +of a thousand acres of surface; the senses were appalled by the +magnitude of its suggestion. + +"Going to play to-night?" Grell asked, uneasily. + +"No," Buck replied, instantly. + +"So!" the doctor exclaimed. + +"Slip's going up on the steamboat." + +"For good?" + +"So'm I!" Buck continued, breathlessly; "I'm quitting the riveh, too! +I've been down here a good many years. I've been thinking. I'm going +back. I'm going up the bank again." + +"What'll you do with the boat?" Grell continued. + +"Slip and I've been talking it all over. We're through with it. We +guessed the Prophet, here, could use it. We're going to give it to +him." + +"Going to give hit to me!" Rasba started up and stared at the man. + +"Yes, Parson; that poplar boat of yours isn't what you need down here." +Buck smiled. "This big pine boat's better; you could preach in this +boat." + +Tears started in Rasba's eyes and dripped through his dark whiskers. +Buck and Jock had acted with the impulsiveness of gambling men. +Something in the fact that Rasba had come down those strange miles had +touched them, had given Drones courage to go back and face the music, +and to Buck the desire to return into his old life. + +"We're going up on the _Kate_ to-morrow morning," Buck explained. +"Slip'd better show you how to run the gasolene boat if you don't know +how, Parson!" + +Dazed by the access of fortune, Rasba spent the mid-afternoon learning +to run the 28-foot gasolene launch which was used to tow the big +houseboat which would make such a wonderful floating church. It was a +big boat only a little more than two years old. Buck had made it +himself, on the Upper Mississippi, for a gambling boat. The frame was +light, and the cabin was built with double boards, with building paper +between, to keep out the cold wintry winds. + +"Gentlemen," Rasba choked, looking at the two donors of the gift, "I'm +going to be the best kind of a man I know how----" + +"It's your job to be a parson," Buck laughed. "If it wasn't for men like +us, that need reforming, you'd be up against it for something to look +out for. You aren't much used to the river, and I'll suggest that when +you drop down you land in eddies sheltered from the west and south +winds. They sure do tear things up sometimes. I've had the roof tore off +a boat I was in, and I saw sixty-three boats sunk at Cairo's Kentucky +shanty-boat town one morning after a big wind." + +"I'll keep a-lookin'," Rasba assured him, "but I've kind-a lost the +which-way down heah. One day I had the sun ahead, behind, and both +sides----" + +"There's maps in that pile of stuff in the corner," Buck said, going to +the duffle. "You're on Sheet 4 now. Here's Caruthersville." + +"Yas, suh. Those red lines?" + +"The new survey. You see, that sandbar up in Little Prairie Bend has cut +loose from Island No. 15, and moved down three miles, and we're at the +foot of this bar, here. That's moved down, too, and that big bar down +there was made between the surveys. You see, they had to move the levee +back, and Caruthersville moved over the new levee----" + +"Sho!" Rasba gasped. "What ails this old riveh?" + +"She jes' wriggles, same's water into a muddy road downhill," Kippy +laughed. "Up there in Little Prairie Bend hit's caved right through the +old levee, and they had to loop around. Now they've reveted it." + +"Reveted?" + +"They've woven a willow mattress and weighted it down with broken rock +from up the river--more than a mile of it, now, and they'll have to put +down another mile before they can head the river off there." + +"Put a carpet down. How wide?" + +"Four hundred feet probably----" + +"An' a mile long!" Rasba whispered, awed. "Every thing's big on the +riveh!" + +"Yes, sir--that's it--big!" Buck laughed. + +Thus the four gossiped, and when Doctor Grell had taken his departure +the three talked together about the river and its wonders. At intervals +they went over to look after Prebol whose chief requirement was quiet, +meat broths, and his medicines. + +As night drew down Drones turned to Buck: + +"It's goin' to be hard leaving the riveh! I neveh will forget, Buck. If +I'm sent to jail for all my life, I'll have something to remember. If +they hang me, I shore will come back to walk with those that walk in the +middle of the river." + +"What's that?" Rasba turned and demanded. + +"Riveh folks believe that thousands of people who died down thisaway, +sunk in snagged steamers, caught in burned-up boats, blown to kingdom +come in boiler explosions, those that have been murdered, and who died +along the banks, keep a-goin' up and down." + +"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "Yo' b'lieve that?" + +"A man believes a heap more after he's tripped the riveh once or twice, +than he ever believed in all his borned days, eh, Buck?" + +"It's so!" Buck cried out. "Last night I was thinking that I'd wasted my +life down here; years and years I've been a shanty-boater, drifter, +fisherman, trapper, market hunter, and late years, I've gambled. I've +been getting in bad, worse all the while. The Prophet here, coming +along, seemed to wake me up--the man I used to be--I mean. It wasn't so +much what you said, Parson, but your being here. Then I've been thinking +all over again. I've an idea, boys, that when I go back up to-morrow I +won't be so sorry for what I've been, as glad that I didn't grow worse +than I did. It won't be easy, boys--going back. I'm taking the old river +with me, though. I've framed its bends and islands, its chutes and +reaches, like pictures in my mind. Old Parson here, too, coming in on us +the way he did, saying that this was hell, but he'd come here to live in +it. That's what waked me up, Parson! I could see how you felt. You'd +never seen such a place before, but you said in your heart and your eyes +showed it, Parson, that you would leave God's country to help us poor +devils. It's just a point of view, though. I'm going right up to my +particular hell, and I'll look back here to this thousand miles of river +as heaven. Yes, sir! But my job is up there--in that hell!" + +So they talked, and always their thoughts were on the river channel, and +their minds groping into the future. + +When the _Kate_ whistled way down at Bell's Landing, Rasba took the two +across to Caruthersville and bade them good-bye at the landing. + +The _Kate_ pulled out and Parson Rasba crossed to the three houseboats, +two of them his own. He went in to see Prebol, who was lonesome and +wanted to talk a little. + +"What you going to do, Parson?" Prebol asked. + +"I'd kind-a like to get to see shanty-boaters, and talk to them," the +man answered. "I wonder couldn't yo' sort of he'p me; tell me where I +mout begin and where it'd he'p the most, an' hurt people's feelin's the +least? I'd jes' kind-a like to be useful. Course, I got to get you +cured up an' took cyar of first." + +"I cayn't say much about being pious on Old Mississip'," Prebol grinned, +"but theh's two ways of findin' trouble. One's to set still long enough, +and then, again, you can go lookin' fo' hit. Course, yo' know me! I've +hunted trouble pretty fresh, an' I've found hit, an' I've lived onto +hit. I cayn't he'p much about doin' good, an' missionaryin', an' River +Prophetin'." + +When Prebol's voice showed the strain of talking Rasba bade him rest. +Then he went over to the big boat, a gift that would have sold for +$1,000. He looked at the crap table, the little poker tables with the +brass-slot kitties; he stared at the cabinet of cards and dice. + +"All mine!" he said. + +He walked out on the deck where he could commune with the river, using +his eyes, his ears, and the feeling that the warm afternoon gave him. +The sun shone upon him, and made a narrow pathway across the rushing +torrent. The sky was blue and cloudless. Of the cold, the wind, the sea +of liquid mud, not one trace remained. + +He looked down and up the river, and his eyes caught a flicker which +became a flutter, like the agitation of a duck preening its feathers on +a smooth surface. + +He watched it for a long time. He did not know what it was. As a river +man, his curiosity was excited, but there was something more than mere +curiosity; the river instinct that the inexplicable and unknown should +be watched and inquired into moved him almost unconsciously to watch +that distant agitation which became a dot afloat in a mirage of light. A +little later a sudden flash along the river surface disclosed that the +thing was a shanty-boat turning in the coiling currents at the bend. + +The sun drew nearer the tree tops. The little cabin-boat was seeking a +place to land or anchor for the night. If it was an old river man, the +boat would drop into some little eddy at Caruthersville or down below; +but a stranger on the river would likely shoot across into the gamblers' +eddy tempted, perhaps, by the three boats already there. + +The boat drew swiftly near, and as it ran down, the navigator rowed to +make the shanty-boat eddy. Parson Rasba discovered that it was a woman +at the sweeps, and a few strokes later he knew that it was a slim, young +woman. When she coasted down outside the eddy, to swing in at the foot, +and arrived opposite him, he recognized her. + +"God he'p me!" he choked, "hit's Missy Nelia. Hit's Missy Nelia! An' +she's a runned away married woman--an' theh's the man she shot!" + +"Hello-o, Parson!" she hailed him, "did you see a skiff with a reporter +man drop by?" + +"No, missy!" he shook his head, his heart giving a painful thump + +"I'm a-landing in, Parson!" she cried. "I want to talk with you!" + +With that she leaned forward, drove the sweeps deep, and her boat +started in like a skiff. It seemed to Parson Rasba that he had never +seen a more beautiful picture in all his days. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Lester Terabon rowed down the rolling river waters in the dark night. He +had, of course, looked out into the Mississippi shades from the security +of landing, anchorage, and sandbar; he knew the looks of the night but +not the activities of currents and bends when a gale is sweeping by and +the air is, by turns, penetrated by the hissing of darting whitecaps and +the roar of the blustering winds. + +He would not from choice have selected a night of gale for a pull down +the Mississippi, and his first sensation as he sought a storm wave +stroke was one of doubt. What dangers might engulf him was not plain, +not the waves, for his skiff bobbed and rocked over them; not river +pirates bent on plunder, for they could not see him; perhaps a snag in +the shallows of a crossing; perhaps the leap of a sawyer, a great tree +trunk with branches fast in the mud and the roots bounding up and down +in the current; perhaps a collision with some other craft. + +He had salt-water rowlocks on his boat, open-topped "U" sockets, and the +oars he used were cased with a foot of black leather and collars of +leather strips; the tips were covered with copper sheets which gave them +weight and balance. At first he pulled awkwardly, catching crabs in the +hollows and backing into the heft of the waves, but after a time he felt +the waves as they came, and the oars feathered and caught. While he +watched ahead and searched the black horizon for the distant sparkle of +government lights, he fell into the swing of his stroke before he knew +it, and he was interested and surprised to observe that he swayed to the +side-wash while he pulled to the rhythm of the waves. + +The government lights guided him. He had not paid much attention to them +before; he had seen their white post standards as he dropped down, day +after day, but his skiff, drawing only five inches of water, passed over +the shallowest crossings and along the most gradually sloping sandbars. +Now he must keep to the deep water, follow the majestic curves and +sweeps of the meandering channel, lest he collide with a boiling eddy, +ram the shore line of sunken trees, or climb the point of a towhead. + +It was all a new experience, and its novelty compelled him at times to +pause in his efforts to jot down a few hasty words by light of a little +electric flash to preserve in his memory the sequence of the constantly +varying features of the night, beginning with the curtain of the +shanty-boat which flicked its good luck after him, passing the bright, +clear lights of New Madrid. After leaving far behind their glow against +the thin haze in the night he "made" the scattered shoals of Point +Pleasant, and hugged down vanishing Ruddles Point, taking a glimpse of +Tiptonville--which withdraws year by year from the fatal caving brink of +its site--wishing as he passed that he might return to that strange +place and visit Reelfoot Lake three or four miles beyond, where the New +Madrid earthquakes drowned a forest whose dead stubs rise as monuments +to the tragedy. + +In Little Cypress Bend, twenty-five miles below where he had left the +young woman, he heard the splash and thud of a caving bank, and felt the +big rollers from the falling earth twisting and tumbling him about for a +third of a mile. + +It was after 1 o'clock when he looked at his watch. He was beginning to +feel the pull on his shoulders, and the crick which constantly looking +over his shoulder to see the lights ahead caused him. The dulness of +his vision, due to inevitable fatigue, compelled him constantly to sit +more alert and dash away the fine spray which whipped up from the waves. +A feeling of listlessness overpowered him. He could not row on forever, +without resting at all. Taking advantage of a moment of calm in the +wind, he pulled the bow around and drifted down stern first. + +He had lost track of his position; he had not counted the lights, and +now for many miles there was no town distinguishable. He had felt the +loneliness of a mile-breadth; now he wondered whether he was in Missouri +or Arkansas, whether he had come forty miles or eighty, and after a +little he began to worry for fear he might have gone more than a +hundred. + +With the wind astern or nearly astern, he knew that he had pulled four +or five miles an hour, and he did not know how fast the current of the +river ran; it might be four miles or eight miles. In ten hours he might +leave more than a hundred miles of river bank behind him. + +A new sensation began to possess him: the feeling that he was not alone. +He looked around, while he rested trying to find what proximity thus +affected him. The wind? Those dull banks, seemingly so distant? Perhaps +some fellow traveller? It was none of those things. + +It was the river! The "feel" of the flood was that of a person. He could +not shake off the sensation, which seemed absurd. He shook his head +resolutely and then searched through the gloom to discover what eyes +might be shining in it. He saw the inevitable government lights between +which was deep water and a safe channel. He had but to keep on the line +between the lights, cutting across when he spied another one far ahead. +The lights but accentuated the certainty that on all sides, but a little +way from him, a host of invisible beings speculated on his presence and +influenced his course. + +A newspaper man of much experience could not help but protest in +his practical mind against such a determination of the invisible +and the unknown to give him such nonsensical ideas. He had in play, +in intellectual persiflage, and with some show of traditional +reasonableness, called Nelia Crele "a river goddess." She was very +well placed in his mind--a reckless woman, pretty, with a fine +character for a masterpiece of fiction (should he ever get to the +story-writing stage) and a delight to think about; commanding, too, +mysterious and exacting; and now he thought it might be the +laughter of her voice that carried in the wind, not a mocking +laugh, nor a jeering one, but one of sweet encouragement which +neither distance nor circumstances could dismiss from a distressed +and reluctant heart, let alone a heart so willing to receive as +his. + +Lester Terabon accepted the possibility of river lore and proclaimed +beliefs. Fishermen, store-boaters, trippers, pirates, and all sorts of +the shanty-boaters whom he had interviewed on his way down had solemnly +assured him that there were spirits who promenaded down mid-stream, and +who sometimes could be seen. + +Terabon was sorry when his cool, calculating mind refused to believe his +eyes, which saw shapes; his flesh, which felt creeps; his ears, which +heard voices; and his nostrils, which caught a whiff of a faint, sweet +perfume more exquisite than any which he remembered. He knew that when +he had kissed the river goddess whose eyes were blue, whose flesh was +fair, whose grace was lovely, he had tasted that nectar and sniffed that +ambrosia. He wondered if she were near him, watching to see whether he +performed well the task which she had set for him, the rescue of the +husband who had forfeited her love, and yet who still was under her +protection since in his indignant sorrow he had supposed himself capable +of finding and retaining her. + +Terabon would have liked nothing better than to believe what the +Grecians used to believe, that goddesses and gods do come down to the +earth to mingle among mankind. He fought the impossibility with his +reason, and night winds laughed at him, while the voices of the waves +chuckled at his predicament. They assailed him with their presence like +living things, and then roared away to give room to new voices and new +presences. + +"Anyhow," Terabon laughed, in spite of himself, "you're good company, +Old Mississip'!" + +Yet he felt the chilling and depressing possibility that he might never +again see that woman who would remain as a "river goddess" in his +imagination. He had been heart-free, a bystander in the world's affairs. +Now he knew what it was to see the memory of a woman rise unbidden to +disturb his calculations; more than that, too, he was a part of the +affairs of the River People. + +As a reporter "back home" he had never been able quite to reconcile +himself to his constant position as a spectator, a neutral observer, +obliged to write news without feeling and impartially. A politician +could look him in the eye and tell him any smooth lie, and he could not, +with white heat, deny the statement. He could not rise with his own +strength to champion the cause of what he knew to be right against +wrong; he could not elaborate on the details of things that he felt most +interested in, but must consult the fancies of a not-particularly +discriminating public, whose average intelligence, according to some +learned students, must be placed at seventeen-years plus. As he was +twenty-four plus, Terabon was immensely discouraged with the public when +he had set forth down the Mississippi. + +Now he was on the way from a river goddess to interfere with the +infamous plans of river pirates, through a dry gale out of the north, on +the winding course of the Mississippi, a transition which troubled the +self-possession while it awakened the spirit of the young man. + +Dawn broke on the troubled river, and the prospect was enchanting to the +heroic in the mind of the skiff-tripper. He could not be sure which was +east or west, for the gray light appeared on all sides, in spots and +patches of varying size. No gleam reflected from the yellow clay of the +tumbling and tortured waters. As far as he could see there was light, +but not a bright light. Dull purples, muddy waters, gray tree trunks, +black limbs against dark clouds; Terabon felt the weariness of a desert, +the melancholy of a wet, dripping-tree wilderness, and of a tumbling +waste of waters; and yet never had the solid body of the stream been so +awe-inspiring as in that hour of creeping and insinuating dawn. + +He ran out into the main river again, and a wonderful prospect opened +before his eyes. Sandbars spread out for miles across the river and +lengthwise of the river; the bulk of the stream seemed broken up into +channels and chutes and wandering waterways. He saw column after column +of lines of spiles, like black teeth, through which the water broke with +protesting foam. + +When he thought to reckon up, as he passed Osceola Bar, he found that he +had come ninety-five miles. Yankee Bar was only five or six miles below +him, and he eagerly pulled down to inspect the long beaches, the chutes +and channels, which the river pirates had used for not less than 150 +years; where they still had their rendezvous. + +Wild ducks and geese were there in many flocks. There were waters +sheltered from the wind by willow patches. The woods of Plum Point +Peninsula were heavy and dark. The river main current slashed down the +miles upon miles of Craighead Point, and shot across to impinge upon +Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1, where a made dirt bank was silhouetted against +the sky. + +Not until his binoculars rested upon the bar at the foot of Fort Pillow +Bluff did Terabon's eyes discover any human beings, and then he saw a +white houseboat with a red hull. He headed toward it to ask the familiar +river question. + +"No, suh!" the lank, sharp-eyed fisherman shook his head. "Theh's no +motorboat landed up theh, not this week. Who all mout you be?" + +"Lester Terabon; I'm a newspaper writer; I live in New York; I came down +the Mississippi looking for things to tell about in the newspapers. You +see, lots of people hardly know there's a Mississippi River, and it's +the most interesting place I ever heard of." + +"Terabon? I expect you all's the feller Whiskey Williams was tellin' +about; yo'n a feller name of Carline was up by No. 8. He said yo' had +one of them writin' machines right into a skift. Sho! An' yo' have! The +woman an' me'd jes' love to see yo' all use hit." + +"You'll see me," Terabon laughed, "if you'll let me sit by your stove. +I've some writing I could do. Here's a goose for dinner, too." + +"Sho! The woman shore will love to cook that goose! I'm a fisherman but +no hunter. 'Tain't of'en we git a roast bird!" + +So Terabon sat by the stove, writing. He wrote for more than an +hour--everything he could remember, with the aid of his pencilled +midnight notes, about that long run down. With his maps before him he +recognized the bends and reaches, the sandbars and islands which had +loomed up in the dark. Of all the parts of the river, the hundred miles +from Island No. 10 down to Fort Pillow became the most familiar to his +thoughts, black though the night had been. Even each government light +began to have characteristics, and the sky-line of levee, wilderness, +sandbar, and caving bank grew more and more defined. + +Having written his notes, and Jeff Slamey having fingered the nine +loose-leaf sheets with exclamatory interest and delight, Terabon said he +must go rest awhile. + +"Yas, suh," the fisherman cried, "when a man's pulled a hundred mile he +shore needs sleep. When the woman's got that goose cooked, I bet yo'll +be ready to eat, too." + +So Terabon turned in to sleep. He was awakened at last by the sizzling +of a goose getting its final basting. He started up, and Slamey said: + +"Hit's ready. I bet yo' feel betteh, now; six hours asleep!" + +It didn't seem like six minutes of dreamless recreation. + +With night the wind fell. The flood of sunset brilliance spread down the +radiant sandbars and the bright waterways. The trees were plated with +silver and gold, and the sweep of the caving bend was a dark shadow +against which the river current swept with ceaseless attack. + +For hours that night Terabon amused his host with his adventures, except +that he made but most casual mention of the woman whom Carline was +seeking. He was cautious, too, about the motorboat and the companion +who had taken Carline down the river, till Slamey burst out: + +"I know that feller. He's a bad man; he's a river rat. If he don't kill +Gus Carline, I don't know these yeah riveh fellers. They use down +thisaway every winter. I know; I know them all. I leave them alone, an' +they leave me alone. I knew they was comin'. They got three four boats +now. One feller, name of Prebol--he's bad, too--was shot by a lady above +Cairo. He's with a coupla gamblers to Caruthersville now. Everybody +stops yeah; I know everybody; everybody knows me." + +The next day was calm all day long, and Terabon went up the bank to +shoot squirrels or other woods game; he went almost up to the Plum +Point, killed several head of game, and rejoiced in the bayous and +sloughs and chutes of a changing land. + +The following morning he was hailed by Slamey: + +"Hi--i, Terabon! Theh's a shanty-boat up the head of Flower Island Bar +jes' drappin' in. They've floated down all night!" + +Through his glasses Terabon saw two men walking a shanty-boat across the +dead water below Yankee Lower Bar to the mainland. + +They were too far away for him to distinguish their personalities, but +one was a tall, active man, the other obviously chunky, and when they +ran their lines out and made fast to half-buried snags, it was with the +quick decision of men used to work against currents and to unison of +effort. There was something suggestive in their bearing, their scrutiny +up and down the river, their standing close to each other as they +talked. If Terabon had not suspected them of being pirates, their +attitude and actions would have betrayed them. + +Terabon, after a little while, pulled up the eddy toward them; he was +willing to take a long chance. Few men resent a newspaper man's +presence. The worst of them like to put themselves, their ideas, right +with the world. Terabon risked their knavery to win their approbation. +Come what might, he would seek to save Augustus Carline from the +consequences of his ignorance, money, folly, and remorse. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +The flow of the Mississippi River is down stream--a perfectly absurd and +trite statement at first thought. On second thought, one reverts to the +people who are always trying to fight their way up that adverse current, +with the thrust of two miles perpendicular descent and the body of a +thousand storms in its rush. + +There are steamers which endeavour to stem the current, but they make +scant headway; sometimes a fugitive afraid of the rails will pull up +stream; the birds do fly with the spring winds against the retreat of +winter; but all these things are trifles, and merely accentuate the fact +that everything goes down. + +The sandbars are not fixed, they are literally rivers of sand flowing +down, tormenting the current, and keeping human beings speculating on +their probable course and the effect, when after a few years on a point, +they disappear under the water. Later they will lunge up and out into +the wind again, gallumphing along, some coarse gravel bars, some yellow +sand, some white sand, some fine quicksand, some gritty mud, and others +of mud almost fit to use in polishing silver. + +Thousands of people in shanty-boats, skiff's, fancy little yachts, and +jon-boats, rag-shacks on rafts, and serviceable cruisers drift down with +the flood, and are a part of it. + +Autumn was passing; most of the birds had speeded south when the wild +geese brought the alarm that a cold norther was coming. When the storm +had gone by, shanty-boaters, having shivered with the cold, determined +not to be caught again. The sunshine of the evening, when the wind died, +saw boats drifting out for the all-night run. Dawn, calm and serene, +found boats moving out into mid-channel more or less in haste. + +So they floated down, sometimes within a few hundred feet of other +boats, sometimes in merry fleets tied together by ropes and common +joyousness, sometimes alone in the midst of the vacant waters. The +migration of the shanty-boaters was watched with mingled hate, envy, and +admiration by Up-the-Bank folks, who pretend to despise those who live +as they please. + +And Nelia Carline pulled out into the current and followed her river +friend, Lester Terabon, who had gone on ahead to save her husband from +the river pirates. She despised her husband more as she let her mind +dwell on the man who had shown no common frailties while he did enjoy a +comradeship which included the charm of a pretty woman, recognizing her +equality, and not permitting her to forget for a moment that he knew she +was lovely, as well as intelligent. + +She had not noticed that fact so much at the time, as afterward, when +she subjected him to the merciless scrutiny of a woman who has +heretofore discovered in men only depravity, ignorance, selfishness, or +brutality. Her first thought had been to use Terabon, play with him, +and, if she could, hurt him. She knew that there were men who go about +plaguing women, and as she subjected herself to grim analysis, she +realized that in her disappointment and humiliation she would have hurt, +while she hated, men. + +The long hours down the river, in pleasant sunshine, with only an +occasional stroke of the oar to set the boat around broadside to the +current, enabled her to sit on the bow of her boat and have it out with +herself. She had never had time to think. Things crowded her +Up-the-Bank. Now she had all the time in the world, and she used that +time. She brought out her familiar books and compared the masters with +her own mind. She could do it--there. + +"Ruskin, Carlyle, Old Mississip', Plato, Plutarch, Thoreau, the Bible, +Shelley, Byron, and I, all together, dropping down," she chuckled, +catching her breath. "I'm tripping down in that company. And there's +Terabon. He's a good sport, too, and he'll be better when I've--when +I've caught him." + +Terabon was just a raw young man as regards women. He might flatter +himself that he knew her sex, and that he could maintain a pose of +writing her into his notebooks, but she knew. She had seen stunned and +helpless youth as she brought into play those subtle arts which had +wrenched from his reluctant and fearful soul the kiss which he thought +he had asked for, and the phrase of the river goddess, which he thought +he had invented. She laughed, for she had realized, as she acted, that +he would put into words the subtle name for which she had played. + +It all seemed so easy now that she considered the sequence of her +inspired moves. Drifting near another shanty-boat, she passed the time +of day with a runaway couple who had come down the Ohio. They had dinner +together on their boat. A solitaire and an unscarred wedding ring +attested to the respectability of the association. + +"Larry's a river drifter," the girl explained, "and Daddy's one of those +set old fellows who hate the river. But Mamma knew it was all right. +Larry's saved $7,000 in three years. He'd never tell me that till I +married him, but I knew. We're going clear down to N'Orleans. Are you?" + +"Probably." + +"And all alone--aren't you afraid?" + +"Oh, I'll be all right, won't I?" She looked at the stern-featured +youth. + +"If you can shoot and don't care," Larry replied without a smile. + +"I can shoot," Nelia said, showing her pistol. + +"That's river Law!" Larry cried, smiling. "That's Law. You came out the +Upper River?" + +"Yes," she nodded. + +"Then I bet----" the girl-wife started to speak, but stopped, blushing. + +"Yes," Nelia smiled a hard smile. "I'm the woman who shot Prebol above +Buffalo Island--I had to." + +"You did right; men always respect a lady if she don't care who she +shoots," Larry cried, enthusiastically. "Wish you'd get my wife to learn +how to shoot. She's gun shy!" + +So Nelia coaxed the little wife to shoot, first the 22-calibre repeating +rifle and then the pistol. When Nelia had to go down they parted good +friends and Larry thanked her, saying that probably they would meet down +below somewhere. + +"You'll make Caruthersville," Larry told her. "There's a good eddy on +the east side across from the town. There's likely some boats in there. +They'll know, perhaps, if the folks you are looking for are around. +There's an old river man there now, name of Buck. He's a gambler, but +he's all right, and he'll treat you all right. He's from up in our +country, on the Ohio. Hardly anybody knows about him. He was always a +dandy fellow, but he married a woman that wasn't fit to drink his +coffee. She bothered the life out of him, and--well, he squared up. He +gave her to the other fellow with a double-barrelled shotgun." + +When Nelia ran down to the gambling boat and found Parson Rasba there, +she enjoyed the idea. Certainly the River Prophet and the river gambler +were an interesting combination. She was not prepared to find that Buck +had taken his departure and that Parson Rasba was converting the +gambling hell into a mission boat. Least of all was she prepared when +Parson Rasba said with an unsteady voice: + +"Theh's a man sick in that other boat, and likely he'd like to see +somebody." + +"Oh, if there's anything I can do!" she exclaimed, as a woman does. + +He led the way to the brick-red little boat, the like of which could be +found in a thousand river eddies. She followed him on board and over to +the bed. There she looked into the wan countenance and startled eyes of +Jest Prebol. + +"Hit's Mister Prebol," Rasba said. "I know you have no hard feelings +against him, and I know he has none against you, Missy Carline!" + +An introduction to a contrite river pirate, whom she had shot, for the +moment rendered the young woman speechless. Prebol was less at loss for +words. + +"I'm glad to git to see yo'," he said, feebly. "If I'd knowed yo', I +shore would have minded my own business. I'm bad, Missy Carline, but I +ain' mean--not much. Leastwise, not about women. I reckon the boys shore +will let yo' be now. I made a mistake, an' I 'low to 'pologise to yo'." + +"I was--I was scairt to death," she cried, sitting in a chair. "I was +all alone. I was afraid--the river was so big that night. I was so far +away. I should have given you fair warning. I'm sorry, too, Jest." + +"Lawse!" Prebol choked. "Say hit thataway ag'in----" + +"I'm sorry, too, Jest!" + +"I cayn't thank yo' all enough," the man-whispered. "I've got friends +along down the riveh. I'll send word along to them, they'll shore treat +yo' nice. Treat friends of yourn nice, too. Huh! 'Pologizin' to me afteh +what I 'lowed to do!" + +"We'll be good friends, Jest. The Prophet here and I are good friends, +too. Aren't we, Parson?" + +"I hearn say, Missy," the Prophet said, slowly, picking his words, "I +hearn say you've a power and a heap of book learning! Books on yo' boat, +all kinds. What favoured yo' thataway?" + +"Oh, I read lots!" she exclaimed, surprised by the sudden shift of +thought. "Somehow, I've read lots!" + +"In my house I had a Bible, an almanac, and the 'Resources of +Tennessee,' Yo' have that many books?" + +"Why, I've a hundred--more than a hundred books!" she answered. + +"A Bible?" + +"Yes." + +"Would you mind, Missy, comin' on board this boat to-night, an' tellin' +us about these books you have? I'm not educated; my daddy an' I read the +Bible, an' tried to understand hit. Seems like we neveh did git to know +the biggest and bestest of the words." + +"You had a dictionary?" + +"A which?" + +"A dictionary, a book that explains the meaning of all the words!" + +"Ho law! A book that tells what words mean, Missy. Where all kin a man +git to find one of them books?" + +"Why, I've got----I'm hungry, Mr. Rasba, I must get something to eat. +After supper we'll bring some books over here and talk about them!" + +"My supper is all ready, keeping warm in the oven," Rasba said. "I +always cook enough for one more than there is. Yo' know, a vacant chair +at the table for the Stranger." + +"And I came?" she laughed. + +"An' yo' came, Missy!" he replied. + +"Parson," Prebol pleaded, "I'm alone mos' the time. Mout yo' two eat +hyar on my bo't? The table--hit'd be comp'ny." + +"Certainly we'll come," Nelia promised, "if he'd just soon." + +"I'd rather," Rasba assented, and at his tone Nelia felt a curious +sensation of pity and mischievousness. At the same time, she recovered +her self-possession. She demanded that Rasba let her help him bring over +the supper, add a feminine relish, and set the table with a daintiness +which was an addition to the fascination of her presence. Gaily she fed +Prebol the delicate things which he was permitted to eat, then sat down +with Rasba, her face to the light, and Prebol could watch her bantering, +teasing, teaching Parson Rasba things he had never known he lacked. + +After supper she brought over a basket full of books, twenty volumes. +She dumped them onto the table, leather, cloth, and board covers, of +red, blue, gray, brown, and other gay colours. Parson Rasba had seen +government documents and even some magazines with picture covers, but in +the mountains where he had ridden his Big Circuit with such a disastrous +end he had never seen such books. He hesitated to touch one; he cried +out when three or four slipped off the pile onto the floor. + +"Missy, won't they git muddied up!" + +"They're to read!" she told him. "Listen," and she began to +read--poetry, prose at random. + +The Prophet did not know, he had never been trained to know--as few men +ever are trained--how to combat feminine malice and spoiled power. He +listened, but not with averted eyes. Prebol, himself a spectator at a +scene different from any he had ever witnessed, was still enough more +sophisticated to know what she was doing, and he was delighted. + +By and by the injured man drifted into slumber, but Rasba gave no sign +of flagging interest, no traces of a mind astray from the subject at +hand. He felt that he must make the most of this revelation, which came +after the countless revelations which he had had since arriving down the +river. There was a fear clutching at his heart that it might end; that +in a moment this woman might depart and leave him unenlightened, and +unable ever to find for himself the unimaginable world of words which +she plucked out of those books and pinned into the great vacant spaces +of his mind which he had kept empty all these years--not knowing that he +was waiting for this night, when he should have the Mississippi bring +into his eddy, alongside his own mission boat, what he most needed. + +He sat there, a great, pathetic figure, shaggy, his heart thumping, +taking from this trim, neat, beautiful woman the riches which she so +casually, almost wantonly, threw to him in passing. + +The corridors of his mind echoed to the tread of hosts; he heard the +rumblings of history, the songs of poets whose words are pitched to the +music of the skies, and he hung word pictures which Ruskin had painted +in his imagination. + +Fate had waited long to give him this night. It had waited till the man +was ready, then with a lavish hand the storehouses of the master +intellects of the world were opened to him, for him to help himself. +Nelia suddenly started up from her chair and looked around, herself the +victim of her own raillery, which had grown to be an understanding of +the pathetic hunger of the man for these things. + +It was daylight, and the flood of the sunrise was at hand. + +"Parson," she said, "do you like these things--these books?" + +"Missy," he whispered, "I could near repeat, word for word, all those +things you've said and read to me to-night." + +"There are lots more," she laughed. "I want to do something for your +mission boat, will you let me?" + +"Lawse! Yo've he'ped me now more'n yo' know!" + +She smiled the smile that women have had from all the ages, for she knew +a thousand times more than even the Prophet. + +"I'll give you a set of all these books!" she said; "all the books that +I have. Not these, my old pals--yes, these books, Mr. Rasba. If you'll +take them? I'll get another lot down below." + +"Lawd God! Give me yo' books!" + +"Oh, they're not expensive--they're----" + +"They're yours. Cayn't yo' see? It's your own books, an' hit's fo' my +work. I neveh knowed how good men could be, an' they give me that boat +fo' a mission boat. Now--now--missy--I cayn't tell yo'--I've no +words----" + +And with gratitude, with the simplicity of a mountain parson, he dropped +on his knees and thanked God. As he told his humility, Prebol wakened +from a deep and restful sleep to listen in amazement. + +When at last Rasba looked up Nelia was gone. The books were on the table +and he found another stack heaped up on the deck of the mission boat. +But the woman was gone, and when he looked down the river he saw +something flicker and vanish in the distance. + +He stared, hurt; he choked, for a minute, in protest, then carried that +immeasurable treasure into his cabin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Renn Doss, the false friend, saw the danger of the recognition of the +firearms by Carline. The savage swing of a half pound of fine shot +braided up in a rawhide bag, and a good aim, reduced Carline to an inert +figure of a man. "Renn Doss" was Hilt Despard, pirate captain, whose +instantaneous action always had served him well in moments of peril. + +The three men carried Carline to a bunk and dropped him on it. They +covered him up and emptied a cupful of whiskey on his pillow and +clothes. They even poured a few spoonfuls down his throat. They thus +changed him to what might be called a "natural condition." + +Then, sitting around the stove, they whispered among themselves, +discussing what they had better do. Half a hundred possibilities +occurred to their fertile fancies and replete memories. Men and women +who have always led sheltered lives can little understand or know what a +pirate must understand and know even to live let alone be successful. + +"What's Terabon up to?" Despard demanded. "Here he is, drappin' down by +Fort Pillow Landing, running around. Where's that girl he had up above +New Madrid? What's his game? Coming up here and talking to us? Asking us +all about the river and things--writin' it for the newspapers?" + +"That woman's this Carline's wife!" Jet sneered. + +"Sure! An' here's Terabon an' here's Carline. Terabon don't talk none +about that woman--nor about Carline," Dock grumbled. + +"I bet Terabon would be sorry none if Carline hyar dropped out. Y' know +she's Old Crele's gal," Jet said. "Crele's a good feller. Sent word +down to have us take cyar of her, an' Prebol, the fool, didn't know 'er, +hadn't heard. Look what she give him, bang in the shoulder! That old +Prophet'll take cyar of him, course. See how hit works out. She shined +up to Terabon, all right." + +"I 'low I better talk to him," Despard suggested. "Terabon's a good +sport. He said, you' know, that graftin' and whiskey boatin', an' +robbin' the bank wa'n't none of his business. He said, course, he could +write it down in his notes, but without names, 'count of somebody might +read somethin' in them an' get some good friend of his in Dutch. He said +it wouldn't be right for him to know about somebody robbin' a +commissary, or a bank, or killin' somebody, because if somebody like a +sheriff or detective got onto it, they might blame him, or somethin'." + +"I like that Terabon!" Jet declared. "Y'see how he is. He says he's +satisfied, makin' a fair living, gettin' notes so's he can write them +magazine stories, an' if he was to try to rob the banks, he'd have to +learn how, same's writin' for newspapers. An' probably he wouldn't have +the nerve to do it really, 'count of his maw and paw bein' the kind they +was. He told me hisself that they made him go to Sunday school when he +was a kid, an' things like that spoil a man for graftin'. Stands to +reason, all right, the way he talks. I like him; he knows enough to mind +his own business." + +"He's comin' up to-night to go after geese on the bar. We'll talk to +him. He'll look that business over, level-headed. That motorboat any +good?" + +"Nothin' extra. He's got ready money, though, I forgot that," Despard +grinned, walking over to the hapless victim of his black-jack skill. + +The three divided nearly thirteen hundred dollars among them. The money +made them good humoured and they had some compassion for their prisoner. +One of them noticed that a skiff was coming up from Fort Pillow Landing, +and fifteen minutes later Terabon was talking to Despard on the snag to +one prong of which was fastened the line of Carline's motorboat. + +"I was wondering where I'd see you again," Terabon said. "Didn't have a +chance at New Madrid, saw you was in business, so I didn't follow up +none." + +"I was wondering if you had a line on that," Despard said, doubtfully. +"Y'know that woman you was staying with up on Island Ten Bar? Well, we +got her man in here full's a fish. Lookin' for his woman, an' he's no +good. Fell off the cabin, hit a spark in the back of the head when the +water sucked when that steamboat went by this morning. He'd ought to go +down to Memphis hospital, but--Well, we can't take 'im. You know how +that is." + +"Be glad to help you boys out any way I can," Terabon said. "I'll run +him down." + +"Say, would you? We don't want him on our hands," the pirate explained. +"We'd get to see you down b'low some'rs." + +"Sure, I would," Terabon exclaimed. "Fact is, the woman said it'd be a +favour to her, too, if I'd get him home. She'll be dropping down likely. +Darn nice girl, but quick tempered." + +"That's right; quick ain't no name for it. She plugged a friend of mine +up by Buffalo Island----" + +"Prebol? I heard about him. She was scairt." + +"She needn't be, never again!" Despard grinned. "When a lady can handle +a river Law like she does, us bad uns are real nice!" + +Terabon laughed, and the two went into the cabin-boat where Carline lay +on the bunk. Terabon ran his hand around the man's head and neck, found +the lump near the base of the skull, found that the neck wasn't broken, +and made sure that the heart was beating--things a reporter naturally +learns to do in police-station and hospital experience. + +Jet brought the motorboat down to the stern of the cabin-boat, and the +four carried Carline on board. They put him in his bunk, and Terabon, +his skiff towing astern, steered out into the main current and soon +faded down by Craighead Point Bar. + +"I knowed he'd be all right," Despard declared. "He'll take him down to +Memphis, and out of our way. I'd 'a' hated to kill him; it ain't no use +killin' a man less'n it's necessary. We got what we was after. Course, +if we'd rewarded him, likely we'd got a lot, but it ain't safe, holdin' +a man for rewards ain't." + +"That boat'd been a good one to travel in," Jet suggested. + +"Everybody'd knowed it was Carline's, an' it wa'n't worth fixing over. +Hull not much good, and the motor's been abused some. We'll do better'n +that." + +They had rid themselves of an incumbrance. They had made an acquaintance +who was making himself useful. They were considerably richer than they +had been for some time. + +"I'd like to drap into Mendova," Jet mused. "We ain't had what you'd +call a time----" + +"Let's kill some birds first," Gaspard suggested. "I got a hunch that +Yankee Bar's a good bet for us for a little while. We dassn't look into +Memphis, 'count of last trip down. Mendova's all right, but wait'll +we've hunted Yankee Bar." + +The money burned in their pockets, but as they stood looking out at the +long, beautiful Yankee Bar its appeal went home. For more than a hundred +years generations of pirates had used there, and no one knows how many +tragedies have left their stain in the great band around from Gold Dust +Landing to Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1. + +After dark they rowed over to the point and put out their decoys, dug +their pits, screened them, and brushed over their tracks in the sand. +Then they played cards till midnight, turned in for a little sleep, and +turned out again in the black morning to go to their places with +repeating shotguns and cripple-killer rifles in their hands. + +When they were in their places, and the river silence prevailed, they +saw the stars overhead, the reflections on sand and water around them, +and the quivering change as air currents moved in the dark--the things +that walk in the night. They heard, at intervals, many voices. Some they +knew as the fluent music of migrant geese flying over on long laps of +their fall flight, but some they did not know, except that they were +river voices. + +Ducks flew by no higher than the tops of the willow trees up the bar, +their wings whistling and their voices eager in the dark. The lurkers +saw these birds darting by like black streaks, tempting vain shots, but +they were old hunters, and knew they wanted at least a little light. +Over on the mainland they heard the noises of wilderness animals, and +away off yonder a mule's "he-haw" reverberated through the bottoms and +over bars and river. + +For these things, if the pirates had only known it, they found the world +endurable. Each in his own pit, given over to his own thoughts, they +thrilled to the joy of living. All they wanted, really, was this kind of +thing; hunting in fall and winter, fishing in the summer, and occasional +visits to town for another kind of thrill, another sort of excitement. +But their boyhood had been passed in privation, their youth amid +temptations of appetite and vice, and now they were hopelessly mixed as +to what they liked, what they didn't like, what the world would do for +them, and what they would do to the world. Weaklings, uneducated, +without balance; habit-ridden, yet with all that miserable inheritance +from the world, they waited there rigid, motionless, their hearts +thrilling to the increasing music of the march of dawn across the +bottoms of the Mississippi. + +False dawn flushed and faded almost like a deliberate lightning flash. +Then dawn appeared, marking down the gray lines of the wilderness trees +with one stroke, sweeping out all the stars with another brush, +revealing the flocks of birds glistening against the sky while yet the +earth was in shade. The watchers spied a score of birds, great geese far +to the northward, coming right in line with them. They waited for a few +seconds--ages long. Then one of the men cried: + +"They're stoopin', boys! They're comin'!" + +The wild geese, coming down a magnificent slant from a mile height, +headed straight for Yankee Bar. Will birds never learn? They ploughed +down with their wings folding, and poised. Their voices grew louder and +louder as they approached. + +With a hissing roar of their wings they pounded down out of the great, +safe heights and circled around and inward. With a shout the three men +started up through their masks and with levelled guns opened fire. + +Too late the old gander at the point of the "V" began to climb; too late +the older birds in the point screamed and gathered their strength. The +river men turned their black muzzles against the necks of the young tail +birds of the feathered procession and brought them tumbling down out of +the line to the ground, where on the hard sand two of them split their +breasts and exposed thick layers of fat dripping with oil. + +The cries of the fleeing birds, the echoes of the barking guns, died +away. The men shouted their joy in their success, gathered up their +victims, scurried pack to cover, brushing over their tracks, and +crouched down again, to await another flock. + +Hunger drove them to their cabin-boat within an hour. They had thought +they wanted to get some more birds, but in fact they knew they had +enough. They went over to their boat, cooked up a big breakfast, and sat +around the fire smoking and talking it over. They chattered like boys. +They were gleeful, innocent, harmless! But only for a time. Then the +hunted feeling returned to them. Once more they had a back track to +watch and ambushes to be wary of. They wanted to go to Mendova, but +again they didn't want to go there. They didn't know but what Mendova +might be watching for them, the same as Memphis was. Certainly, they +determined, they must go to Mendova after dark, and see a friend who +would put them wise to actual conditions around town. + +They took catnaps, having had too little sleep, and yet they could not +sleep deeply. They watched the shanty-boats which dropped down the river +at intervals, most of them in the main current close to the far bank, +and often hardly visible against the mottled background of caving earth, +fallen trees, and flickering mirage. Their restlessness was silent, +morose, and one of them was always on the lookout. + +Despard himself was on watch in the afternoon. He sat just inside the +kitchen door, out of the sunshine, in a comfortable rocking chair. Two +windows and the stern door gave him a wide view of the river, sandbars +and eddy. It seemed but a minute, but he had fallen into a doze, when +the splash of a shanty-boat sweeps awakened all the crew with a sudden, +frightened start. Whispers, hardly audible, hailed in alarm. The three, +crouching in involuntary doubt and dismay, glared at the newcomer. + +It was a woman drifting in. Apparently she intended to land there, and +the three men stared at her. + +"His wife!" Despard said with soundless lips. The others nodded their +recognition. + +Mrs. Carline had run into the great dead eddy at the foot of Yankee +Lower Bar, turned up in the slow reverse eddy of the chute, and was +coming by their boat at the slowest possible speed. + +Despard pulled his soft shirt collar, straightened his tie, hitched his +suspenders, put on his coat, walked out on the stern deck, and, after a +glance around, seemed suddenly to discover the stranger. + +"Howdy!" he nodded, touching his cap respectfully, and gazing with +flickering eyes at the woman whose marksmanship entitled her to the +greatest respect. + +"Howdy!" she nodded, scrutinizing him with level eyes. "Where am I?" + +"Yankee Bar. Them's Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1." + +"Do you know Jest Prebol?" + +"Yessum." Despard's head bobbed in alarmed, unwilling assent. + +"I thought perhaps you'd like to know that he's getting along all +right." + +"I bet he learnt his lesson," Despard grimaced. + +"What? I don't just understand." + +"About bein' impudent to a lady that can shoot--straight!" + +A flicker moved the woman's countenance, and she smiled, oddly. + +"Oh, any one is likely to make mistakes!" + +"Darn fools is, Miss Crele. And you Old Crele's girl! He might of +knowed!" + +The other two stepped out to help enjoy the conversation and the +scenery. + +"You know me?" she demanded. + +"Yessum, we shore do. My name's Despard--Jet here and Cope." + +She acknowledged the introductions. + +"I've friends down here," she said, with a little catch of her breath. +"I was wondering if you--any of you gentlemen had seen them?" + +"Your man, Gus Carline an' that writin' feller, Terabon?" Jet asked, +without delicacy. Her cheeks flamed. + +"Yes!" she whispered. + +"Terabon took him down to Mendova or Memphis," Despard said. "Carline +was--was on the cabin and the boat lurched when the steamboat passing +drawed. He drapped over and hit a spark plug on the head!" + +"Was he badly hurt?" + +"Not much--kind of a lump, that's all." + +She looked down at Fort Pillow Bluff. The pirates awaited her pleasure, +staring at her to their heart's content. They envied her husband and +Terabon; they felt the strangeness of the situation. She was following +those two men down. She was part of the river tide, drifting by; she had +shot Prebol, their pal, and had cleverly ascertained their knowledge of +him while insuring that they had fair warning. + +Her boat drifted down till it was opposite them, and then, with quick +decision, she caught up a handy line, and said: + +"I'm going to tie in a little while. I've been alone clear down from +Caruthersville; I want to talk to somebody!" + +She threw the rope, and they caught and made it fast. They swung her +boat in, ran a plank from stern to bow, and Despard gave her his hand. +She came on board, and they sat on the stern deck to talk. Only one kind +of woman could have done that with safety, but she was that kind. She +had shot a man down for a look. + +The three pirates took one of the fat young geese, plucked and dressed +it, and baked it in a hot oven, with dressing, sweet potatoes, +hot-bread, and a pudding which she mixed up herself. + +For three hours they gossiped, and before she knew it, she had told them +about Prebol, about Parson Rasba introducing them. The pirates shouted +when she told of Jest's apology. With river frankness, they said they +thought a heap of Terabon, who minded his own business so cleverly. + +"I like him, too," she admitted. "I was afraid you boys might make +trouble for Carline, though. He don't know much about people, treating +them right." + +"He's one of those ignorant Up-the-Bankers," Despard said. + +"Oh, I know him." She shrugged her shoulders a little bitterly. + +As they ate the goose in camaraderie, the pirates took to warning and +advising her about the Lower River; they told her who would treat her +right, and who wouldn't. They especially warned her against stopping +anywhere near Island 37. + +"They're bad there--and mean." Despard shook his head, gravely. + +"I won't stop in there," Nelia promised. "River folks anybody can get +along with, but those Up-the-Bankers!" + +"Hit's seo," Jet cried. "They don't have no feelings for nobody." + +"You'll be dropping on down?" Nelia asked. + +"D'rectly!" Cope admitted. "We 'lowed we'd stop into Mendova. You stop +in there an' see Palura; he'll treat you right. He was in the riveh +hisse'f once. You talk to him----" + +"What did Terabon and Mr. Carline go on in? What kind of a boat?" + +"A gasolene cruiser." + +"Did he say where he'd be?" + +"Terabon? No. Ask into Mendova or into Memphis. They can likely tell." + +"Thank you, boys! I'm awful glad you've no hard feelings on account of +my shooting your partner; I couldn't know what good fellows you are. +We'll see you later." + +Her smile bewitched them; she went aboard her boat, pulled over into the +main current, and floated away in the sunset--her favourite river hour. + +After hours of argument, debate, doubts, they, too, pulled out and +floated past Fort Pillow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Parson Rasba piled the books on the crap table in his cabin and stood +them in rows with their lettered backs up. He read their titles, which +were fascinating: "Arabian Nights," "Representative Men," "Plutarch's +Lives," "Modern Painters," "Romany Rye"--a name that made him shudder, +for it meant some terrible kind of whiskey to his mind--"Lavengro," a +foreign thing, "Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases," "The Stem +Dictionary," "Working Principles of Rhetoric"--he wondered what rhetoric +meant--"The Fur Buyers' Guide," "Stones of Venice," "The French +Revolution," "Sartor Resartus," "Poe's Works," "Balzac's Tales," and +scores of other titles. + +All at once the Mississippi had brought down to him these treasures and +a fair woman with blue eyes and a smile of understanding and sympathy, +who had handed them to him, saying: + +"I want to do something for your mission boat; will you let me?" + +No fairyland, no enchantment, no translation from poverty and sorrow to +a realm of wealth and happiness could have caught the soul of the +Prophet Rasba as this revelation of unimagined, undreamed-of riches as +he plucked the fruits of learning and enjoyed their luxuries. He had +descended in his humility to the last, least task for which he felt +himself worthy. He had humbly been grateful for even that one thing left +for him to do: find Jock Drones for his mother. + +He had found Jock, and there had been no wrestling with an obdurate +spirit to send him back home, like a man, to face the law and accept the +penalty. There had been nothing to it. Jock had seen the light +instantly, and with relief. His partner had also turned back after a +decade of doubt and misery, to live a man's part "back home." The two of +them had handed him a floating Bethel, turning their gambling hell over +to him as though it were a night's lodging, or a snack, or a handful of +hickory nuts. The temple of his fathers had been no better for its +purpose than this beautiful, floating boat. + +Then a woman had come floating down, a beautiful strange woman whose +voice had clutched at his heart, whose smile had deprived him of reason, +whose eyes had searched his soul. With tears on her lashes she had flung +to him that treasure-store of learning, and gone on her way, leaving him +strength and consolation. + +He left his treasure and went out to look at the river. Everybody leaves +everything to look at the river! There is nothing in the world that will +prevent it. He saw, in the bright morning, that Prebol had raised his +curtain, and was looking at the river, too, though the effort must have +caused excruciating pain in his wounded shoulder. Day was growing; from +end to end of that vast, flowing sheet of water thousands upon thousands +of old river people were taking a look at the Mississippi. + +Rasba carried a good broth over to Prebol for breakfast, and then +returned to his cabin, having made Prebol comfortable and put a dozen of +the wonderful books within his reach. Then the River Prophet sat down to +read his treasures, any and all of them, his lap piled up, three or four +books in one hand and trying to turn the pages of another in his other +hand by unskilful manipulation of his thumb. He was literally starving +for the contents of those books. + +He was afraid that his treasure would escape from him; he kept glancing +from his printed page to the serried ranks on the crap table, and his +hands unconsciously felt around to make sure that the weight on his lap +and in his grasp was substantial and real, and not a dream or vision of +delight. + +He forgot to eat; he forgot that he had not slept; he sat oblivious of +time and river, the past or the future; he grappled with pages of print, +with broadsides of pictures, with new and thrilling words, with +sentences like hammer blows, with paragraphs that marched like music, +with thoughts that had the gay abandon of a bird in song. And the things +he learned! + +When night fell he was dismayed by his weariness, and could not +understand it. For a little while he ransacked his dulled wits to find +the explanation, and when he had fixed Prebol for the night, with +medicine, water, and a lamp handy to matches, he told the patient: + +"Seems like the gimp's kind of took out of me. My eyes are sore, an' I +doubt am I quite well." + +"Likely yo' didn't sleep well," Prebol suggested. "A man cayn't sleep +days if he ain't used to hit." + +"Sleep days?" Rasba looked wildly about him. + +"Sho! When did I git to sleep, why, I ain't slept--I----Lawse!" + +Prebol laughed aloud. + +"Yo' see, Parson, yo' all cayn't set up all night with a pretty gal an' +not sleep hit off. Yo' shore'll git tired, sportin' aroun'." + +"Sho!" Rasba snapped, and then a smile broke across his countenance. He +cried out with laughter, and admitted: "Hit's seo, Prebol! I neveh set +up with a gal befo' I come down the riveh. Lawse! I plumb forgot." + +"I don't wonder," Prebol replied, gravely. "She'd make any man forget. +She sung me to sleep, an' I slept like I neveh slept befo'." + +Rasba went on board his boat and, after a light supper, turned in. For +a minute he saw in retrospect the most wonderful day in his life, a day +which a kindly Providence had drawn through thirty or forty hours of +unforgettable exaltation. Then he settled into the blank, deep sleep of +a soul at peace and at rest. + +When in the full tide of the sunshine he awakened, he went about his +menial tasks, attending Prebol, cleaning out the boats, shaking up the +beds, hanging the bedclothes to air in the sun, and getting breakfast. +On Prebol's suggestion he moved the fleet of boats out into the eddy, +for the river was falling and they might ground. He went over to +Caruthersville and bought some supplies, brought Doctor Grell over to +examine the patient to make sure all was well, killed several squirrels +and three ducks back in the brakes, and, all the while, thought what +duties he should enter upon. + +Doctor Grell advised that Prebol go down to Memphis, to the hospital, so +as to have an X-ray examination, and any special treatment which might +be necessary. The wound was healing nicely, but it would be better to +make sure. + +Rasba took counsel of Prebol. The river man knew the needs of the +occasion, and he agreed that he had better drop down to Memphis or +Mendova, preferring the latter place, for he knew people there. He told +Rasba to line the two small shanty-boats beside the big mission boat, +and fend them off with wood chunks. The skiffs could float on lines +alongside or at the stern. The power boat could tow the fleet out into +the current, and hold it off sandbars or flank the bends. + +Rasba did as he was bid, and lashed the boats together with mooring +lines, pin-head to towing bits, and side to side. Then he floated the +boats all on one anchor line, and ran the launch up to the bow. He +hoisted in the anchor, rowed in a skiff out to the motorboat, and swung +wide in the eddy to run out to the river current. There was a good deal +of work to the task, and it was afternoon before the fleet reached the +main stream. + +Then Rasba cast off his tow lines, ran the launch back to the fleet, and +made it fast to the port bow of the big boat, so that it was part of the +fleet, with its power available to shove ahead or astern. A big oar on +the mission boat's bow and another one out from Prebol's boat insured a +short turn if it should be necessary to swing the boats around either +way. + +Rasba carried Prebol on his cot up to the bow of the big boat, and put +him down where he could help watch the river, and they cast off. Prebol +knew the bends and reaches, and named most of the landings; they +gossiped about the people and the places. Prebol told how river rats +sometimes stole hogs or cattle for food, and Rasba learned for the first +time of organized piracy, of river men who were banded together for +stealing what they could, raiding river towns, attacking "sports," +tripping the river, and even more desperate enterprises. + +While he talked, Prebol slyly watched his listener and thought for a +long time that Rasba was merely dumbfounded by the atrocities, but at +last the Prophet grinned: + +"An' yo's a riveh rat. Ho law!" + +"Why, I didn't say----" Prebol began, but his words faltered. + +"Yo' know right smart about such things," Rasba reminded him. "I 'low +hit were about time somebody shot yo' easy, so's to give yo' repentance +a chance to catch up with yo' wickedness. Don't yo'?" + +Prebol glared at the accusation, but Rasba pretended not to notice. + +"Yo' see, Prebol, this world is jes' the hounds a-chasin' the rabbits, +er the rabbits a-gittin' out the way. The good that's into a man keeps +a-runnin', to git shut of the sin that's in him, an' theh's a heap of +wrestlin' when one an' tother catches holt an' fights." + +"Hit's seo!" Prebol admitted, reluctantly. He didn't have much use for +religious arguments. "I wisht yo'd read them books to me, Parson. I +ain't neveh had much eddycation. I'll watch the riveh, an' warn ye, 'gin +we make the crossin's." + +Nothing suited them better. Rasba read aloud, stabbing each word with +his finger while he sought the range and rhythm of the sentences, and, +as they happened to strike a book of fables, their minds could grasp the +stories and the morals at least sufficiently to entertain and hold their +attention. + +Prebol said, warningly, after a time: + +"Betteh hit that sweep a lick, Parson, she's a-swingin' in onto that bar +p'int." + +A few leisurely strokes, the boats drifted away into deep water, and +Rasba expressed his admiration. + +"Sho, Prebol! Yo' seen that bar a mile up. We'd run down onto hit." + +"Yas, suh," the wounded man grinned. "Three-four licks on the oars up +theh, and down yeah yo' save pullin' yo' livin' daylights out, to keep +from goin' onto a sandbar or into a dryin'-up chute." + +"How's that?" Rasba cocked his ear. "Say hit oveh--slow!" + +"Why, if yo's into the set of the current up theh, hit ain't strong; yo' +jes' give two-three licks an' yo' send out clear. Down theh on the bar +she draws yo' right into shallow water, an' yo' hang up." + +Rasba looked up the river; he looked down at the nearing sandbar, and as +they passed the rippling head in safety he turned a grave face toward +the pilot. + +"Up theh, theh wasn't much suck to hit, but down yeah, afteh yo've +drawed into the current, theh's a strong drag an' bad shoals?" + +"Jes' so!" + +"Hit's easy to git shut of sin, away long in the beginnin'," Rasba bit +his words out, "but when yo' git a long ways down into hit--Ho law!" + +Prebol started, caught by surprise. Then both laughed together. They +could understand each other better and if Prebol felt himself being +drawn in spite of his own reluctance by a new current in his life, Rasba +did not fail to gratify the river man's pride by turning always to him +for advice about the river, its currents and its jeopardies. + +"I've tripped down with all kinds," Prebol grinned as he spoke, "but +this yeah's the firstest time I eveh did get to pilot a mission boat." + +"If you take it through in safety, do yo' reckon God will forget?" Rasba +asked, and Prebol's jaw dropped. He didn't want to be reformed; he had +no use for religion. He was very well satisfied with his own way of +living. He objected to being prayed over and the good of his soul +inquired into--but this Parson Rasba was making the idea interesting. + +They anchored for the night in the eddy at the head of Needham's Cut-Off +Bar, and Prebol was soon asleep, but Rasba sat under the big lamp and +read. He could read with continuity now; dread that the dream would +vanish no longer afflicted him. He could read a book without having more +than two or three other books in his lap. + +Sometimes it was almost as though Nelia were speaking the very words he +read; sometimes he seemed to catch her frown of disapproval. The books, +more precious than any other treasure could have been, seemed living +things because she had owned them, because her pencil had marked them, +and because she had given them all to his service, to fill the barren +and hungry places in the long-empty halls of his mind. + +He would stop his reading to think, and thinking, he would take up a +book to discover better how to think. He found that his reading and +thinking worked together for his own information. + +He was musing, his mind enjoying the novelty of so many different images +and ideas and facts, when something trickled among his senses and +stirred his consciousness into alert expectancy. For a little he was +curious, and then touched by dismay, for it was music which had roused +him--music out of the black river night. People about to die sometimes +hear music, and Parson Rasba unconsciously braced himself for the +shock. + +It grew louder, however, more distinct, and the sound was too gay and +lively to fit in with his dreams of a heavenly choir. He caught the +shout of a human voice and he knew that dancers were somewhere, perhaps +dancers damned to eternal mirth. He went out on the deck and closed the +door on the light behind him; at first he could see nothing but black +night. A little later he discovered boats coming down the river, eight +or nine gleaming windows, and a swinging light hung on a flag staff or +shanty-boat mast. + +As they drew nearer, someone shouted across the night: + +"Goo-o-o-d wa-a-a-ter thar?" + +"Ya-s-su-uh!" Rasba called back. + +"Where'll we come in?" + +"Anywhere's b'low me fo' a hundred yards!" + +"Thank-e-e!" + +Three or four sweeps began to beat the water, and a whole fleet of +shanty-boats drifted in slowly. They began to turn like a wheel as part +of them ran into the eddy while the current carried the others down, but +old river men were at the sweeps, and one of them called the orders: + +"Raunch 'er, boys! Raunch 'er! Raunchin's what she needs!" + +They floated out of the current into the slow reverse eddy, and coming +up close to Rasba's fleet, talked back and forth with him till a gleam +of light through a window struck him clearly out of the dark. + +"Hue-e-e!" a shrill woman's voice laughed. "Hit's Rasba, the Riveh +Prophet Rasba! Did yo' all git to catch Nelia Crele, Parson?" + +"Did I git to catch Missy Crele!" he repeated, dazed. + +"When yo' drapped out'n Wolf Island Chute, Parson, that night she pulled +out alone?" + +"No'm; I lost her down by the Sucks, but she drapped in by +Caruthersville an' give me books an' books--all fo' my mission boat!" + +"That big boat yourn?" + +"Yeh." + +"Where all was hit built?" + +"I don' remembeh, but Buck done give hit to me, him an' Jock Drones." + +"Hi-i-i! Yo' all found the man yo' come a-lookin' fo'. Ho law!" + +"Hit's the Riveh Prophet," someone replied to a hail from within, the +dance ending. + +A crowd came tumbling out onto the deck of the big boat of the dance +hall, everyone talking, laughing, catching their breaths. + +"Hi-i! Likely he'll preach to-morrow," a woman cried. "To-morrow's +Sunday." + +"Sunday?" Rasba gasped. "Sunday--I plumb lost track of the days." + +"You'll preach, won't yo', Parson? I yain't hearn a sermon in a hell of +a while," a man jeered, facetiously. + +"Suttingly. An' when hit's through, yo'll think of hell jes' as long," +Rasba retorted, with asperity, and his wit turned the laugh into a +cheer. + +The fleet anchored a hundred yards up the eddy, and Rasba heard a woman +say it was after midnight and she'd be blanked if she ever did or would +dance on Sunday. The dance broke up, the noise of voices lessened, one +by one the lights went out, and the eddy was still again. But the +feeling of loneliness was changed. + +"Lord God, what'll I preach to them about?" Rasba whispered. "I neveh +'lowed I'd be called to preach ag'in. Lawse! Lawse! What'll I say?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Carline ascended into the world again. It was a painful ascent, and when +he looked around him, he recognized the interior of his motorboat cabin, +heard and felt the throbbing of his motor, and discovered aches and +pains that made his extremities tingle. He sat up, but the blackness +that seemed to rise around him caused him to fall hastily back upon the +stateroom bunk. + +He remembered his discovery of his own firearms on the shanty-boat, and +fear assailed him. He remembered his folly in crying out that those were +his guns. He might have known he had fallen among thieves. He cursed +himself, and dread of what might yet follow his indiscretion made him +whimper with terror. A most disgusting odour of whiskey was in his +nostrils, and his throat was like a corrugated iron pipe partly filled +with soot. + +The door of the tiny stateroom was closed, but the two ports were open +to let the air in. It occurred to him that he might be a captive, and +would be held for ransom. Perhaps the pirates would bleed him for +$50,000; perhaps they would take all his fortune! He began to cry and +sob. They might cut his throat, and not give him any chance of escape. +He had heard of men having had their throats cut down the river. + +He tried to sit up again, and succeeded without undue faintness. He +could not wait, but must know his fate immediately. He found the door +was unlocked, and when he slipped out into the cabin, he found that +there was only one man on board, the steersman, who was sitting in the +engine pit, and steering with the rail wheel instead of the bow-cabin +one. + +He peered out, and found that it was Terabon, who discovered him and +hailed him, cheerily: + +"How are you feeling?" + +"Tough--my head!" + +"You're lucky to be alive!" Terabon said. "You got in with a crew of +river pirates, but they let me have you. Did they leave you anything?" + +"Leave me anything!" Carline repeated, feeling in his pockets. "I've got +my watch, and here's----" + +He opened up his change pocketbook. There were six or seven dollars in +change and two or three wadded bills. When he looked for his main +supply, however, there was a difference. The money was all gone. He was +stripped to the last dollar in his money belt and of his hidden +resources. + +"They did me!" he choked. "They got all I had!" + +"They didn't kill you," Terabon said. "You're lucky. How did they bang +you and knock you out?" + +"Why, I found they had my guns on board----" + +"And you accused them?" + +"No! I just said they were mine, I was surprised!" + +"Then?" + +"My light went out." + +"When did they get your guns?" + +"I woke up, up there, and you were gone. My guns and pocket money were +gone, too. I thought----" + +"You thought I'd robbed you?" + +"Ye----Well, I didn't know!" + +"This is a devil of a river, old man!" said Terabon. "I guess you +travelled with the real thing out of New Madrid----" + +"Doss, Renald Doss. He said he was a sportsman----" + +"Oh, he is, all right, he's a familiar type here on the river. He's the +kind of a sport who hunts men, Up-the-Bankers and game of that kind. +He's a very successful hunter, too----" + +"He said we'd hunt wild geese. We went up Obion River, and had lots of +fun, and he said he'd help--he'd help----" + +"Find your wife?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Carline was abject. Terabon, however, was caught wordless. This man was +the husband of the woman for whose sake he had ventured among the +desperate river rats, and now he realized that he had succeeded in the +task she had set him. Looking back, he was surprised at the ease of its +accomplishment, but he was under no illusions regarding the jeopardy he +had run. He had trusted to his aloofness, his place as a newspaper man, +and his frankness, to rescue Carline, and he had brought him away. + +"You're all righ now," Terabon suggested. "I guess you've had your +lesson." + +"A whole book full of them!" Carline cried. "I owe you something--an +apology, and my thanks! Where are we going?" + +"I was taking you down to a Memphis hospital, or to Mendova----" + +"I don't need any hospital. I'm broke; I must get some money. We'll go +to Mendova. I know some people there. I've heard it was a great old +town, too! I always wanted to see it." + +Terabon looked at him; Carline had learned nothing. For a minute remorse +and comprehension had flickered in his mind, now he looked ahead to a +good time in Mendova, to sight-seeing, sporting around, genial friends, +and all the rest. Argument would do no good, and Terabon retreated from +his position as friend and helper to that of an observer and a recorder +of facts. Whatever pity he might feel, he could not help but perceive +that there was no use trying to help fools. + +It was just dusk when they ran into Mendova. The city lights sparkled as +they turned in the eddy and ran up to the shanty-boat town. They dropped +an anchor into the deep water and held the boat off the bank by the +stern while they ran a line up to a six-inch willow to keep the bow to +the bank. The springy, ten-foot gangplank bridged the gap to the shore. + +More than thirty shanty-boats and gasolene cruisers were moored along +that bank, and from nearly every one peered sharp eyes, taking a look at +the newcomers. + +"Hello, Terabon!" someone hailed, and the newspaper man turned, +surprised. One never does get over that feeling of astonishment when, +fifteen hundred miles or so from home, a familiar voice calls one's name +in greeting. + +"Hello!" Terabon replied, heartily, and then shook hands with a market +hunter he had met for an hour's gossip in the eddy at St. Louis. "Any +luck, Bill? How's Frank?" + +"Averaging fine," was the answer. "Frank's up town. Going clear down +after all, eh?" + +"Probably." + +"Any birds on Yankee Bar?" + +"I saw some geese there--hunters stopped in, too. How is the flight?" + +"We're near the tail of it; mostly they've all gone down. We're going to +drive for it, and put out our decoys down around Big Island and below." + +"Then I'll likely see you down there." + +"Sure thing; here's Frank." + +Terabon shook hands with the two, introduced Carline, and then the +hunters cast off and steered away down the stream. They had come more +than a thousand miles with the migrating ducks and geese, intercepting +them at resting or feeding places. That touch and go impressed Terabon +as much as anything he had ever experienced. + +He went up town with Carline, who found a cotton broker, a timber +merchant, and others who knew him. It was easy to draw a check, have it +cashed, and Carline once more had ready money. Nothing would do but they +must go around to Palura's to see Mendova's great attraction for +travellers. + +Palura supplied entertainment and excitement for the whole community, +and this happened to be one of his nights of special effort. Personally, +Palura was in a temper. Captain Dalkard, of the Mendova Police, had been +caught between the Citizens' Committee and Palura's frequenters. There +were 100 citizens in the committee, and Palura's frequenters were +unnamed, but familiar enough in local affairs. + +The cotton broker thought it was a good joke, and he explained the whole +situation to Terabon and Carline for their entertainment. + +"Dalkard called in Policeman Laddam and told him to stand in front of +Palura's, and tell people to watch out. You see, there's been a lot of +complaints about people being short changed, having their pockets +picked, and getting doped there, and some people think it doesn't do the +town any good. Some think we got to have Palura's for the sake of the +town's business. I'm neutral, but I like to watch the fun. We'll go down +there and look in to-night." + +They had dinner, and about 9 o'clock they went around to Palura's. It +was an old market building made over into a pleasure resort, and it +filled 300 feet front on Jimpson Street and 160 feet on the flanking +side streets. A bright electric sign covered the front with a flare of +yellow lights and there was one entrance, under the sign. + +As Terabon, Carline, and the cotton broker came along, they saw a tall, +broad-shouldered, smooth-shaven policeman in uniform standing where the +lights showed him up. + +"Watch your pocketbooks!" the policeman called softly to the patrons. +"Watch your change; pickpockets, short-changers, and card-stackers work +the unwary here! Keep sober--look out for knock-out drops!" + +He said it over and over again, in a purring, jeering tone, and Terabon +noticed that he was poised and tense. In the shadows on both sides of +the policeman Terabon detected figures lurking and he was thrilled by +the evident fact that one brave policeman had been sent alone into that +deadly peril to confront a desperate gang of crooks, and that the lone +policeman gloried to be there. + +The cotton broker, neutral that he was, whispered as they disregarded +the warnings: "Laddam cleaned up Front Street in six months; the mob has +all come up here, and this is their last stand. It'll hurt business if +they close this joint up, because the town'll be dead, but I wish +Palura'd kind of ease down a bit. He's getting rough." + +Little hallways and corridors led into dark recesses on either side of +the building, and faint lights of different colours showed the way to +certain things. Terabon saw a wonderfully beautiful woman, in furs, with +sparkling diamonds, and of inimitable grace waiting in a little +half-curtained cubby hole; he heard a man ask for "Pete," and caught the +word "game" twice. The sounds were muffled, and a sense of repression +and expectancy permeated the whole establishment. + +They entered a reception room, with little tables around the sides, +music blaring and blatant, a wide dancing floor, and a scurrying throng. +All kinds were there: spectators who were sight-seeing; participants who +were sporting around; men, women, and scoundrels; thugs and their +prospective victims; people of supposed allurement; and sports of +insipid, silly pose and tricked-up conspicuousness. + +Terabon's gaze swept the throng. Noise and merriment were increasing. +Liquor was working on the patrons. The life of Mendova was stirring to +blaring music. The big hall was bare, rough, and gaunt. Dusty flags and +cobwebs dangled from the rafters and hog-chain braces. A few hard, white +lights cast a blinding glare straight down on the heads of the dancers +and drinkers and onlookers. + +Business was brisk, and shouts of "Want the waiter!" indicated the +insistence with which trade was encouraged and even insisted upon. No +sooner had Terabon and his companions seated themselves than a burly +flat-face with a stained white apron came and inflicted his determined +gaze upon them. He sniffed when Terabon ordered plain soda. + +"We got a man's drink." + +"I'm on the water wagon for awhile," Terabon smiled, and the waiter +nodded, sympathetically. A tip of a quarter mollified his air of surly +expectancy completely, and as he put the glasses down he said: + +"The Boss is sick the way he's bein' treated. They ain't goin' to git +away wit' stickin' a bull in front of his door like he was a crook." + +Terabon heard a woman at a near-by table making her protest against the +policeman out in front. No other topic was more than mentioned, and the +buzz and burr of voices vied with the sound of the band till it ended. +Then there was a hush. + +"Palura!" a whisper rippled in all directions. + +Terabon saw a man about 5 feet 10 inches tall, compactly built, square +shouldered, and just a trifle pursy at the waist line, approaching along +the dancing floor. He was light on his small feet, his shoulders worked +with feline grace, but his face was a face as hard as limestone and of +about the same colour--bluish gray. His eyes were the colour of ice, +with a greenish tinge. Smooth-shaven cheeks, close-cropped hair, +wing-like ears, and a little round head were details of a figure that +might have been heroic--for his jaw was square, his nose large, and his +forehead straight and broad. + +Everyone knew he was going out to throw the policeman, Laddam, into the +street. The policeman had not hurt business a pennyworth as yet, but +Palura felt the insult. Palura knew the consequences of failing to meet +the challenge. + +"Give 'im hell!" someone called. + +Palura turned and nodded, and a little yelping cheer went up, which +ceased instantly. Terabon, observing details, saw that Palura's coat +sagged on the near side--in the shape of an automatic pistol. He saw, +too, that the man's left sleeve sagged round and hard--a slingshot or +black-jack. + +There was no delay; Palura went straight through to his purpose. He +disappeared in the dark and narrow entrance way and not a sound was +audible except the scuffling of feet. + +"Palura's killed four men," the cotton broker whispered to Terabon, +under his breath. + +What seemed an age passed. The lights flickered. Terabon looked about in +alarm lest that gang---- + +A crash outside brought all to their feet, and the whole crowd fell back +against the walls. Out of the corridor surged a mass of men, and among +them stalked a stalwart giant of a man draped with the remnants of a +policeman's uniform. He had in his right hand a club which he was +swinging about him, and every six feet a man dropped upon the floor. + +Terabon saw Palura writhing, twisting, and working his way among the +fighting mass. He heard a sharp bark: + +"Back, boys!" + +Four or five men stumbled back and two rolled out of the way of the feet +of the policeman. It flashed to Terabon what had been done. They had +succeeded in getting the policeman into the huge den of vice, where he +could not legally be without a warrant, where Palura could kill him and +escape once more on the specious plea of self-defence. Terabon saw the +grin of perfect hate on Palura's face as both his hands came up with +automatics in them--a two-handed gunman with his prey. + +This would teach the policemen of Mendova to mind their own business! +Suddenly Policeman Laddam threw his night stick backhanded at the +infamous scoundrel, and Palura dodged, but not quite quickly nor quite +far enough. The club whacked noisily against his right elbow and Palura +uttered a cry of pain as one pistol fell to the floor. + +Then Laddam snatched out his own automatic, a 45-calibre gun, three +pounds or more in weight, and began to shoot, calmly, deliberately, and +with the artistic appreciation of doing a good job thoroughly. + +His first bullet drove Palura straight up, erect; his next carried the +bully back three steps; his next whirled him around in a sagging spiral, +and the fourth dropped the dive keeper like a bag of loose potatoes. + +Laddam looked around curiously. He had never been there before. Lined up +on all sides of him were the waiters, bouncers, men of prey, their +faces ghastly, and three or four of them sick. The silent throng around +the walls stared at the scene from the partial shadows; no one seemed +even to be breathing. Then Palura made a horrible gulping sound, and +writhed as he gave up his last gasp of life. + +"Now then!" Laddam looked about him, and his voice was the low roar of a +man at his kill. "You men pick them up, pack them outside there, and up +to headquarters. March!" + +As one man, the men who had been Palura's marched. They gathered up the +remains of Palura and the men with broken skulls, and carried them out +into the street. The crowd followed, men and women both. But outside, +the hundreds scurried away in all directions, men afraid and women +choking with horror. Terabon's friend the cotton broker fled with the +rest, Carline disappeared, but Terabon went to headquarters, writing in +his pocket notebook the details of this rare and wonderful tragedy. + +Policeman Laddam had single-handed charged and captured the last citadel +of Mendova vice, and the other policemen, when they looked at him, wore +expressions of wonder and bewilderment. They knew the Committee of 100 +would make him their next chief and a man under whom it would be a +credit to be a cop. + +Terabon, just before dawn, returned toward Mousa Slough. As he did so, +from a dull corner a whisper greeted him: + +"Say, Terabon, is it straight, Palura killed up?" + +"Sure thing!" + +"Then Mendova's sure gone to hell!" Hilt Despard the river pirate cried. +"Say, Terabon, there's a lady down by the slough wants to get to talk to +you." + +"Who----?" + +"She just dropped in to-night, Nelia Crele! She's into her boat down at +the head of the sandbar, facing the switch willows. There's a little +gasolene sternwheeler next below her boat." + +"She's dropped in? All right, boys, much obliged!" + +They separated. + +But when Terabon searched along the slough for Nelia's boat he did not +find it, and to his amazed anger he found that the gasolene boat in +which he had arrived was also gone, as well as his own skiff and all his +outfit. + +"Darn this river!" he choked. "But that's a great story I sent of the +killing of Palura!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Nelia Crele had laughed in her heart at Elijah Rasba as he sat there +listening to her reading. She knew what she was doing to the mountain +parson! She played with his feelings, touched strings of his heart that +had never been touched before, teased his eyes with a picture of +feminine grace, stirred his mind with the sense of a woman who was +bright and who knew so much that he had never known. At the same time, +there was no malice in it--just the delight in making a strong man +discover a strength beyond his own, and in humbling a masculine pride by +the sheer superiority of a woman who had neglected no opportunity to +satisfy a hunger to know. + +She knew the power of a single impression and a clear, quick getaway. +She left him dazed by the fortune which heaped upon him literary +classics in a dozen forms--fiction, essays, history, poetry, short +stories, criticism, fable, and the like; she laughed at her own quick +liking for the serious-minded, self-deprecatory, old-young man whose big +innocent eyes displayed a soul enamoured by the spirited intelligence of +an experienced and rather disillusioned young woman who had fled from +him partly because she did know what a sting it would give him. + +So with light heart and singing tongue she floated away on the river, +not without a qualm at leaving those books with Rasba; she loved them +too much, but the sacrifice was so necessary--for his work! The river +needed him as a missionary. He could help ease the way of the old +sinners, and perhaps by and by he would reform her, and paint her again +with goodness where she was weather-beaten. + +It is easy to go wrong on the Mississippi--just as easy, or easier, than +elsewhere in the world. The student of astronomy, gazing into the vast +spaces of the skies, feels his own insignificance increasing, while the +magnitude of the constellations grows upon him. What can it matter what +such a trifling thing, such a mere atom, as himself does when he is to +the worlds of less size than the smallest of living organisms in a drop +of water? + +Nelia Crele looked around as she left the eddy and saw that her +houseboat was but a trifle upon a surface containing hundreds of square +miles. A human being opposite her on the bank was less in proportion +than a fly on the cabin window pane. Then what could it matter what she +did? Why shouldn't she be reckless, abandoned, and live in the gaiety of +ages? + +She had read thousands of pages of all kinds with no guide posts or +moral landmarks. A picture of dangerous delights had come into her +imagination. Having read and understood so much, she had not failed to +discover the inevitable Nemesis on the trail of wrongdoing, as well as +the inevitableness of reward for steadfastness in virtues--but she +wondered doubtfully what virtue really was, whether she was not absolved +from many rigid commandments by the failure of the world to keep faith +with her and reward her for her own patience and atone for her own +sufferings. + +It was easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to +be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one's affair but her +own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her +determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced newspaper +man whose ambitions pleased her fancy and whose innocence delighted her +own mood. + +He was down the river somewhere, and when she landed in at Mendova in +the late twilight she saw his skiff swinging from the stern of a +motorboat. Having made fast near it, she quickly learned that he had +gone up town, and that someone had heard him say that he was going to +Palura's. + +Palura's! Nelia had heard the fascination of that den's ill-fame. She +laughed to herself when she thought that Terabon would excuse his going +there on the ground of its being right in his line of work, that he must +see that place because otherwise he would not know how to describe it. + +"If I can catch him there!" she thought to herself. + +She went to Palura's, and Old Mississippi seemed to favour her. She +found another woman who knew the ropes there and who was glad to help +her play the game. From a distance Nelia Crele discovered that Terabon +was with Carline, her own husband. She dismissed him with a shrug of her +shoulders, and told her companion to take care of him. + +Nelia, having plagued the soul of the River Prophet, Rasba, now with +equal zest turned to seize Terabon, careless of where the game ended if +only she could begin it and carry it on to her own music and in her own +measure. + +They had it all determined: Carline was to be wedged away with his +friend, a cotton broker that Daisy--Nelia's newfound accomplice--knew, +and Terabon was to be tempted to "do the Palace," and he was to be +caught unaware, by Nelia, who wanted to dance with him, dine with him +under bright lights, and drink dangerous drinks with him. She knew him +sober and industrious, good and faithful, a decent, reputable working +man--she wanted to see him waked up and boisterous, careless for her +sake and because of her desires. + +She just felt wicked, wanted to be wicked, and didn't care how wicked +she might be. She counted, however, without the bonds which the +Mississippi River seems at times to cast around its favourites--the +Spirit of the river which looks after his own. + +She had not even seen Policeman Laddam standing at the main entrance of +the notorious resort, for Daisy had taken her through another door. She +went to the exclusive "Third," and from there emerged onto the dancing +floor just as Palura ostentatiously went forth to drive Laddam away, or +to kill him. + +Daisy checked her, for the minute or two of suspense, and then the whole +scene, the tragedy, was enacted before her gaze. She was not frightened; +she was not even excited; the thing was so astonishing that she did not +quite grasp its full import till she saw Palura stumbling back, shot +again and again. Daisy caught her arm and clutched it in dumb panic, and +when the policeman calmly bent the cohorts of the dead man to his will +and carried away his victims, Daisy dragged Nelia away. + +Then Daisy disappeared and Nelia was left to her own devices. + +She was vexed and disappointed. She knew nothing of the war in Mendova. +Politics had never engaged her attention, and the significance of the +artistic killing of Palura did not appear to her mind. She was simply +possessed by an indignant feminine impatience to think that Terabon had +escaped, and she was angry when she had only that glimpse of him, as +with his notebook in hand he raced his pencil across the blank pages, +jotting down the details and the hasty, essential impressions as he +caught them. + +She heard the exodus. She heard women sobbing and men gasping as they +swore and fled. She gathered up her own cloak and left with reluctant +footsteps. + +She realized that she had arrived there just one day too late to "do" +Palura's. The fugitives, as they scurried by, reminded her of some +description which she had read of the Sack of Rome; or was it the Fall +of Babylon? Their sins were being visited upon the wicked, and Nelia +Crele, since she had not sinned, could not thrill with quite the same +terror and despair of the wretches who had sinned in spite of their +consciences, instead of through ignorance or wantonness. She took her +departure not quite able to understand why there had been so much furore +because one man had been killed. + +She was among the last to leave the accursed place, and she saw the +flight of the ones who had delayed, perhaps to loot, perhaps having just +awakened to the fact of the tragedy. She turned toward Mousa Slough, and +her little shanty-boat seemed very cool and bare that late evening. The +bookshelves were all empty, and she was just a little too tired to +sleep, just a little too stung by reaction to be happy, and rather too +much out of temper to be able to think straight and clearly on the +disappointment. + +Mendova had been familiar in her ears since childhood; she had heard +stories of its wildness, its gayeties, its recklessness. Impression had +been made upon impression, so that when she had found herself nearing +the place of her dreams, she was in the mood to enter into its wildest +and gayest activities; she had expected to, and she had known in her own +mind that when she met Terabon she would be irresistible. + +At last she shuddered. She seemed to hear a voice, the river's voice, +declare that this thing had happened to prevent her seeking to betray +herself and Terabon, not to mention that other matter which did not +affect her thought in the least, her husband's honour. + +The idea of her husband's honour made the thing absurd to her. There was +no such thing as that honour. She had plotted to get Carline out of the +way now that she heard he was clear of the pirates. On second thought, +she was sorry that she had been so hasty in returning to the boat, +wishing that she had followed up Terabon. + +She walked out onto the bow deck, and standing in the dark, with her +door closed, looked up and down the slough. A dozen boats were in sight. +She heard a number of men and women talking in near-by boats, and the +few words she heard indicated that the river people had a pretty morsel +of gossip in the killing of Palura. + +She heard men rustling through the weeds and switch willows of the +boatmen's pathway, and she hailed; she was now a true river woman, +though she did not know it. + +"Say, boys, do you know if Terabon and Carline landed here to-night?" + +"We just landed in," one answered. "I don't know." + +"Going up town?" + +"Yes----" + +"I want to know about them----" + +"Hit's Nelia Crele!" one exclaimed. + +"That's right. Hello, boys--Despard--Jet--Cope!" + +"Sure! When'd you land?" + +"Late this evening; I was up to Palura's when----" + +"That ain't no place fo' a lady." + +She laughed aloud, as she added, "I was there when Palura was killed by +the policeman." + +"Palura killed a policeman!" Despard said. "He's killed----" + +"No, Palura was killed by a policeman. Shot him dead right on the +dance-hall floor." + +The pirates choked. The thing was unbelievable. They came down to the +boat and she described the affair briefly, and they demanded details. + +They felt that it would vitally affect Mendova. They whispered among +themselves as to what it meant. They learned that a policeman had been +stationed in front of the notorious resort and that that policeman had +done the shooting during a fight with waiters and bouncers and with +Palura himself. + +"We hadn't better get to go up town," Jet whimpered. "Hit don't sound +right!" + +They argued and debated, and finally went on their way, having promised +Nelia that they would see and tell Terabon, on the quiet, that she had +come into the slough, and that she wanted to see him. + +She waited for some time, hoping that Terabon would come, but finally +went to sleep. She was tired, and excitement had deserted her. She slept +more soundly than in some time. + +Once she partly awakened, and thought that some drift log had bumped +into her boat; then she felt a gentle undulation, as of the waves of a +passing steamer, but she was too sleepy to contemplate that phenomenon +in a rather narrow water channel around a bend from the main current. + +It was not till she had slept long and well that she began to dream +vividly. She was impatient with dreams; they were always full of +disappointment. + +Daylight came, and sunshine penetrated the window under which she slept. +The bright rays fell upon her closed eyes and stung her cheeks. She +awakened with difficulty, and looked around wonderingly. She saw the +sunlight move along the wall and then drift back again. She felt the +boat teetering and swaggering. She looked out of the window and saw a +distant wood across the familiar, glassy yellow surface of the +Mississippi. With a low whisper of dismay she started out to look +around, and found that she was really adrift in mid-river. + +On the opposite side of the boat she saw the blank side of a boat +against her cabin window. As she stood there, she heard or felt a motion +on the boat alongside. Someone stepped, or rather jumped heavily, onto +the bow deck of her boat and flung the cabin door open. + +She sprang to get her pistol, and stood ready, as the figure of a man +stumbled drunkenly into her presence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Parson Elijah Rasba, the River Prophet, could not think what he would +say to these river people who had determined to have a sermon for their +Sabbath entertainment. Neither his Bible nor his hurried glances from +book to book which Nelia Crele had given him brought any suggestion +which seemed feasible. His father had always declared that a sermon, to +be effective, "must have one bullet fired straight." + +What bullet would reach the souls of these river people who sang ribald +songs, danced to lively music, and lived clear of all laws except the +one they called "The Law," a deadly, large-calibre revolver or automatic +pistol? + +"I 'low I just got to talk to them like folks," he decided at last, and +with that comforting decision went to sleep. + +The first thing, after dawn, when he looked out upon the river in all +the glory of sunshine and soft atmosphere and young birds, he heard a +hail: + +"Eh, Prophet! What time yo' all goin' to hold the meeting?" + +"Round 10 or 11 o'clock," he replied. + +Rasba went to one of the boats for breakfast, and he was surprised when +Mamie Caope asked him to invoke a blessing on their humble meal of +hot-bread, sorghum, fried pork chops, oatmeal, fried spuds, percolator +coffee, condensed cream, nine-inch perch caught that morning, and some +odds and ends of what she called "leavings." + +Then the women all went over on his big mission boat and cleaned things +up, declaring that men folks didn't know how to keep their own faces +clean, let alone houseboats. They scrubbed and mopped and re-arranged, +and every time Rasba appeared they splashed so much that he was obliged +to escape. + +When at last he was allowed to return he found the boat all cleaned up +like a honey-comb. He found that the gambling apparatus had been taken +away, except the heavy crap table, which was made over into a pulpit, +and that chairs and benches had been arranged into seats for a +congregation. A store-boat man climbed to the boat's roof at 10:30, with +a Texas steer's horn nearly three feet long, and began to blow. + +The blast reverberated across the river, and echoed back from the shore +opposite; it rolled through the woods and along the sandbars; and the +Prophet, listening, recalled the tales of trumpets which he had read in +the Bible. At intervals of ten minutes old Jodun filled his great lungs, +pursed his lips, and swelled his cheeks to wind his great horn, and the +summons carried for miles. People appeared up the bank, swamp angels +from the timber brakes who strolled over to see what the river people +were up to, and skiffs sculled over to bring them to the river meeting. +The long bend opposite, and up and down stream, where no sign of life +had been, suddenly disgorged skiffs and little motorboats of people +whose floating homes were hidden in tiny bays, or covered by neutral +colours against their backgrounds. + +The women hid Rasba away, like a bridegroom, to wait the moment of his +appearance, and when at last he was permitted to walk out into the +pulpit he nearly broke down with emotion. There were more than a hundred +men and women, with a few children, waiting eagerly for him. He was a +good old fellow; he meant all right; he'd taken care of Jest Prebol, who +had deserved to be shot; he was pretty ignorant of river ways, but he +wanted to learn about them; he hadn't hurt their feelings, for he minded +his own business, saying not a word about their good times, even if he +wouldn't dance himself. They could do no better than let him know that +they hadn't any hard feelings against him, even if he was a parson, for +he didn't let on that they were sinners. Anyway, they wanted to hear him +hit it up! + +"I came down here to find a son whose mother was worrited about him," +Rasba began at the beginning. "I 'lowed likely if I could find Jock it'd +please his mammy, an' perhaps make her a little happier. And Jock 'lowed +he'd better go back, and stand trial, even if it was a hanging matter. + +"You see, I didn't expect you'd get to learn very much from me, and I +haven't been disappointed. I'm the one that's learning, and when I think +what you've done for me, and when I see what Old Mississip' does, +friendlying for all of us, tripping us along----" + +They understood. He looked at the boat, at them, and through the +wide-open windows at the sun-rippled water. + +"Now for religion. Seems like I'm impudent, telling you kindly souls +about being good to one another, having no hard, mean feelings against +anybody, and living like you ought to live. We're all sinners! Time and +again hit's ag'in the grain to do what's right, and if we taste a taste +of white liquor, or if hit's stained with burnt sugar to make hit red, +why----" + +"Sho!" someone grinned. "Parson Rasba knows!" + +The preacher joined the laughter. + +"Yas, suh!" he admitted, more gravely, "I know. I 'lowed, one time, that +I'd git to know this yeah happiness that comes of liquor, an' I shore +took one awful gulp. Three nights an' three days I neveh slept a wink, +an' me settin' theh by the fireplace, waitin' to be lit up an' +jubulutin', but hit didn't come. I've be'n happier, jes' a-settin' an' +lookin' at that old riveh, hearin' the wild geese flocking by! + +"That old riveh--Lawse! If the Mississippi brings you fish and game; if +it gives you sheltered eddies to anchor in, and good banks or sandbars +to tie against; if this great river out here does all that for you, what +do you reckon the Father of that river, of all the world, of all the +skies would do, He being so much friendlier and powerfuller? + +"Hit's easy to forget the good that's done to you. Lots an' lots of +times, I bet you've not even thought of the good you've had from the +river, from the sunshine, from the winds, plenty to eat and warm of +nights on your boats and in your cabins. It's easy to remember the +little evil things, the punishments that are visited upon us for our +sins or because we're ignorant and don't know; but reckon up the +happiness you have, the times you are blessed with riches of comfort and +pleasure, and you'll find yourself so much happier than you are sad that +you'll know how well you are cared for. + +"I cayn't preach no reg'lar sermon, with text-tes and singing and all +that. Seems like I jes' want to talk along rambling like, and tell you +how happy you are all, for I don't reckon you're much wickeder than you +are friendly on the average. I keep a-hearing about murdering and +stealing and whiskey boating and such things. They're signs of the +world's sinfulness. We talk a heap about such things; they're real, of +course, and we cayn't escape them. At the same time, look at me! + +"I came down here, sorry with myse'f, and you make me glad, not asking +if I'd done meanness or if I'd betrayed my friends. You 'lowed I was +jes' a man, same's you. I couldn't tell you how to be good, because I +wasn't no great shakes myse'f, and the worse I was the better you got. +Buck an' Jock gives me this boat for a mission boat; I'm ignorant, an' a +woman gives me----" + +He choked up. What the woman had given him was too immeasurable and too +wonderful for mere words to express his gratitude. + +"I'm just one of those shoutin', ignorant mountain parsons. I could +out-whoop most of them up yonder. But down yeah, Old Mississip' don't +let a man shout out. When yo' play dance music, hit's softer and sweeter +than some of those awful mountain hymns in which we condemn lost souls +to the fire. Course, the wicked goes to hell, but somehow I cayn't git +up much enthusiasm about that down yeah. What makes my heart rejoice is +that there's so much goodness around that I bet 'most anybody's got a +right smart chanct to get shut of slippin' down the claybanks into +hell." + +"Jest Prebol?" someone asked, seeing Prebol's face in the window of the +little red shanty-boat moored close by, where he, too, could listen. + +"Jest Prebol's been my guide down the riveh," the Prophet retorted. "I +can say that I only wish I could be as good a pilot for poor souls and +sinners toward heaven as Jest is a river pilot for a wandering old +mountain parson on the Mississippi----" + +"Hi-i-i!" a score of voices laughed, and someone shouted, "So row me +down the Jordan!" + +They all knew the old religious song which fitted so nicely into the +conditions on the Mississippi. Somebody called to someone else, and the +musicians in the congregation slipped away to return with their +violins, banjos, accordions, guitars, and other familiar instruments. +Before the preacher knew it, he had more music in the church than he had +ever heard in a church before--and they knew what to play and what to +sing. + +The sermon became a jubilee, and he would talk along awhile till +something he said struck a tuneful suggestion, and the singing would +begin again; and when at last he brought the service to an end, he was +astonished to find that he had preached and they had sung for more than +two hours. + +Then there was scurrying about, and from all sides the calm airs of the +sunny Sabbath were permeated with the odours of roasts and fried things, +coffee and sauces. A score wanted Rasba to dine out, but Mrs. Caope +claimed first and personal acquaintance, and her claim was acknowledged. +The people from far boats and tents returned to their own homes. Two or +three boats of the fleet, in a hurry to make some place down stream, +dropped out in mid-afternoon, and the little shanty-boat town was +already breaking up, having lasted but a day, but one which would long +be remembered and talked about. It was more interesting than murder, for +murders were common, and the circumstances and place were so remarkable +that even a burning steamboat would have had less attention and +discussion. + +The following morning Mrs. Caope offered Rasba $55 for his old poplar +boat, and he accepted it gladly. She said she had a speculation in mind, +and before nightfall she had sold it for $75 to two men who were going +pearling up the St. Francis, and who thought that a boat a parson had +tripped down in would bring them good luck. + +The dancers of Saturday night, the congregation of Sunday, on Monday +afternoon were scattered. Mrs. Caope's and another boat dropped off the +river to visit friends, and mid-afternoon found Parson Rasba and Prebol +alone again, drawing down toward Mendova. + +Prebol knew that town, and he told Rasba about it. He promised that they +would see something of it, but they could not make it that evening, so +they landed in Sandbar Reach for the night. Just after dawn, while the +rising sun was flashing through the tree tops from east to west, a +motorboat driving up stream hailed as it passed. + +"Ai-i-i, Prebol! Palura's killed up!" + +Prebol shouted out for details, and the passer-by, slowing down, gave a +few more: + +"Had trouble with the police, an' they shot him daid into his own dance +floor--and Mendova's no good no more!" + +"Now what the boys goin' to do when they make a haul?" Prebol demanded +in great disgust of Parson Rasba. "Fust the planters shot up whiskey +boats; then the towns went dry, an' now they closed up Palura's an' shot +him daid. Wouldn't hit make yo' sick, Parson! They ain't no fun left +nowheres for good sports." + +Rasba could not make any comment. He was far from sure of his +understanding. He felt as though his own life had been sheltered, remote +from these wild doings of murders and shanty-boat-fleet dances and a +congregation assembling in a gambling boat handed to him for a mission! +He could not quite get his bearings, but the books blessed him with +their viewpoints, as numerous as the points of the compass. He could not +turn a page or a chapter without finding something that gave him a +different outlook or a novel idea. + +They landed in late on Monday at Mendova bar, just above the wharf. Up +the slough were many shanty-boats, and gaunt dogs and floppy buzzards +fed along the bar and down the wharf. + +Groups of men and women were scattered along both the slough and the +river banks, talking earnestly and seriously. Rasba, bound up town to +buy supplies, heard the name of Palura on many lips; the policemen on +their beats waltzed their heavy sticks about in debonair skilfulness; +and stooped, rat-like men passing by, touched their hats nervously to +the august bluecoats. + +When Rasba returned to the boat, he found a man waiting for him. + +"My name is Lester Terabon," the man said. "I landed in Saturday, and +went up town. When I returned, my skiff and outfit were all +gone--somebody stole them." + +"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "I've heard of you. You write for newspapers?" + +"Yes, sir, and I'm some chump, being caught that way." + +"They meant to rob you?" Rasba asked. + +"Why, of----I don't know!" Terabon saw a new outlook on the question. + +"Did they go down?" + +"Yes, sir, I heard so. I don't care about my boat, typewriter, and +duffle; what bothers me is my notebooks. Months of work are in them. If +I could get them back!" + +"What can I do for you?" + +"I don't know--I'm going down stream; it's down below, somewhere." + +"I need someone to help me," Rasba said. "I've a wounded man here who +has a doctor with him. If he goes up to the hospital or stays with us, +I'll be glad to have you for your help and company." + +"I'm in luck." Terabon laughed with relief. + +Just that way the Mississippi River's narrow channel brought the River +Prophet and the river reporter together. Terabon went up town and bought +some clothes, some writing paper, a big blank notebook, and a bottle of +fountain-pen ink. With that outfit he returned on board, and a delivery +car brought down his share of things to eat. + +The doctor said Prebol ought to go into the hospital for at least a +week, and Terabon found Prebol's pirate friends, hidden up the slough on +their boat, not venturing to go out except at night. They took the +little red shanty-boat up the slough, and Prebol went to the hospital. + +Rasba, frankly curious about the man who wrote for newspapers for a +living, listened to accounts of an odd and entertaining occupation. He +asked about the Palura shooting which everyone was talking about, and +when Terabon described it as he had witnessed it, Rasba shook his head. + +"Now they'll close up that big market of sin?" he asked. "They've all +scattered around." + +"Yes, and they scattered with my skiff, too, and probably robbed Carline +of his boat----" + +"Carline! You know him?" + +"I came down with him from Yankee Bar, and we went up to Palura's +together. I lost him in the shuffle, when the big cop killed Palura." + +"And Mrs. Carline, Nelia Crele?" Rasba demanded. + +"Why--I--they said she'd landed in. She's gone, too----" + +"You know her?" + +"Why, yes--I----" + +"So do I. Those books," he waved his hand toward the loaded shelves, +"she gave them all to me for my mission boat!" + +Terabon stared. He went to the shelves and looked at the volumes. In +each one he found the little bookmark which she had used in cataloguing +them: + + Nelia Carline, + A Loved Book. + No. 87 + +A jealous pang seized him, in spite of his reportorial knowledge that +jealousy is vanity for a literary person. + +"I 'low we mout 's well drop out," Rasba suggested. "Missy Crele's down +below some'rs. Her boat floated out to'd mornin', one of the boys +said." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Carline had discovered his wife in the excitement at Palura's, and with +the cunning of a drunken man had shadowed her. He followed her down to +Mousa Bayou, and saw her go on board her cabin-boat. He watched, with +more cunning, to see for whom she was waiting. He had in his pocket a +heavy automatic pistol with which to do murder. + +He had seen killing done, and the thing was fascinating; some +consciousness that the policeman had done the right thing seemed now to +justify his own intention of killing a man, or somebody. + +Disappointment lingered in his mind when the lights went out on board +Nelia's boat, and for a long time he meditated as to what he should do. +He saw skiffs, motorboats, shanty-boats pulling hastily down the slough +into the Mississippi. It was the Exodus of Sin. Mendova's rectitude had +asserted its strength and power, and now the exits of the city were +flickering with the shadows of departing hordes of the night and of the +dark, all of whom had two fears: one of daylight, the other of sudden +death. + +Their departure before his eyes, with darkened boats, gave Carline +an idea at last. He wanted to get away off somewhere, where he could +be alone, without any interruption. Bitter anger surged in his +breast because his wife had shamed him, left him, led him this +any-thing-but-merry chase down the Mississippi. A proud Carline had +no call to be treated thataway by any woman, especially by the +daughter of an old ne'er-do-well whom he had condescended to marry. + +He had always been a hunter and outdoor man, and it was no particular +trick for him to cast off the lines of Nelia's boat and push it out +into the sluggish current, and it was as easy for him to take his own +boat and drop down into the river. He brought the two boats quietly +together and lashed them fast with rope fenders to prevent rubbing and +bumping--did it with surprising skill. + +The Mississippi carried them down the reach into the crossing, and +around a bend out of sight of even the glow of the Mendova lights. Here +was one of those lonesome stretches of the winding Mississippi, with +wooded bank, sandbar, sky-high and river-deep loneliness. + +Carline, with alcoholic persistency, held to his scheme. He drank the +liquor which he had salvaged in the riotous night. He thought he knew +how to bring people to time, especially women. He had seen a big +policeman set the pace, and the sound of the club breaking skull bones +was still a shock in his brain, oft repeated. + +The sudden dawn caught him by surprise, and he stared rather nonplussed +by the sunrise, but when he looked around and saw that he was in +mid-stream and miles from anywhere and from any one, he knew that there +was no better place in the world for taming one's wife, and extorting +from her the apologies which seemed to Carline appropriate, all things +considered, for the occasion. + +The time had arrived for action. He rose with dignity and buttoned up +his waistcoat; he pulled down his coat and gave his cravat a hitch; he +rubbed a tentative hand on the lump where the pirates had bumped him; he +scrambled over the side onto the cabin-boat deck, and entered upon the +scene of his conquest. + +He found himself confronted by Nelia in a white-faced, low-voiced fury +instead of in the mood he had expected. She wasn't sorry; she wasn't +apologetic; she wasn't even amiable or conciliatory. + +"Gus Carline! Drunk, as usual. What do you mean by this?" + +"S'all right!" he assured her, flapping his hands. "Y're m'wife; I'm +your husban'! S'all right!" + +She drew her pistol and fired a bullet past him. + +"Go!" she cried. + +Before he knew what had happened he had backed out upon the bow deck, +and she bundled him up onto his own craft. She cast off the bow line and +ran to the stern to cast off the line there. As she did so, she +discovered Terabon's skiff around at the far side where Carline could +not see it. + +Her husband was still shaking his fist in her direction, but the two +boats were well apart as she rowed away with her sweeps. He stood there, +undecided. He had not expected the sudden and effective resistance. +Before he knew it, she was lost in a whole fleet of little houseboats +which were, to his eyes, both in the sky, underwater, and scattered all +over the tip-tilting surfaces. + +The current, under the impulse of her rowing, carried Nelia into an eddy +and she saw the cruiser rocking down a crossing into the mirage of the +distance. She sat on the bow deck while her boat made a long swing in +the eddy. Things did not happen down the river as she planned or +expected. She regarded the previous night's entertainment with less +indifference now; something about the calm of that broad river affected +her. She realized that watching the killing of Palura had given her a +shock so deep that now she was trembling with the weakness of horror. + +She had seen Gus Carline stumble into her cabin, and with angry defiance +she had acted with the intention of doing to him what she had done to +Prebol--but she had missed deliberately when she shot. When she recalled +the matter, she saw that for weeks she had been living in a false frame +of mind; that she was desperate, and not contented; that she was +afraid--and that she hated fear. + +Her pistol was sign of her bravado, and her shots were the indication of +her desperation. The memory of the wan face of Prebol brought down by +her bullet was now an accusation, not a pride. + +Old Mississip' had received her gently in her most furious mood, but now +that immense, active calm of vast power was working on the untamed soul +which she owned. The river swept along, and its majesty no longer gave +her the feeling that nothing mattered. Far from it! Though she rebelled +against the idea, her mind knew that she was in rebellion, that she was +going against the current. And the river's mood was dangerous, now, to +the wanton feelings to which she had desperately yielded but +unsuccessfully. + +The old, familiar, sharp division between right and wrong was presented +to her gaze as if the river itself were calling her attention to it. She +could not escape the necessity of a choice, with evil so persuasive and +delightful and virtue so depressing and necessary. + +She investigated Terabon's outfit with curiosity and questioning. His +typewriter, his maps, his few books, his stack of notes neatly compiled +in loose-leaf files, were the materials which caught and held her fancy. +She took them on board her shanty-boat and read the record which he had +made, from day to day, from his inspection of Commission records at St. +Louis to the purchase of his boat in shanty-boat town, and his departure +down the river. + +His words were intimate and revealing: + + Oct. 5; In mid-stream among a lot of islands; rafts of ducks; a + dull, blue day, still those great limestone hills, with hollows + through which the wind comes when opposite--coolies?----; in the far + distance a rowboat. On the Missouri side, the hills; on the other + the flats, with landing sheds. Ducks in great flocks--look like sea + serpents when flying close to the water; like islands on it--wary + birds. + +That was above the part of the river which she knew; she turned to +Kaskaskia, and read facts familiar to her: + + I met Crele, an old hunter-trapper, in a slough below St. Genevieve. + He was talkative, and said he had the prettiest girl on a hundred + miles of river. She had married a man of the name of Carline, real + rich and a big bug. "But my gal's got the looks, yes, indeed!" If I + find her, I must be sure and tell her to write to her folks--river + romance! + +Nelia's face warmed as she read those phrases as well it might. She +wondered what other things he had written in his book of notes, and her +eye caught a page: + + House boatmen are a bad lot. Once a young man came to work for a + farmer back on the hills. He'd been there a month, when one night he + disappeared; a set of double harness went with him. Another man hung + around a week, and raided a grocery store, filling washtubs with + groceries, cloth, and shoes--went away in a skiff. + +She turned to where he travelled down the Mississippi with her husband +and read the description of Gus Carline's whiskey skiff man, his +purchase of a gallon of whiskey; the result, which her imagination +needed but few words to visualize; then Terabon's drifting away down +stream, leaving the sot to his own insensibilities. + +Breathlessly she read his snatching sentences from bend to shoal, from +reach to reach, until he described her red-hull, white cabin-boat, +described the "young river woman" who occupied it; and then, page after +page of memoranda, telling almost her own words, and his own words, as +he had remembered them. What he wrote here had not been intended for her +eyes. + + She's dropping down this river all alone; pirates nor scoundrels nor + river storms nor jeopardies seem to disturb her in the least. She + even welcomes me, as an interesting sort of intellectual specimen, + who can talk about books and birds and a multitude of things. She + may well rest assured that none of us river rats have any designs, + whatever, on a lady who shoots quick, shoots straight, and dropped + Prebol at thirty yards off-hand with an automatic! + +She read the paragraph with interest and then with care; she did not +know whether to be pleased or not by that brutally frank statement that +he was afraid of her--suppose he hadn't been afraid? Then, of what was +he really afraid--not of her pistol! She read on through the pages of +notes. The description of the walk with her up the sandbar and back, +there at Island No. 10, thrilled her, for it told the apparently +trifling details--the different kinds of sands, the sounds, the night +gloom, the quick sense of the river presence, the glow of distant New +Madrid. He had lived it, and he wrote it in terms that she realized were +the words she might have used to describe her own observations and +sensations. + +She searched through his notes in vain for any suggestion of the +emotions which she had felt. She shrugged her shoulders, because he had +not written anything to indicate that he had discovered her allurement. +He had written in bald words the fact of her sending him on the errand +of rescue, to save her husband--and she was obliged to digest in her +mind the bare but significant phrase: + + And, because she has sent me, I am glad to go! + +His notes made her understand him better, but they did not reveal all +his own feelings. He wrote her down as an object of curiosity, as he +spoke of the sour face and similitude of good humour in the whiskey +boater's expression. In the same painstaking way he described her own +friendliness for a passing skiff boater. The impersonality of his +remarks about himself surprised while it perplexed her. + +The mass of material which he had gathered for making articles and +stories amazed her. The stack of pages, closely typewritten, was more +than two inches thick. A few pages disclosed consecutive paragraphs with +subjects, predicates, and complete sense, but other pages showed only +disjointed phrases, words, and flashes of ideas. + +The changing notes, the questioning, the observations, the minute +recording were fascinating to her. It revealed a phase of writers' lives +of which she had known nothing--the gathering of myriads of details, in +order to free the mind for accurate rendering of pictures and +conditions. She wished she could see some of the finished product of +Terabon's use of these notes, and the wish revealed a chasm, an abyss +that confronted her. She felt deserted, as though she had need of +Terabon to give her a view of his own life, that she might be diverted +into something not sordid, and decidedly not according to Augustus +Carline's ideals! + +After a time, seeing that Carline's boat had disappeared down river, she +threw over her anchor, and rested in the eddy. It was on the west side, +with a chute entrance through a sandbar and willow-grown island points +opposite. She brought out her map book to see if she could learn where +she was anchored, but the printed map, with the bright red lines of +recent surveys, helped her not at all. She turned from sheet to sheet +down to Memphis, without finding what she wanted to know. + +She saw some shanty-boats down the river; she saw some up the river; but +there was none near her till just before dark a motor skiff came down in +the day's gray gloom, and passed within a few yards of her. When she +looked at the two men in the boats she learned to know what fear +is--river terror--horror of mankind in its last extremities of depravity +and heartlessness. + +She saw men stooped and slinking, whose glance was sidelong and whose +expression was venomous, casting covert looks toward her as they passed +by into the gray mist of falling night. They entered a narrow waterway +among the sandbars, and left behind the feeling that along that waterway +was the abiding place of lost souls. She wanted to take up the anchor +and flee out onto the river, but when she looked into the darkening +breadths, she felt the menace of the miles, of the mists, of the wooded +shores. Foreboding was in her tired soul. + +She examined her pistol, to make sure that it was ready to use; she +locked the stern door, and drew the curtains; she went to the bow and +looked carefully at the anchor-line fastenings. With no light on board +to blind her gaze, she scrutinized all the surroundings, to make sure of +her locality. In that blank gloom she was dubious but brave. Not a thing +visible, not a sound audible, nothing but her remote and little +understood sensation of premonitory dread explained her perturbation. +She entered the cabin, locked the door, set the window catches and +sticks, lighted the lamp, and sat down to--think. Her bookshelves were +empty, and she was glad that she had emptied them in a good cause. It +occurred to her that she ought to make up another list for her own +service, and with pencil and paper she began that most fascinating +work, the compilation of one's own library. As she made her selections, +she forgot the menace which she had observed. + +In the stillness she thought her own ears were ringing and paid no +attention to the humming that increased in volume moment by moment. It +was a flash of lightning without thunder that stirred her senses. She +looked up from her absorption. + +She heard a distant rumble, a near-by stirring. The wavelets along the +side of the boat were noisy; they rattled like paper. Something fell +clattering on the roof of the cabin, and a tearing, ripping, crashing +struck the boat and fairly tossed it skipping along the surface of the +water. The lamp blew out as a window pane broke, and the woman was +thrown to the floor in a confusion of chairs, table, and other loose +objects. Happily, the stove was screwed fast to the floor. The anchor +line broke with a loud twang, and the black confusion was lighted with +flares and flashes of gray-blue glaring. + +The river had made Nelia Crele believe that she was in jeopardy from +man; but it was a little hurricane, or, as the river people call them, +cyclones, that menaced. Dire as was the confusion and imminent as was +the peril, Nelia felt a sense of relief from what would have been harder +to bear--an attack by men. She had searched the map for information, but +it was the river which inspired her to understand that the hurricane was +her deliverance rather than her assailant. + +She did not know whether she would live or die during those seconds when +the gale crashed like maul blows and wind and rain poured and whistled +in at the broken window pane. She laughed at her predicament, tumbling +in dishevelment around the bouncing cabin floor, and when the suck and +send of the storm crater passed by, leaving a driving wind, she stepped +out on the bows, and caught up her sweeps to ride the waves and face the +gale that set steadily in from the north. + +It was gray, impenetrable black--that night. She could see nothing, +neither the waves nor the sky nor the river banks; but singing aloud, +she steadied the boat, bow to the wind, holding it to the gale by +dipping the sweeps deep and strong. + +Beaten steadily back, unable to know how far or in what direction, she +found her soul, serenely above the mere physical danger, loving that +vast torrent more than ever. + +The Mississippi trains its own to be brave. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Parson Rasba and Terabon floated out into the main river current and ran +with the stream. They were passing through the famous, changeable +channels among the great sandbars from Island No. 34 down to Hopefield +Bend. They rounded Dean Island Bend in the darkness, for they had +floated all day and far into the night, driven by an anxiety which was +inexplicable. + +They wanted to be going; they felt an urge which they commented upon; it +was a voice in their hearts, and not audible in their ears. Yet when +they stood nervously at the great sweeps of the mission boat, to pull +the occasional strokes necessary to clear a bar or flank a bend, they +could almost declare that the river was talking. + +They strained their ears in vain, trying to distinguish the meanings of +the distant murmurings. Terabon, now well familiar with the river, could +easily believe that he was listening to the River Spirit, and his +feelings were melancholy. + +For months he had strained every power of his mind to record the exact +facts about the Mississippi, and he put down tens of thousands of words +describing and stating what he saw, heard, and knew. With one stroke he +had been separated from his work, and he feared that he had lost his +precious notes for all time. + +Either Carline or river pirates had carried them away. He hoped, he +believed, that he would find them, but there was an uncertainty. He +shivered apprehensively when he recalled with what frankness he had put +down details, names, acts, rumours, reports--all the countless things +which go to make up the "histories" of a voyage down from St. Louis in +skiff, shanty-boat, and launch. What would they say if they read his +notes? + +He had notepaper, blank books, and ink, and he set about the weary task +of keeping up his records, and putting down all that he could recall of +the contents of his lost loose-leaf system. It was a staggering task. + +In one record he wrote the habitual hour-to-hour description, comment, +talk, and fact; in his "memory journal" he put down all the things he +could recall about the contents of his lost record. He had written the +things down to save him the difficulty of trying to remember, but now he +discovered that he had remembered. A thousand times faster than he could +write the countless scenes and things he had witnessed flocked back into +the consciousness of his mind, pressing for recognition and another +chance to go down in black and white. + +As he wrote, Parson Rasba, in the intervals of navigating the big +mission boat, would stand by gazing at the furious energy of his +companion. Rasba had seized upon a few great facts of life, and dwelt in +silent contemplation of them, until a young woman with a library +disturbed the echoing halls of his mind, and brought into them the +bric-à-brac of the thought of the ages. Now, from that brief experience, +he could gaze with nearer understanding at this young man who regarded +the pathway of the moon reflecting in a narrow line across a sandbar and +in a wide dancing of cold blue flames upon the waters, as an important +thing to remember; who recorded the wavering flight of the nigger geese, +or cormorants, as compared to the magnificent V-figure, straight drive +of the Canadians and the other huge water fowl; who paused to seize such +simple terms as "jump line," "dough-bait," "snag line," "reef line," as +though his life might depend on his verbal accuracy. + +The Prophet pondered. The Mississippi had taught him many lessons. He +was beginning to look for the lesson in casual phenomena, and when he +said so to Terabon, the writer stared at him with open mouth. + +"Why--that explains!" Terabon gasped. + +"Explains what?" + +"The heathen who was awed by the myriad impressions of Nature, and who +learned, by hard experience, that he must not neglect even the +apparently trivial things lest he suffer disaster." + +Then Terabon fell to writing even more furiously in his day-by-day +journal, for that was something of this moment, although he has just +jotted down the renewed impression of coming into the bottoms at Cape +Girardeau. Rasba took up the pages of the notes which Terabon was +rewriting. Happily, Terabon's writing was like copper-plate script, +however fast he wrote, and the mountain man read: + + Big hickory tree grove--Columbus Hickories--Largest cane in some + bend down below Helena--Spanish Moss bend--famous river + bend--Fisherman at Brickey's Mill told of hoop nets, trammels, + seines (stillwater bayous), jump, hand, snag, reef, lines----Jugging + for catfish down the crossings, half pound pork, or meat, for bait, + also called "blocking" for catfish. + +"What will you do with all this?" Rasba asked. + +"Why, I'll----" Terabon hesitated, and then continued: "It's like +building a house. I gather all this material: lumber, stone, logs, +cement, shingles, lathes, quick-lime, bricks, and everything. I store it +all up in this notebook; that's my lumber yard. Then when I dig the +foundation, I'll come in here and I'll find the things I need to build +my house, or mansion. Of course, to start with, I'll just build little +shacks and cabins. See what I mean? I am going to write articles first +and they're kind of like barns and shacks, and even mere fences. But by +and by I'll write fiction stories, and they will be like the mansions, +and the material will all fit in: all about a fisherman, all about a +market hunter, all about a drifter, all about a river----" + +"All about a river woman?" Rasba asked, as he hesitated. + +"I wasn't thinking that." Terabon shook his head, his colour coming a +little. "I had in mind, all about a River Prophet!" + +"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "What could you all find to write about a Riveh +Prophet?" + +Terabon looked at the stern, kindly, friendly, picturesque mountaineer +who had come so far to find one man, for that man's mother, and he +rejoiced in his heart to think that the parson did not know, could never +know, because of the honest simplicity of his heart, how extraordinarily +interesting he was. + +So they drifted with the current, absorbed in their immediate present. +It seemed as though they found their comprehension expanding and +widening till it encompassed the answers to a thousand questions. Rasba, +dazed by his own accretion of new interests, discovery of undreamed-of +powers, seizure of opportunities never known before, could but gaze with +awe and thankfulness at the evidences of his great good fortune, the +blessings that were his in spite of his wondering why one of so little +desert had received such bountiful favour. Terabon, remembering what he +feared was irrevocably lost, knew that he had escaped disaster, and that +the pile of notes which he had made only to be deprived of them were +after all of less importance than that he should have suffered the deep +emotion of seeing so much of his toil and time vanish. + +Here it was again--Rasba might well wonder at that gathering and +hoarding of trifles. They were not the important things, those minute +words and facts and points; no, indeed. + +At last Terabon knew that most important fact of all that it was the +emotions that counted. As a mere spectator, he could never hope to know +the Mississippi, to describe and write it truly; the river had forced +him into the activities of the river life, and had done him by that act +its finest service. + +He was in the fervour of his most recent discovery when Rasba went out +on the bow deck and looked into the night. He called Terabon a minute +later, and the two looked at a phenomenon. The west was aglow, like a +sunset, but with flarings and flashings instead of slowly changing +lights and hues. The light under the clouds at the horizon extended +through 90 degrees of the compass, and in the centre of the bright +greenish flare there was a compact, black, apparently solid mass from +which streaks of lightning constantly exuded on all sides. + +For a minute Terabon stared, cold chills goose-pimpling his flesh. Then +he cried: + +"Cyclone, Parson! Get ready!" + +They were opposite the head of a long bend near the end of a big +sandbar, and skirting the edge of an eddy, near its foot. Terabon sprang +into the gasolene launch, started the motor, and steered for the shelter +of the west bank. In the quiet he and Rasba told each other what to do. + +Rasba ran out two big anchors with big mooring lines tied to them. He +closed the bow door but opened all the windows and other doors. Then, as +they heard the storm coming, they covered the launch with the heavy +canvas, heaved over the anchors into a fathom of water, let out long +lines, and played the launch out over the stern on a heavy line fast to +towing bits. + +A sweep of hail and rain was followed by a moment of calm. Then a blast +of wind, which scraped over the cabin roof, was succeeded by the suck of +the tornado, which swept, a waterspout, across the river a quarter of a +mile down stream, struck a sandbar, and carried up a golden yellow cloud +of dust, which disappeared in the gray blackness of a terrific downpour +of rain. + +They stretched out on their anchor lines till the whole fabric of the +cabin hummed and crackled with the strain, but the lines held, and the +windows being open, prevented the semi-vacuum created by the storm's +passing from "exploding" the boat, and tearing off the cabin, or the +roof. + +After the varying gusts and blasts the wind settled down, colder by +forty degrees, and with the steady white of a norther. It meant days and +nights of waiting while the storm blew itself out. And when the danger +had passed and the boats were safe against the lines, the two men turned +in to sleep, more tired after their adventures than they remembered ever +being before. + +In the morning rain was falling intermittently with some sleet, but +toward afternoon there was just a cold wind. They built hot fires in +their heater, burning coal with which the gamblers had filled bow and +stern bins from coal barges somewhere up the river. Having plenty to eat +on board, there was nothing to worry them. + +Terabon, his fountain pen racing, wrote for his own distant Sunday +Editor a narrative which excited the compiler of the Magazine Supplement +to deep oaths of admiration for the fertile, prolific imagination of +the wandering writer--for who would believe in a romance ready made? + +The night of the big wind was followed by a day and a night of gusts of +wind and sleety rain; then followed a day and a night of rising clouds, +then a day when the clouds were scattered and the sun was cold. That day +the sunset was grim, white, and freezing cold. + +In the morning there was a bright, warm sunrise, a breath of sweet, soft +air, and unimaginable brightness and buoyancy, birds singing, squirrels +barking, and all the dismal pangs banished. + +Shanty-boats shot out into the gay river and dotted the wide surface up +and down the current for miles. The ears of the parson and the writer, +keener with the acuteness of distant sounds, could hear music from a +boat so far away that they could not see it, a wonderfully enchanting +experience. + +They, too, ran out into the flood of sunshine to float down with the +rest. + +At the foot of Brandywine Bar a little cabin-boat suddenly rowed out +into the current and signalled them; somebody recognized and wanted to +speak to the mission boat. They were rapidly sucking down the swift +chute current, but Terabon turned over the motor, and flanked the big +houseboat across the current so that the hail could be answered. + +The little cabin-boat, almost lost to view astern, rapidly gained, and +as they ran down Beef Island chute, where the current is slow, they were +overtaken. + +"Sho!" Parson Rasba cried aloud, "hit's Missy Carline, Missy Nelia, +shore as I'm borned!" + +Terabon had known it for half an hour. He had been noticing river +details, and he could not fail to recognize that little boat. His hands +trembled as he steered the launch to take advantage of slack current and +dead water, and his throat choked with an emotion which he controlled +with difficulty. He looked fearfully at the gaunt River Prophet whose +own cheeks were staining with warm blood, and whose eyes gazed so keenly +at the young woman who was coming, leaning to her sweeps with Viking +grace and abandon. + +She was coming to _them_, with the fatalistic certainty that is so +astonishing to the student observer. Carried away by her sottish +husband; threatened by the tornado; rescued, perhaps, by the storm from +worse jeopardy, caught in safety under an island sandbar; her eyes, +sweeping the lonesome breadths of the flowing river-sea, had seen and +recognized her friend's boat, the floating mission, and pulled to join +safe company. + +She rowed up, with her eyes on the Prophet. He stood there in his +majesty while Terabon stooped unnoticed in the engine pit of the +motorboat. Not till she had run down near enough to throw a line did she +take her eyes off the mountain parson, and then she turned and looked +into the eyes, dumb with misery, of the other man, Terabon. + +Her cheeks, red with her exertions, turned white. Three days she had +read that heap of notes in loose-leaf file which Terabon had written. +She had read the lines and between the lines, facts and ideas, +descriptions and reminiscence, dialogue and history, statistics and +appreciation of a thousand river things, all viewpoints, including her +own. + +She knew, now, how wicked she was. She knew, now, the wilfulness of her +sins, and the merciful interposition of the river's inviolable strength. +Her sight of the mission boat had awakened in her soul the knowledge +that she must go out and talk to the good man on board, confess her +naughtiness, and beg the Prophet for instruction. Woman-like, she knew +what the outcome would be. + +He would take her, protect her, and there would be some way out of the +predicament in which they both found themselves. But again she reckoned +without the river. How could she know that Terabon and he had come down +the Mississippi together? + +But there he was, chauffeuring for the Prophet! + +She threw the line, Rasba caught it, drew the two boats together and +made them fast. He welcomed her as a father might have welcomed a +favourite child. He threw over the anchor, and Terabon dropped the +launch back to the stern, and hung it there on a light line. + +When he entered the big cabin Nelia was sitting beside a table, and +Rasba was leaning against the shelves which he had put up for the books. +Nelia, dumbfounded, had said little or nothing. When she glanced up at +Terabon, she looked away again, quickly, flushing. + +She was lost now. That was her feeling. Her defiance and her courage +seemed to have utterly left her, and in those bitter days of cold wind +and clammy rain, sleet and discomfort had changed the outlook of +everything. + +Married, without a husband; capable of great love, and yet sure that she +must never love; two lovers and an unhappy marriage between her and +happiness; a mind made up to sin, wantonly, and a soul that taunted her +with a life-time of struggle against sordidness. The two men saw her +burst into tears and cry out in an agony of spirit. + +Dumbly they stood there, man-like, not knowing what to do, or what +thought was in the woman's mind. The Prophet Rasba, his face full of +compassion, turned from her and went aft through the alley into the +kitchen, closing the doors behind him. He knew, and with knowledge he +accepted the river fate. + +Terabon went to her, and gave her comfort. He talked to her as a lover +should when his sweetheart is in misery, her heart breaking. And she +accepted his gentleness, and sobbed out the impossibility of everything, +while she clung to him. + +Within the hour they had plighted troth, regardless. She confessed to +her lover, instead of to the Prophet. He said he didn't care, and she +said she didn't care, either--which was mutually satisfactory. + +When they went out to Parson Rasba, they found him calmly reading one of +the books which she had given him. He looked up at their red faces and +smiled with indulgence. They would never know what went on inside his +heart, what was in his mind behind that kindly smile. That he knew and +understood everything was clear to them, but they did not and would not +have believed that he had, for a minute, hated Terabon as standing +between him and happiness. + +"What are we going to do?" Terabon cried, when he had told the Parson +that they loved each other, that they would complete the voyage down the +river together, that her husband still lived, and that they could get a +$17.50 divorce at Memphis. + +"Hit wouldn't be no 'count, that divorce." The Prophet shrugged his +shoulders, and the two hung their heads. They knew it, and yet they had +been willing to plead ignorance as an excuse for sin. + +He seemed to close the incident by suggesting that it was time to eat +something, and the three turned to getting a square meal. They cooked a +bountiful dinner, and sat down to it, the Prophet asking a blessing that +seared the hearts of the two because of its fervour. + +Rasba asked her to read to them after they had cleared up the dishes, +and she took down the familiar volumes and read. Rasba sat with his eyes +closed, listening. Terabon watched her face. She seemed to choose the +pages at random, and read haphazardly, but it was all delight and all +poetry. + +She was reading, which was strange, the Humphrey-Abbott book about the +Mississippi River levees, the classic report on river facts, all +fascinating to the mind that grasps with pleasure any river fact. When +Rasba looked up and smiled, the two were absorbed in their occupations, +one reading, the other watching her read. She stopped in conscious +confusion. + +"Yas, suh!" he smiled aloud. "I 'low we uns can leave hit to Old +Mississip', these yeah things that trouble us: I, my triflin' doubts, +and you children yo' own don't-know-yets." + +What made him say that, if he wasn't a River Prophet? Who told him, what +voice informed him, at that moment? Who can say? + +The following morning the big mission boat and Missy Nelia's boat landed +in at Memphis wharf, and the three went up town to buy groceries, +newspapers and magazines to read, and to help Nelia choose another set +of books from the shelves of local book stores. Old Rasba had never been +in a book store before, and he stared at the hundreds of feet of +shelves, with books of all sizes, kinds, and makes. + +"Sho!" he cried aloud, and then, again, "Sho! Sho!" + +It was fairyland for him, a land of enchantment, of impossible +satisfaction and glory-be! Terabon and Nelia saw that they had given him +another pleasure, and Rasba was happy to know that he would always be +able to visit such places, and add to his own store of literature, when +he had read the books which he had, as he would do, page by page, and +word by word, his dictionary at hand. + +Magazines and newspapers had little interest for him. Nelia and Terabon +could not help but wish to keep closer in touch with the world. They +picked up a copy of the _Trade-Appealer_, and then a copy of the +_Evening Battle Ax_, just out. + +They read one headline: + + UNKNOWN DROWNS IN CRUISER + +It was a brutally frank description of a motorboat cruiser which had +floated down Hopefield Bend, awash and waterlogged, but held afloat by +air-tight tanks: + + In the cabin was the body of a man, apparently about 30 years of + age, with a whiskey jug clasped in one hand by the handle. He was + face downward, and had been dead two or three days. It is supposed + he was caught in the heavy wind-storm of Wednesday night and + drowned. + +The river had planned again. The river had acted again. They went to +look at the boat, which was pumped out and in Ash Slough. It was +Carline's cruiser. Then they went to the morgue, and it was Carline's +body. + +Nelia broke down and cried. After all, one's husband is one's husband. +She did the right thing. She owned him, now, and she carried his remains +back home to Gage, and there she buried him, and wept on his grave. + +She put on widow's weeds for him, and though she might have claimed his +property, she ignored the will which left her all of it, and gave to his +relatives and to her own poor people what was theirs. She gave Parson +Rasba, whom she had brought home with her to bury her husband, $5,000 +for his services. + +Then, after the estate was all settled up, she returned to Memphis, and +Terabon met her at the Union Station, dutifully, as she had told him to +do. Together they went to the City Clerk's and obtained a marriage +license, and the River Prophet, Rasba, with firm voice and unflinching +gaze, united them in wedlock. + +They went aboard their own little shanty-boat, and while the rice and +old shoes of a host of river people rattled and clattered on their +cabin, they drifted out into the current and rapidly slipped away toward +President's Island. Parson Rasba, as they drifted clear, said to them: + +"I 'lowed we uns could leave hit to Old Mississip'!" + +THE END + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS +GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The River Prophet, by Raymond S. 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Spears. +</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top: 0.5em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + body {margin-left: 11%; margin-right: 10%;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + @media screen { + hr.pb {margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none;border-top:thin dashed silver;} + .pagenum {display: inline; font-size: x-small; text-align: right; position: absolute; right: 2%; padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration: none; background-color: inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} + .pncolor {color: silver;} + } + @media print { + hr.pb {border:none;page-break-after: always;} + .pagenum { display:none; } + } + .figcenter {margin: 2em auto 2em auto; text-align: center;} + p.tp {font-size:1em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:0em;text-align:center;} + .caption {font-size:.8em;} + h1 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.6em; font-style:italic} + hr.major {width: 65%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; clear:both;} + h2 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.4em;} +</style> + +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The River Prophet, by Raymond S. Spears + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The River Prophet + +Author: Raymond S. Spears + +Illustrator: Ralph Pallen Coleman + +Release Date: May 16, 2009 [EBook #28848] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVER PROPHET *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class='pb' /> +<div class='figcenter'> +<a name='linki_1' id='linki_1'></a> +<img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 307px; height: 477px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center; width: 307px;'> +“<i>She snatched the automatic pistol from her bosom<br /> +and ... fired. The man stumbled back with a cry.</i>”<br /> +</p> +</div> +<hr class='pb' /> +<table style='margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; border: black 2px solid;' summary=""> + <tr><td> + <table style='width:22em; margin: 3px 3px; border: black 1px solid;' summary=""> + + <tr><td style='padding-top:20px'> + <p class='tp' style='font-size:2.2em;font-style:italic;'>The River Prophet</p> + <p class='tp' style='font-style:italic;'>By</p> + <p class='tp' style='font-style:italic;margin-bottom:50px;font-size:1.3em;'>Raymond S. Spears</p> + </td></tr> + + <tr><td align='center'> + <img alt='' src='images/illus-emb.png' /> + </td></tr> + + <tr><td style='padding-bottom:20px'> + <p class='tp' style='font-style:italic;margin-top:40px;margin-bottom:70px;'>Frontispiece<br />by<br />Ralph Pallen Coleman</p> + <p class='tp' style='font-style:italic;font-size:0.8em;'>Garden City New York</p> + <p class='tp' style='font-style:italic;font-size:1em;'>Doubleday, Page & Company</p> + <p class='tp' style='font-style:italic;font-size:0.8em;'>1920</p> + </td></tr> + + </table> + </td></tr> +</table> +<hr class='pb' /> +<p class='tp' style='font-size:smaller;'>COPYRIGHT, 1918, 1920, BY<br /> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF<br /> +TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,<br /> +INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN</p> +<hr class='pb' /> +<h1>The River Prophet</h1> +<hr class='pb' /> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1' name='page_1'></a>1</span></div> +<p style='font-size:1.3em; text-align:center; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:1em;'>THE RIVER PROPHET</p> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 0; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='CHAPTER_I' id='CHAPTER_I'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Elijah Rasba lived alone in a log cabin on +Temple Run. He was a long, lank, blue-eyed +young man, with curly brown hair and a pale, +almost livid complexion. His eye-brows were heavy +and dark brown, and the blue steel of his gaze was fixed +unwaveringly upon any object that it distinguished.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Two generations before, Old Abe Rasba had built +a church on a little brook, a tributary of Jackson River, +away up in the mountains. The church was laid up of +flat stones, gathered in fields, from ledges of rock and +up the wooded mountain side. It was large enough +to hold all the people for miles around, and the roof +was supported by massive hewn timbers, and some +few attempts had been made to decorate the structure.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Old Abe had called his church “The Temple,” had +preached from a big hollow oak stump, and laid down +the Law of the Bible, which he had memorized by heart, +and expounded from experience. Elijah Rasba, grandson +of Old Abe, thus came honestly by reverence and +religion, but the strange glory which had surrounded +the old Temple had departed from the ruin, and of +all the congregation, only Elijah remained.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Land-slips had ruined a score of farms cleared on too-steep +hills; lightning had destroyed the overshot grist +mill, and the two big stones had been cracked in the hot +flames; a feud had opened graves before the allotted +time of the victims. It seemed to Elijah, sitting there +in his cabin, as though damnation had visited the faithful, +and that death was the reward of belief. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2' name='page_2'></a>2</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The ruins of the old Temple stood melancholy where +the heavy stone wall, built by a man who believed in +broad, firm foundations, had split an avalanche, but +without avail, for the walls had given way and let the +roof beams drop in. No less certain had been the fate +of the congregation; they, too, were scattered or dead. +There remained but one dwelling in the little valley, +with a lone occupant, who was wrestling with his soul, +trying to understand, for he knew in his heart that +he must read the truth and discover the meaning of all +this trouble, privation, disaster, and death.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He was quite practical about it. He had a field of +corn, and a little garden full of truck; over his fireplace +hung a 32-20 repeating rifle, and in one corner were a +number of steel traps, copper and brass wire for snares, +and a home-made mattock with which a rabbit could be +extricated from a burrow, or a skunk-skin from its den.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>An Almanac, a Bible, and a “Resources of Tennessee” +comprised the library on the shelf. The Almanac +had come by mail from away off yonder, about a hundred +miles, perhaps—anyhow, from New York. The +“Resources of Tennessee” had come down with a spring +freshet in Jackson River, and was rather stained with +mountain clays. The Bible was, of course, an inheritance.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was a very small article, apparently, to create all +the disturbances that seemed to have followed its interpretations +there on Temple Run. Elijah would hold +it out at arms length and stare at it with those sharp +eyes of his, wondering in his soul how it could be that +the fate of nations, the future of humanity, the very +salvation of every soul rested within the compass of +that leather-covered, gilt-edged parcel of thin paper +which weighed rather less than half as much as a box +of cartridges. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3' name='page_3'></a>3</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Elijah did not spare himself in the least. He toiled +at whatever task appeared for him to do. As he required +for his own wants fifty bushels of corn for a year, +he planted enough to shuck a hundred bushels. Once, +in the fervour of the hope that he was called upon to +raise corn for humanity, he raised five hundred bushels, +only to give it all away to poor white trash who had not +raised enough for themselves.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Again he felt the call to preach, and he went forth +with all the eagerness of a man who had at last discovered +his life’s calling. He went on foot, through storms, +over mountains, and into a hundred schoolhouses and +churches, showing his little leather-skinned Bible and +warning sinners to repent, Christians to keep faith, +and Baal to lower his loathly head.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had returned from his five months’ pilgrimage +with the feeling that his utmost efforts had been futile, +and that for all his good will, it had not been vouchsafed +him to leave behind one thought in fertile soil. The +matter had been brought home to him by an incident +of the last meeting he had addressed, over on Clinch.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In the Painted Church he had volunteered a sermon, +and no sermons had been preached there in years. +Feuds, inextricably tangled, had involved five different +families, and members of all those families were in the +church, answering to his challenge.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They sat there with rifles or shotguns between their +knees, with their pistols on their hips, and eternal vigilance +in their eyes. While listening to his sermon they +kept their gaze fastened upon one another, lest an unwary +moment bring upon them the alert shot of an +enemy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As he had stood there, gaunt in frame, famished of +soul, driven by the torments of an ambition to see the +right, to do it, it seemed to him as though the final burden +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4' name='page_4'></a>4</span> +had been heaped upon him, and that he must +break under the weight on his mind.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What can I say to you all?” he burst out with sudden +passion. “Theh yo’ set with guns in yo’ hands an’ +murder in yo’ souls—to listen to the word of God! +How do yo’ expect the Prince of Peace to come to yo’ +if yo’ set there thataway?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His indignation rose as he saw them, and his scorn unbridled +his tongue, so that in a few minutes the congregation +watched one another less, the preacher more, and all +settled back, to listen and blink under his accusations +and his declarations. It really seemed, for the time, as +though he had caught and engaged their attention. But +when the sermon ended and he had taken his departure, +before he was a hundred yards down the road he heard +loud words, angry shouts, and then the scream of a woman.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The next instant there came a salvo of gun and pistol +shots and in all directions up and down the cross-roads +people fled on horseback. Three men had been killed, +five wounded and a dozen become fugitives from justice +at the end of the church service.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Elijah Rasba fled homeward, his will and hopes +broken, and sank dejectedly into a slough of despondency. +All his good intentions, all the inspiration of +his endeavour, his very spiritual exaltation had terminated +in a tragedy, as inexplicable as it was depressing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His conscience would neither let him rest nor work. +He looked at his Bible, inside and out, the very fibres +of his brain struggling by reason, by effort, by main +strength, to discover what his duty was. No answer +soothed his waking hours or gave him rest from his +dreams. On him rested a kind of superstitious scorn +and fear, and he began to believe the whisperings of +his neighbours which reached his ears. They said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’s possessed!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5' name='page_5'></a>5</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>To his own freighted mind the statement seemed to +be true. He did not know what new sin he had committed, +nor could he look back on long years of his +youth and young manhood and discover any sin which +he had not already expiated, over and over again. He +had obeyed the scriptural injunctions to the best of his +knowledge, and the reward was this daily and nightly +torment, the scorn of his fellows, and the questioning +of his own soul.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Worst of all, constructively, he had given feud fighters +the chance to do murder upon one another. Under +the guise of preaching for them for the good of their +souls, he had enabled them to meet in antagonism, +watch in wrath, and kill without mercy. Too late he +realized that he should have foreseen the tragedy, and +that he should have provided against it by going first +to each faction, preaching to each family, and then, +when he had brought them to their knees, united them +in the common cause of religion.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“On me is Thy wrath!” he cried out in the anguish +of his soul. “Give thy tortured slave something good +to do, ere I go down!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There was no reply, immediate or audible; he was +near the limits of his endurance; he drew his arm back +to throw the Bible into the flames of his fireplace, but +that he could not do. He tossed it upon the shelf, +drew his hat down upon his ears and at the approach of +night started over the ridges to the Kalbean stillhouse.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He stalked down a ridge into that split-board shack +of infamy. He found five or six men in the hot, sour-smelling +place. They started to their feet when they +saw the mountain preacher among them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Gimme some!” he told Old Kalbean. “I’m a fool! +I’m damned. I’ll go with the rest of ye to Hell! +Gimme some!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6' name='page_6'></a>6</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Wha—What?” Old Kalbean choked with horror. +“Yo’ gwine to drink, Parson?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Suttinly!” Rasba cried. “Hit ain’ no ust for me +to preach! I preach, an’ the congregation murders one +anotheh! Ef I don’t preach, I cayn’t live peaceable! +They say hit makes a man happy—I ain’ be’n happy, +not in ten, not in twenty yeahs!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He caught up the jug that rested on the floor, threw +the tin cup to one side, up-ended the receptacle, and +the moonshiner and his customers stared.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh!” Rasba grunted, when he had to take the jug +down for breath. He reached into his pocket, drew out a +silver dollar, and handed it to the amazed mountain man.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh!” he repeated, defiantly. “I’ve shore gone +to Hell, now, an’ I don’t give a damn, nuther. S’long, +boys! D’rectly, yo’l heah me jes’ a whoopin’, yas +suh! Jes’ a whoopin’!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He left them abruptly and he went up into the darkness +of the laurels. They heard him crashing away into +the night. When he was gone the men looked at one +another:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ ’low he’ll bring the revenuers?” one asked, nervously.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Bring nothin’!” another grinned. “No man eveh +lived could drink fifteen big gulps, like he done, an’ +git furder’n a stuck hog, no, suh!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They listened for the promised whoops; they strained +their ears for the cries of jubilation; but none came.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Co’rse,” the stiller explained, as though an explanation +were needed, “Parson Rasba ain’ used to hit; he +could carry more, an’ hit’ll take him longer to get lit +up. But, law me, when hit begins to act! That’s +three yeah old, boys, mild, but no mewl yo’ eveh saw +has the kick that’s got, apple an’ berry cider, stilled +down from the ferment!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7' name='page_7'></a>7</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_II' id='CHAPTER_II'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Virtue had not been rewarded. This much +was clear and plain to the consciousness of +Nelia Carline. Looking at herself in the glass +disclosed no special reason why she should be unhappy +and suffering. She was a pretty girl; everybody said +that, and envy said she was too pretty. It seemed that +poor folks had no right to be good-looking, anyhow.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>If poor folks weren’t good-looking, then wealthy +young men, with nothing better to do, wouldn’t go +around looking among poor folks for pretty girls. +Augustus Carline had, apparently, done that. Carline +had a fortune that had been increased during three generations, +and now he didn’t have to work. That was +bad in Gage, Illinois. It had never done any one any +good, that kind of living. One of the fruits of the matter +was when Nelia Crele’s pretty face attracted his attention. +She lived in a shack up the Bottoms near +St. Genevieve, and he tried to flirt with her, but she +wouldn’t flirt.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In some surprise, startled by his rebuff, he withdrew +from the scene with a memory that would not forget. +The scene was a wheat field near the Turkey bayou, +where he was hunting wild ducks with a shotgun. She +had been gathering forty pounds of hickory nuts to eke +out a meagre food supply.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Poor she might be; ill clad was her strong young +figure; her face showed the strain of years of effort; +her eyes had the fire of experience in suffering; and she +stood, a supple girl of heightened beauty while the +hunter, sure of his welcome, walked up to her, and, as +both her hands held the awkward bushel basket, ventured +to tickle her under the chin. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8' name='page_8'></a>8</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She dropped the basket and before it reached the +ground she caught the rash youth broad-handed from +cheek to back of the ear, and he stumbled over a pile of +wheat sheaves and fell headlong. As he had dropped +his shotgun, she picked it up and with her thumb on +the safety, her finger on the trigger, and her left hand +on the breech, showed him how a $125 shotgun looks in +the hands of one who could and would use it on any +further provocation.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He took his departure, and she carried the gun and +hickory nuts home with her. Thus began the inauspicious +acquaintance of Nelia Crele and Augustus +Carline. The shotgun was very useful to the young +woman. She killed gray and fox squirrels, wild turkeys, +geese and ducks, several saleable fur-bearers, and other +game in her neighbourhood. She told no one how she +obtained the weapon, merely saying she had found it; +and Augustus Carline did not pass any remarks on the +subject.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>By and by, however, when the tang of the slap and +the passion of the moment had left him, he knew that +he had been foolish and cowardly. He had some good +parts, and he was sorry that he had been precipitate +in his attentions. After that encounter, he found the +girls he met at dances lacked a certain appearance, a +kindling of the eye, a complexion, and, a figure.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He ventured again into the river bottoms across +from St. Genevieve and fortune favoured him while +tricking her. He apologized and gave his name.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia was poor, abjectly poor. Her father was no +’count, and her mother was abject in suffering. One +brother had gone West, a whisky criminal; a sister had +gone wrong, with the inheritance of moral obliquity. +Nelia had, somehow, become possessed with a hate and +horror of wrong. She had pictured to herself a home, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9' name='page_9'></a>9</span> +happiness, and a life of plenty, but she held herself at +the highest price a woman demands.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>That price Augustus Carline was only too willing to +pay. He had found a girl of high spirits, of great good +looks, of a most amusing quickness of wit and vigour +of mentality. He married her, to the scandal of everybody, +and carried her from her poverty to the fine old +French-days mansion in Gage.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There he installed her with everything he thought she +needed, and—pursued his usual futile life. Too late +she learned that he was weak, insignificant, and, like +her own father, no ’count. Augustus Carline was a +brute, a creature of appetites and desires, who by no +chance rose to the heights of his wife’s mental demands.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia Carline regarded the tragedy of her life with +impatience. She studied the looking glass to see wherein +she had failed to measure up to her duty; she ransacked +her mind, and compared it with all the women she met +by virtue of her place as Gus Carline’s wife. Those +women had not proved to be what she had expected +grand dames of society to be.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I want to talk learning,” she told herself, “and +they talk hairpins and dirty dishes and Bill-don’t-behave!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Now one of those women, a kind of a grass widow, +Mrs. Plosell, had attracted Gus Carline, and when he +came home from her house, he was always drunk. +When Nelia remonstrated, he was ugly. He had +thrown her down and gone back to the grass widow’s +the night before. Nelia considered that grim fact, +and, having made up her mind, acted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In her years of poverty she had learned many things, +and now she put into service certain practical ideas. +She had certain rights, under the law, since she had +taken the name of Augustus Carline. There were, too, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10' name='page_10'></a>10</span> +moral rights, and she preferred to exercise her moral +rights.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Part of the Carline fortune was in unregistered stocks +and bonds, and when Gus Carline returned from the +widow’s one day he found that Nelia was in great good +humour, more attractive than he had ever known her, +and so very pleasant during the two days of his headache +that he was willing to do anything she asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She asked him to have a good time with her, and +put down on the table before him a filled punch bowl +and two glasses. He had never known the refinements +of intoxicating liquors. Now he found them in his +own home, and for a while forgot all else.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He sang, danced, laughed and, in due course, signed +a number of papers, receipts, bills and checks to settle +up some accounts. These were sort of hit-or-miss, +between-the-acts affairs, to which he paid little attention.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>To Nelia, however, they represented a rite as valid +as any solemn court procedure could be, for to her river-trained +instinct there was no moral question as to the +justice of her claim upon a part of Carline’s fortune. +Her later experience, her reading, had taught her that +society and the law also held with the principle, if +not the manner of her primitive method, for obtaining +her rights to separate support.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When Carline awakened, Nelia was gone. Nelia had +departed that morning, one of the servants said. The +girl did not know where she had gone. She had taken +a box of books, two trunks, two suitcases and was dressed +up, departing in the automobile, which she drove herself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had a feeling of alarm, which he banished as unworthy. +Finally toward night he went down to the +post office where he found several letters. One seared +his consciousness; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11' name='page_11'></a>11</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>Gus:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>Don’t bother to look for me. I’m gone, and I’m going to stay +gone. You have shown yourself to be a mere soak, a creature of +appetite and vice, and with no redeeming mental traits whatever. +I hate you, and worse yet, I despise you. Get a divorce get another +woman—the widow is about your calibre. But, I give you +fair warning, leave me alone. I’m sick of men.</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; text-align:right'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Nelia</span>.<br /></p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12' name='page_12'></a>12</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_III' id='CHAPTER_III'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Elijah Rasba stalked homeward from the +still in the dark, grimly and expectantly erect. +Now he was going to have that period of happiness +which he knew was the chief reason for people +drinking moonshine whiskey. He looked forward to +the sensation of exuberant joy very much as a man +would look forward to five hours of happiness, to be +followed by hanging by the neck, till dead.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The stars were shining, and the over-ridge trail which +he followed was familiar enough under his feet, once +he had struck into it from the immediate vicinity of the +lawbreakers. He saw the bare-limbed oak trees +against the sky, and he heard rabbits and other night +runners scurrying away in the dead leaves. The stars +fluttering in the sky were stern eyes whose gaze he +avoided with determined wickedness and unrepentance.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Arriving at his own cabin, he stirred up the big pine-root +log, and drew his most comfortable rocking chair +up before the leaping flames. He sat there, and waited +for the happiness of mind which was the characteristic +of his idea of intoxication.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He waited for it, all ready to welcome it. If it had +come into his cabin, all dressed up like some image of +temptation or allurement, he would not have been in +the least surprised. He rather expected a real and +tangible manifestation, a vision of delight, clothed in +some fair figure. He sat there, rigidly, watching for the +least symptom of unholy pleasure. He had no clock +by which to tell the time, and his watch was thoroughly +unreliable.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Again and again he poked up the fire. He was surprised, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13' name='page_13'></a>13</span> +at last, to hear a far-away gobble, the welcome of +a wild turkey for the first false dawn. By and by he +became conscious of the light which was crowding the +fire flare into a subordinate place.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Day had arrived, and as yet, the delight which everybody +said was in moonshine whiskey had failed to touch +him. However, he knew that he was not properly in a +receptive mood for happiness. His soul was still stubborn +against the allurements of sin. He stirred from his +chair, fried a rabbit in a pan, and baked a batch of hot-bread +in a dutch oven, brewing strong coffee and bringing +out the jug of sorghum molasses.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He ate breakfast. He was conscious of a certain +rigidity of action, a certain precision of motion, ascribing +them to the stern determination which he had +that when he should at last discover the whiskey-happiness +in his soul, he would let go with a whoop.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Some hit makes happy, and some hit makes fightin’ +mad!” Rasba suddenly thought, with much concern, +“S’posen hit’d make me fightin’ mad?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A fluttering trepidation clutched his heart. The +bells ringing in his ears fairly clanged the alarm. He +hadn’t looked for anything else but joy from being +drunk, and now suppose he should be stricken with a +mad desire to fight—to kill someone!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No deadlier fear ever clutched a man’s heart than +the one that seized Elijah Rasba. Suppose that when +the deferred hilarity arrived, he was made fighting +drunk instead of joyous? The thought seized his soul +and he looked about himself wondering how he could +chain his hands and save his soul from murder, violence, +fighting, and similar crimes! No feasible way appeared +to his frightened mind.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He dropped on his knees and began to pray for happiness, +instead of for violence, when the drink that he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14' name='page_14'></a>14</span> +had had should seize him in its embrace. He prayed +with a voice that roared like thunder and which made +the charcoal fall from the log in the fireplace, and which +alarmed the jays and inquisitive mockingbirds about +the little clearing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He prayed while his voice grew huskier and huskier, +and his head bowed lower and lower as he wrestled with +this peril which he had not foreseen. All he asked was +that when the moonshine began to operate, it make him +laugh instead of mad, but terrible doubts smote him. +A glance at his rifle on the wall made him fairly grovel +on the floor, and he knew that in his hands the andirons, +the axe, the very hot-bread rolling pin would be +deadly weapons.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He hoped that he would not be able to shoot straight, +but this hope was instantly blasted, for a flock of wild +turkeys came down into the cornfield about ninety +yards from his cabin, and although he seldom shot anything +in his own clearing, he now tried a shot at the +turkey gobbler and shot it dead where it strutted. If +he should be stricken with anger instead of with joy, +no worse man could possibly live! There was no telling +what he would do if the liquor would work “wrong” +on him. He could kill men at two hundred yards!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He determined that he would see no human beings +that day. Few people ever visited him in his cabin, +but he took no chances. He crept up the mountain +and skulking through the woods found an immense +patch of laurels. He crawled into it, and sat down there +for hours and hours, so that no one should have an +opportunity to speak to him and stir the latent devil of +violence.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He returned to his cabin long after dark, and raking +some hot coals out of the ashes, whittled splinters and +started a blaze. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span> +He was assailed by hunger, and he baked corn pones +and dry-salted pork, then added a great flapjack of +delicious sage sausage to the meal. He brought out +cans of fruit, whose juice assuaged his increasing thirst. +Having eaten heartily he resumed his vigil before the +fireplace, and then he noticed that some one had tied +something on the stock of his rifle.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was a letter which a passer-by had brought up +from the Ford Post Office, and when he opened it +and looked at the writing, remorse assailed him:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Dear Parsun</span>:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>Ever senct you preched here I ben sufrin count of my boy JocK. +You know Him for he set right thar, frade of no man, not the Tobblys, +nor the Crents. When tha drawed DOWN to shoot, he stud +right thar an shot back shoot fer shoot, an now he has goned awa +down the Rivehs an I am worited abot his soul because he is a gud +boy an neveh was no whars in all his borned days an an i hear now +he is gettin bad down thataway on Misipy riveh where thas all +Bad Peple an i wisht yud prey fer him so’s he wont get bad. Mrs. +drones panted church on Clinch.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba read the letter for the words at first. Then he +went back after the meaning, and the meaning struck +him like a blow in the heart.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Me pray fo’ any man again,” he gasped. “Lawse! +Lawse!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He didn’t feel fit to pray for himself, let alone for any +other sinner, but there came to his memory a picture of +Mrs. Drones, a motherly little woman who had taken +him home to a dinner at which seven kinds of preserved +fruit were on the table, and where the family laughed +around the fireplace—only to see Jock a fugitive the +next night, and the terrors of a feud war upon them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And Jock’s getting bad down the Mississippi +River!” Rasba repeated to himself, striving to grapple +with that fact. He could not think clearly or coherently. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span> +The widow’s voice, however, was as clearly +speaking in his thoughts as though she stood there, +instead of merely having written to him. He took to +walking up and down the floor, back and forth, on one +plank.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had forgotten that there was such a thing for +humans as sleep. The incongruity of his having been +wide awake for two days and two nights did not occur to +him till suddenly his eyes turned to the bed in the corner +of the room and its purpose was recalled to his +mind. He blinked at it. His eyes opened with difficulty. +He threw chunks on the fire and went toward +the bed, but as he stood by it the world grew black before +his eyes and clutching about him, he sank to the +floor.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_IV' id='CHAPTER_IV'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia Carline would not return to that miserable +little river-bottom cabin where she had +grown up in unhappy privation. She had other +plans. She drove the little automobile down to Chester, +put it in the Star Garage, then walked to the river +bank and gave the eddy a critical inspection.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For years she had lived between the floods of the +river and the poverty of the uplands. Her life had +often crossed that of river people, and although she +had never been on the river, she had frequently gone +visiting shanty-boaters who had landed in for a night +or a week at the bank opposite her own shack home. +She knew river men, and she had no illusions about river +women. Best of all now, in her great emergency, she +knew shanty-boats, and as she gazed at the eddy and +saw the fleet of houseboats there her heart leaped exultantly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No less than a score of boats were landed along the +eddy bank, and instantly her eyes fell upon first one +and then another that would serve her purpose. She +walked down to the uppermost of the boats, and hailed +from the bank:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“U-whoo!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A lank, stoop-shouldered woman emerged from the +craft and fixed the well-favoured young woman with +keen, bright eyes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You-all know if there’s a shanty-boat here for sale—cheap?” +Nelia asked, without eagerness.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The woman looked at the bank, reflectively.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I expect,” she admitted at last. “This un yaint, +but theh’s two spo’ts down b’low, that’s quittin’ the +riveh, that blue boat theh, but theh’s spo’ts.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18' name='page_18'></a>18</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’lowed they mout be,” Nelia dropped into her +childhood vernacular as she looked down the bank, +“Likely yo’ mout he’p me bargain, er somebody?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low I could!” the river woman replied. “Me +an’ my ole man he’ped a feller up to St. Louis, awhile +back, who was green on the river, but he let us kind of +p’int out what he’d need fo’ a skift trip down this away. +Real friendly feller, kind of city-like, an’ sort of out’n +the country, too. ’Lowed he was a writin’ feller, fer +magazines an’ books an’ histries an’ them kind of things. +Lawsy! He could ask questions, four hundred kinds +of questions, an’ writin’ hit all down into a writin’ +machine onto paper. We shore told him a heap an’ a +passel, an’ he writes mornin’ an’ nights. Lots of curius +fellers on Ole Mississip’. We’ll sort of look aroun’. +Co’se, yo’ got a man to go ’long?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Wha-a-t! Yo’ ain’ goin’ to trip down alone?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I might’s well.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But, goodness, gracious sake, you’re pretty, pretty +as a picture! I ’lowed yo’ had a man scoutin’ aroun’. +Why somethin’ mout happen to a lady, if she didn’t +have a man or know how to take cyar of herse’f.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia shrugged her shoulders. Mrs. Tons, the river +woman, gazed for a minute at the pretty, partly averted +face. It was almost desperate, quite reckless, and by +the expression, the river woman understood. She +thought in silence, for a minute, and then looked down +the eddy at a boat some distance away.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh’s a boat. Like the looks of it?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s a fine boat, I ’low,” Nelia said. “Fresh painted.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s new,” the woman said.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Is it for sale?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We’ll jes walk down thataway,” the river woman +suggested. “Two ladies is mostly safe down thisaway.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“My name’s Nelia Crele. We used to live up by +Gage, on the Bottoms––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho! Co’se I know Ole Jim Crele, an’ his woman. +My name’s Mrs. Tons. We stopped in thah ’bout six +weeks ago. I hearn say yo’d—yo’d married right well!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Umph!” Nelia shrugged her shoulders, “Liquor +spoils many a home!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ maw said he was a drinkin’ man, an’ I said to +myse’f, from my own ’sperience.... Yo’ set +inside yeah, Nelia. I’ll go down theh an’ talk myse’f. +We come near buyin’ that bo’t yistehd’y. Leave hit +to me!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia sat down in the shanty-boat, and waited. She +had not long to wait. A tall, rather burly man returned +with the woman, who introduced the two;</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Mis’ Crele, this is Frank Commer. His bo’t’s fo’ +sale, an’ he’ll take $75 cash, for everything, ropes, anchor, +stoves, a brass bedstead, an’ everything and I +said hit’s reasonable. Hit’s a pine boat, built last fall, +and the hull’s sound, with oak framing. Co’se, hit’s +small, 22 foot long an’ 7 foot wide, but hit’s cheap.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll take it, then,” Nelia nodded.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You can come look it over,” the man declared. +“Tight hull and tight roof. We built it ourselves. +But we’re sick of the river, and we’ll sell cheap, right +here.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The three went down to the boat, and Nelia handed +him seventy-five dollars in bills. He and his partner, +who came down from the town a few minutes later, +packed up their personal property in two trunks. +They left the dishes and other outfit, including several +blankets.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The four talked as the two packed up. One of them +suddenly looked sharply at Nelia:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You dropping down alone?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She hesitated, and then laughed:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s none of my business,” the man said, doubtfully, +“but it’s a mean old river, some ways. A lady alone +might get into trouble. River pirates, you know.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was a challenge. He was a clear-eyed, honest man, +hardly twenty-five years of age, and not an evil type +at all. What he had to suggest he did boldly, sure of +his right at such a time, under such circumstances, to +do. He was entirely likeable. In spite of herself, Nelia +wavered for a moment. She knew river people; the +woman by her side would have said she would be safer +with him than without his protection. There was only +one reason why Nelia could not accept that protection.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll have to take care of myself,” she shook her head, +without rebuke to the youth. “You see, I’m running +away from a mean scoundrel.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s so,” the river woman approved, and the men +took their departure without further comment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The two women, disapproving the men’s housekeeping, +scrubbed the boat and washed all the bedding. +Nelia brought down her automobile and the two carried +her own outfit on board. Then Nelia took the car +back to the garage, and said that she would call for +it in the morning.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“All right, Mrs. Carline,” the garage man replied, +without suspicion.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Back at the landing, Nelia bade the river woman +good-bye.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I got to be going,” she said, “likely there’ll be a +whole pack after me directly––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Got a gun?” the woman asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Two,” Nelia smiled. “Bill gave me a goose rifle +and Frank let me have this—he said it’s the Law down +Old Mississip’!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“The Law” was a 32-calibre automatic pistol in +perfect condition.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Them boys thought a heap of yo’, gal!” The river +woman shook her head. “Frank’d sure made you a +good man!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, I know it,” replied Nelia, “but I’m sick of +men—I hate men! I’m going to go droppin’ along, +same’s the rest.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Don’t let go of that pistol. Theh’s mean, bad men +down thisaway, Nelia!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia laughed, but harshly. “I don’t give a damn +for anything now; I tell you that!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Don’t forget it. Shoot any man that comes.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia, who could row a skiff with any one, set her +shanty-boat sweeps on their pins, coiled up the two bow +lines by which the boat was moored to the bank, and +which the river woman untied, then rowed out of the +eddy and into the main current.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s good floating right down,” Mrs. Tons called after +her, “till yo’ git to Grand Tower Rock—thirty mile!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The river rapidly widened below Chester, and the +little houseboat swung out into mid-stream. Nelia +knew the river a little from having been down on a +steamer, and the misery she left behind was in contrast +to the sense of freedom and independence which she +now had.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Stillness, peace, the sense of vast motion in the river +torrent comforted her. The moment of embarking +alone on the river had been full of nervous tenseness +and anxiety, but now those feelings were left behind +and she could breathe deeply and confront the future +with a calm spirit. The veil that the blue mist of distance +left behind her was penetrable by memory, but +the future was hidden from her gaze, as it was hidden +from her imagination. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22' name='page_22'></a>22</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The determination to dwell in the immediate present +caught up her soul with its grim, cold bonds, and as +the sun was setting against the sky beyond the long, +sky-line of limestone ledges, she entered the cabin, and +looked about her with a feeling of home such as she +had never had before.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll stand at the breech of my rifle, to defend it,” +she whispered to herself. “Men are mean! I hate +men!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She found a flat book on a shelf which held a half +hundred magazines. The book was bound in blue +boards, and backed with yellow leather. When she +opened it, out of curiosity, she discovered that it was +full of maps.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Those dear boys!” she whispered, almost regretfully. +“They left this map book for me, because they +knew I’d need it; knew everybody down thisaway needs +a map!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They had done more than that; they had left the +equally indispensable “List of Post Lights,” and when +dusk fell and she saw a pale yellow light revealed +against a bank the little book named it “Wilkinson +Island.” She pulled toward the east bank into the +deadwater below Lacours Island, cast over her anchor, +and came to rest in the dark of a starless night.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_V' id='CHAPTER_V'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In mid-afternoon, the man who had so desperately +and as a last resource tested the efficiency +of moonshine whiskey as a palliative for mental +misery awaked gradually, in confusion of mind and +aching of body. Noises filled his ears, and streaking +lights blurred the keenness of his eyes. Reason had +but little to do with his first thoughts, and feelings had +nearly everything. There did not seem to be any +possible atonement for him to make. Too late, as it +seemed, he realized the enormity of his offence and the +bitterness of inevitable punishment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There remained but one thing for him to do, and that +was go away down the rivers and find the fugitive +Jock Drones, whose mother feared for him. No other +usefulness of purpose remained in his reach. If he +stood up, now, before any congregation, the imps of +Satan, the patrons of moonshiners, would leer up at +him in his pulpit, reminding him that he, too, was one +of them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He went over to the corner of his cabin, raised some +planks there and dug down into the earth till he found +a jug. He dragged the jug into the cabin and out of +it poured the Rasba patrimony, a hidden treasure of +gold, which he put into a leather money belt and strapped +on. There was not much in the cabin worth taking +away, but he packed that little up and made ready for +his departure.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was but a few miles over to Tug River, and he +readily engaged a wagon to carry him that far. On +the wooded river bank he built a flatboat with his own +hands, and covered one end of it with a poplar-wood +cabin, purchased at a near-by sawmill. He floated out +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span> +of the eddy in his shack-boat and began his journey +down the rivers to the Mississippi, where he would +perform the one task that remained for him to do in +the service of God. He would find Jock, give him his +mother’s message, and after that expiate his own sins +in the deserved misery of an exiled penitent.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Tug River was in flood, a heavy storm having cast +nearly two inches of rainfall upon part of the watershed. +On the crest of the flood it was fast running +and there was no delay, no stopping between dawn and +dusk. Standing all day at the sweeps Rasba cleared +the shore in sharp bends, avoided the obstacles in mid +stream, and outran the wave crests and the racing drift, +entering the Big Sandy and emerging into the unimaginable +breadths of the Ohio.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had no time to waste on the Ohio. The object +of his search was on the Mississippi, hundreds of miles +farther down, and he could not go fast enough to suit +him. But at that, pulling nervously at his sweeps +and riding down the channel line, he “gain-speeded,” +till his eyes were smarting with the fury of the changing +shores, and his arms were aching with the pulling and +pushing of his great oars, and he neither recognized the +miles that he floated nor the repeated days that ensued.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Long since he had escaped from his own mountain +environment. The trees no longer overhung his +course; railroad trains screamed along endless shores, +bridges overhung his path like menacing deadfalls, and +the rolling thunder of summer storms was mingled +with the black smoke of ten thousand undreamed-of +industries. The simplicity of the mountain cornfields +of his youth had become a mystery of production, of +activity, of passing phenomena which he neither knew +nor understood. In his thoughts there was but one +beacon. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His purpose was to reach the Mississippi, take the +young man in hand, and redeem him from the evils +into which he had fallen. His object was no more than +that, nor any less. From the confusion of his experiences, +efforts, and humiliations, he held fast to one fact: +the necessity of finding Jock Drones. All things else +had melted into that.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The river banks fell apart along his course; the river +ridges withdrew to wide distances, even blue at times; +mere V-gullies or U-gorges, widened into vast corn +fields. A post-office store-house at a rippling ford gave +way to smoking cities, rumbling bridges, paved streets, +and hurrying throngs. The lone fisherman in an +18-foot dugout had changed insensibly to darting motorboats +and to huge, red-wheeled, white-castled monsters, +whose passage in the midst of vast waters was attended +by the sighs of toiling engines and the tossing +of troubled seas.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Except for that one sure demand upon him, Elijah +Rasba long since would have been lost in the confusion +and doubts of his transition from narrow wooded ridges +and trembling streamlets to this succession of visions. +But his soul retained its composure, his eyes their quickness +to seize the essential detail, and he rode the Tug +River freshet into the Ohio flood tide bent upon his +mission of redeeming one mountain youth who had +strayed down into this far land, of which the shores +were washed by the unimaginable sea of a river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When at the end of a day he arrived in a way-side +eddy and moored his poplar-bottom craft against a +steep bank and the last twilight had faded from his +vision, he would eat some simple thing for supper, and +then, by lamp-light, try to read his exotic life into the +Bible which accompanied him on his travels. He knew +the Book by heart, almost; he knew all the rivers told +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span> +about in it; he knew the storms of the various biblical +seas; he knew the Jordan, in imagination, and the Nile, +the Euphrates, the Jabbok, and the Brook of Egypt, +but they did not conform in his imagination with this +living tide which was carrying him down its course, +over shoal, around bend and from vale to vale of a +size and grandeur beyond expression.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Elijah was speechless with amazement; the spies +who had gone into Canaan, holding their tongues, and +befriended by women whose character Elijah Rasba +could not identify, were less surprised by the riches +which they discovered than Rasba by the panorama +which he saw rolled out for his inspection day by day.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Other shanty-boaters were dropping down before +the approach of winter. Sometimes one or another +would drift near to Rasba’s boat and there would be an +exchange of commonplaces.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How fur mout hit be, strangeh?” he would ask each +man. “’Low hit’s a hundred mile yet to the Mississippi?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A hundred miles! They could not understand that +this term in the mountain man’s mind meant “a long +ways,” if need be a thousand or ten thousand miles. +When one answered that the Mississippi was 670 miles, +and another said it was a “month’s floating,” their +replies were equally without meaning to his mind. +Rasba could not understand them when they talked +of reaches, crossings, wing dams, government works, +and chutes and islands, but he would not offend any +of them by showing that he did not in the least understand +what they were talking about. He must never +again hurt the feelings of any man or woman, and he +must perform the one service which the Deity had left +for him to perform.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Little by little he began to understand that he was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span> +approaching the Mississippi River. He saw the Cumberland +one day, and two hours later, he was witness to +the Tennessee, and that long, wonderful bridge which a +railroad has flung from shore to shore of the great river. +The current carried him down to it, and his face turned +up and up till he was swept beneath that monument to +man’s inspiration and the industry of countless hands.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba had seen cities and railroads and steamboats, +but all in a kind of confusion and tumult. They had +meant but incidents down the river; this bridge, however, +a structure of huge proportions, was clearly one +piece, one great idea fixed in steel and stone.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How big was the man who built that bridge?” +he asked himself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>While yet the question echoed in his expanding soul +he hailed a passing skiff:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Strangeh! How fur now is it to the Mississippi +River?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh ’tis!” the man cried, pointing down the current. +“Down by that air willer point!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28' name='page_28'></a>28</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_VI' id='CHAPTER_VI'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Those first free days on the Mississippi River +revealed to Nelia Crele a woman she had never +known before. Daring, fearless, making no +reckoning, she despised the past and tripped eagerly +into the future. It was no business of any one what +she did. She had married a man who had turned out +to be a scoundrel, and when fate treated her so, she +owed nothing to any one or to anything. Even the fortune +which she had easily seized through the alcoholic +imbecility of her semblance of a man brought no gratitude +to her. The money simply insured her against +poverty and her first concern was to put that money +where it would be safe from raiders and sure to bring +her an income. This, watchfulness and alertness of +mind had informed her, was the function of money.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She dropped into Cape Girardeau, and sought a +man whom she had met at her husband’s house. This +was Duneau Menard, who had little interest in the +Carlines, but who would be a safe counsellor for Nelia +Crele. He greeted her with astonishment, and smiles, +and told her what she needed to know.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I was just thinking of you, Nelia,” he said, “Carline’s +sure raising a ruction trying to find you. He ’lows you +are with some man who needs slow killing. He telephoned +to me, and he’s notified a hundred sheriffs, but, +shucks! he’s a mean scoundrel, and I’m glad to see yo’.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I want to have you help me invest some money,” +she said. “It’s mine, and he signed every paper, for +me. Here’s one of them.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He took the sheet and read:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>I want my wife to share up with me all my fortune, and I hereby +convey to her stocks, bonds, and cash, according to enclosed signed +certificates, etc.</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; text-align:right'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Augustus Carline.</span><br /></p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span></div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How come hit?” the man asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He was right friendly, then,” she replied, grimly. +“For what you-all said about the daughter of my mother +I come here to claim your help. You know about +money, about interest and dividends. I want it so I +can have money, regular, like Gus did––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I shall be glad to fix that,” he said, wiping his +glasses. “What you wish is a diversified set of investments. +How much is there?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She stacked up before him wads, rolls, briquettes, +and bundles. He counted it, slip by slip and when +he had completed the tally and reckoned some figures +on the back of an envelope, he nodded his approval.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I expect that this will bring you around twelve or +fifteen hundred dollars a year, safe, and a leetle besides, +on speculation.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’ll do,” she said, approvingly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No one in town connected her with the sensation up +around Gage. She was just one of those shanty-boat +girls who come down the Mississippi every once in a +while, especially below St. Louis. In a hundred cities +and towns people were looking for Mrs. Augustus +Carline, supposed to be cutting a dashing figure, and +probably in company with a certain Dick Asunder, +who had been seen in Chester, with his big black automobile +on the same day that Mrs. Carline abandoned +her husband’s automobile there.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Of course, the shanty-boaters did not tell, if they +knew; the River tells no tales. Certainly, of all the +women in the world this casual visitor at Attorney +Menard’s need not attract attention. Menard always +did have strange clients, and it was nothing new to +see a shanty-boat land in and some man or woman +walk up to his corner office and sit down to tell him +in legal confidences things more interesting to know +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span> +than any one not of his curiosity and sympathy would +ever dream.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Attorney Menard kept faith with river wastrels, +floating nomads who are akin to gypsies, but who are of +all bloods—tramps of the running floods. He listened +to narratives stranger than any other attorney; in his +safe he had documents of interest to sweethearts and +wives, to husbands and sons, to fugitives and hunters. +Letters came to him from all parts of the great basin, giving +him directions, or notifying him of the termination +of lives whose passing had a significance or a meaning.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia’s mother knew him, and Nelia herself recalled +his good-humoured smile, his weathered face, his appeal +to a girl for her confidence, and the certainty that her +confidence would be respected. She had gone to him +as naturally as she would have gone to a decent father +or a wise mother. She took from him his neatly written +receipt, but with the feeling that it was superfluous. +In a little while she returned to the shanty-boat and +dropped out of the eddy on her way down the river. +She floated under the big Thebes Bridge, and landed +against the west bank before dark, there to have the +luck to shoot a wild goose. The maps showed that +she was approaching the Lower Mississippi.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When she had left Cape Girardeau, she had noticed +a little brick-red shanty-boat which landed in just below +her own. Without looking up, she discovered that a +man leaned against the roof of his low cabin whose eyes +did not cease to watch her every motion while she +cast off, coiled her ropes, and leaned to the light sweeps.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When she was a safe distance down the river, she +ventured to look up stream, and saw that the little red +shanty-boat had left its mooring, and that the man was +coming down the current astern of her. It was a free +river; any one could go whither he pleased, but the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span> +certainty that she had attracted the man’s attention revealed +to her the necessity of considering her position +there alone and dependent on her own resources.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She remembered the two market hunters, and their +warnings. The man astern was a patient, lurking, +menacing brute, who might suspect her of having property +enough to make a river piracy worth while; or he +might have other designs, since she was unfortunately +good-looking and attractive. Night would surely be +his opportunity and the test of her soul.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She could have landed at Commerce, where there +were several shanty-boats and temporary safety; she +could have floated on down at night and slipped into the +shore in the dark, her lights out; she could have tried +flight down the river hoping to lose the brick-red boat; +she decided against all these.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Boldly she pulled into an eddy just before sunset, +and had made fast to a snag and a live root when the +little boat came dropping down in the edge of the current +hardly forty feet distant, with the man leaning +on his sweeps, watching her every motion, especially +fastening his gaze upon her trim figure.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As he came opposite she turned and faced him; her +jaws set.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hello, girlie!” he called, leaning upon his sweeps +to carry his skiff-like boat into the same eddy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>On the instant she snatched the automatic pistol from +her bosom and, dropping the muzzle, fired. The man +stumbled back with a cry. He stood grabbing at his +shoulder, his florid face turning white, his eyes starting +with terror and pain. She saw him reel and fall through +the open hatch of his cabin and his boat go drifting +on into the crossing below. It occurred to her +numbed brain that she was delivered from that peril, +but as dusk fell she hated the misery of her loneliness.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_VII' id='CHAPTER_VII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The Ohio had the Mississippi eddied. The +rains that had fallen over the valleys of Kentucky +and southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois +had brought a tide down the big branch and as there +was not much water running out of the Missouri and +Upper Mississippi, the flood had backed up the Mississippi +for a little while, stopping the current almost +dead.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Elijah Rasba, running full tilt in the mid Ohio current, +looked ahead that afternoon, and he had a full view of +the thing to which he had come, seeking the wandering +son of Mrs. Drones.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He arrived at the moment when the Mississippi, +having been banked up long enough, began to feel the +restraint of the Ohio and resent it. The gathered +waters moved down against the Ohio flood and pressed +them back against the Kentucky side. Once more the +Mississippi River resumed its sway. On the loosed +waters was a little cigar-box of a shanty-boat, and Rasba +rowed toward it across the saucer-like sucks and depressions +where the two currents of different speeds +dragged by each other.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He pulled alongside, hailed, and, for answer, heard a +groan, a weak cry:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Help!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He carried a line across to the stranger’s deck and +made it fast. Then he saw, stretched upon the floor, +a stricken man, from whose side a pool of blood had +run. Working rapidly, Elijah discovered the wound +and as gunshot injuries were only too familiar in his +mountain experience he well knew what he should do. +Examination showed that it was a painful and dangerous +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span> +shoulder shot. He cleared away the stains, washed +the hole, plucked the threads of cloth out of it, turned +the man on his face and, with two quick slashes of a +razor, cut out the missile which had done the injury.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Healing liniment, the inevitable concoction of a +mountaineer’s cabin, soothed while it dressed the +wound. Pads of cotton, and a bandage supplied +the final need, and Rasba stretched his patient upon +the cabin-boat bunk, then looked out upon the world +to which he had drifted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was still a vast river, coming from the unknown +and departing into the unknown. He knew it must be +the Mississippi, but he acknowledged it with difficulty.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He did not ask the man about the bullet. Born +and bred in the mountains, he knew that that would be +an unpardonable breach of etiquette. But the wounded +man was uneasy, and when he was eased of his pain, +he began to talk:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I wa’nt doin’ nothing!” he explained, “I were jes’ +drappin’ down, up above Buffalo Island, an’ b’low +Commerce, an’ a lady shot me—bang! Ho law! She +jes’ shot me thataway. No ’count for hit at all.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A lady you knowed?” Rasba asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No suh! But she’s onto the riveh, into a shanty-boat, +purty, too, an’ jes’ drappin’ down, like she wa’nt +goin’ no wheres, an’ like she mout of be’n jes’ moseyin’. +I jes ’lowed I’d drap in, an’ say howdy like, an’ she +drawed down an’ shot—bang!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Was she frightened?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit were a lonesome reach, along of Powerses +Island,” the man admitted, whining and reluctant. +“She didn’t own that there riveh. Hain’t a man no +right to land in anywheres? She shot me jes’ like I was +a dawg, an’ she hadn’t no feelin’s nohow. Jes’ like a +dawg!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Did you know her?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, suh. We’d be’n drappin’ down, an’ drappin’ +down—come down below Chester, an’ sometimes she’d +be ahead, an’ sometimes me, an’ how’d I know she +wouldn’t be friendly? Ain’t riveh women always +friendly? An’ theh she ups an’ shoots me like a dawg. +She’s mean, that woman, mean an’ pretty, too, like some +women is!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba wondered. He had been long enough on the +Ohio to get the feeling of a great river. He saw the +specious pleading of the wounded wretch, and his quick +imagination pictured the woman alone in a vast, wild +wood, at the edge of that running mile-wide flood.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Of co’rse!” he said, half aloud, “of co’rse!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Co’rse what?” the man demanded, querulously.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Co’rse she shot,” Rasba answered, tartly. “Sometimes +a lady jes’ naturaly has to shoot, fearin’ of men.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba landed the two boats in at the foot of a sandbar, +and made them fast to old stakes driven into the +top of the low reef. He brought his patient some hot +soup, and after they had eaten supper, he sat down to +talk to him, keeping the man company in his pain, and +leading him on to talk about the river, and the river +people.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In that first adventure at the Ohio’s forks Rasba had +discovered his own misconceptions, and the truth of the +Mississippi had been partly revealed to him. What the +Tug was to the Big Sandy, what the Big Sandy was to +the Ohio, the Ohio was to the Mississippi. What +he had looked to as the end was but the beginning, and +Rasba was lost in the immensity of the river that was a +mile wide, thousands of miles long, and unlike anything +the mountain preacher had ever dreamed of. If +this was the Mississippi, what must the Jordan be?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“My name’s Prebol,” the man said, “Jest Prebol. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span> +I live on Old Mississip’! I live anywhere, down by +N’Orleans, Vicksburg—everywhere! I’m a grafter, +I am—”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A grafter?” Rasba repeated the strange word.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh, cyards, an’ tradin’ slum, barberin’ mebby, +an’ mebby some otheh things. I can sell patent medicine +to a doctor, I can! I clean cisterns, an’ anything.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You gamble?” Rasba demanded, grasping one +fact.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Prebol grinned. “Who all mout <i>yo’</i> be?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Elijah Rasba,” was the reply. “I am seeking a +soul lost from the sheepfold of God. I ask but the +strength to find him.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A parson?” Prebol asked, doubtfully, his eyes resting +a little in their uneasy flickerings. “One of them +missionaries?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, suh.” Rasba shook his head, humbly. “Jes’ +a mountang parson, lookin’ for one po’r man, low +enough fo’ me to he’p, maybe.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Prebol made no reply or comment. His mind was +grappling with a fact and a condition. He could not +tell what he thought. He remembered with some worriment, +that he had cursed under the pain of the dressing +of the wound. He knew that it never brought any +man good luck to swear within ear-range of any parson.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He could think of nothing to do, just then, so he +pretended weariness, which was not all pretense, at +that. Rasba left him to go to sleep on his cot, and went +over to his own boat, where, after an audible session +on his knees, he went to bed, and fell into a sound and +dreamless sleep.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In the morning, when the parson awakened, his first +thought was of his patient, and he started out to look +after the man. He looked at the face of the sandbar +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span> +reef against which the little red shanty-boat had been +moored. The boat was gone!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba, studying the hard sand, soon found the prints +of bare feet, and he knew that Prebol had taken his +departure precipitately, but the reason why was not so +apparent to the man who had read many a wild turkey +track, deer runway, and trails of other game.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>From sun-up till nearly noon, while he made and ate +his breakfast, and while he turned to the Scriptures +for some hint as to this river man’s mind, his thoughts +turned again and again to the pictures which Prebol’s +tales, boastings, whinings, and condition had inspired.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He felt his own isolation, strangeness, and ignorance. +He could not understand the man who had fled from assistance +and succour; at the same time the liveliness of +his fancy reverted again and again to the woman living +alone in such a desolation, shooting whoever menaced.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>That type was not new to him. Up in his own country +he had known of women who had stood at their +rifles, returning shot for shot of feud raiders. The +pathetic courage of the woman who had shot Prebol +appealed to him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The wounded man, wicked beyond measure, and the +woman assailed, he realized, were like hundreds of +other men and women whose shanty-boats he had +seen down the Ohio River, and which lurked in bends +and reaches on both sides of the Mississippi.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Give thyself no rest!” he read, and he obeyed. He +believed that he had a black sin to expiate, and he +dared not begin what his soul was hungering to do, because +knowing wickedness, he had deliberately sinned.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Alternately, he read his Bible and prayed. Late in +the day he dropped out of the eddy and floated on down.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low I can keep on huntin’ for Jock Drones,” he +told himself. “I shore can do that, yes, indeed!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_VIII' id='CHAPTER_VIII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Having rid herself of the leering river rat, Nelia +Crele trembled for a time in weak dismay, +the reaction from her tense and fiery determination +to protect herself at all costs. But she quickly +gathered her strength and, having brewed a pot of +strong coffee, thrown together a light supper, and settled +back in her small, but ample, rocking chair, she reviewed +the incidents of her adventure; the flight from her worthless +husband and her assumption of the right to protect +herself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After all, shooting a man was less than running away +from her husband. She could regard the matter with +a rather calm spirit and even a laughing scorn of the +man who had thought to impose himself on her, against +her own will.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s it!” she said, half aloud, “I needn’t to allow +any man to be mean to me!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She had given her future but little thought; now she +wondered, and she pondered. She was free, she was +independent, and she was assured of her living. She +had even been more shrewd than old Attorney Menard +had suspected; the money she had left with him was +hardly half of her resources. She had another plan, +by which she would escape the remote possibility of +Menard’s proving faithless to his trust, as attorneys +with his opportunities sometimes have proved.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia Crele could not possibly be regarded as an ordinary +woman, as a mere commonplace, shack-bred, +pretty girl. Down through the years had come a +strain of effectiveness which she inherited in its full +strength; she was as inexplicable as Abraham Lincoln. +Her stress of mind relieved, she regarded the shooting +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span> +of the man with increasing satisfaction, since by such +things a woman could be assured of respect.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Gaiety had never been a part of her childhood or +girlhood; she had withstood the insidious attacks and +menaces that threatened her down to the day when +Gus Carline had come to her. Courted by him, married, +and then living in the clammy splendour of the +house of a back-country rich man, she had found no +happiness, but merely a kind of animal comfort. She +had had the Carline library to read, and she had brought +with her the handy pocket volumes which had been her +own and her delight. She was glad of the foresight +which enabled her to put into a set of book shelves the +companions which had, alone, been her comfort and +inspiration during the few years of her wedded misery.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Now, on the Mississippi, in the shanty-boat, she need +consult only her own fancy and whim. Mistress of +her own affairs, as she supposed, she could read or she +could think.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I do what I please!” she thought, a little defiantly. +“It’s nobody’s business what I do now; what’d Mrs. +Plosell care what people said about her? I’ll read, if +I want to, and I’ll flirt if I want to—and I’ll do anything +I want to––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She reckoned without the Mississippi. Everybody +does, at first. Her money was but a means to an end. +She knew its use, its value, and the perfect freedom which +it gave her; its protection was not underestimated.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>At the same time, sloth was no sin of hers. Living +on the river insured physical activity; her books insured +her mental engagement.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She had lived so many years in combat with grim +necessity that the lesson of thrift of all her resources +had been brought home to her. Having been waylaid +by circumstance so often, she took grim care now to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span> +count the costs, and to insure her getting what she was +seeking. The trouble was she could not disassociate +her feelings from her ideas. They were inextricably +interwoven. The brief years of her wedlock had been +in one way a disillusionment, in another a revelation.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She had found her own hunger for learning, her own +strength and weakness, and while she had lost to the +Widow Plosell, she had clearly seen that it was not her +fault but Gus Carline’s meagreness of mind and shallowness +of soul. Instead of losing her confidence, she had +found her own ability.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For hours she debated there by her pretty lamp, with +the curtains down, and the comforting and reassuring +weight of the automatic pistol in her lap. She knew +that she must never have that weapon at arm’s length +from her, but as she remembered where it had come +from she wondered to think that she had so easily +refused the suggestion of Frank, the market hunter.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s all right, though,” she shrugged her shoulders, +“I can take care of myself, and being alone, I can think +things out!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In mid-morning she cut loose from the bank and +floated away down stream. The river was very wide, +and covered with crossing-ripples. She looked down +what the map showed was the chute of Hacker Tow +Head, and then the current carried her almost to the +bank at the head of Buffalo Island.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Here there was a stretch of caving bank; the earth, +undercut by the river current, was lumping off in +chunks and slices. Her boat bobbed and danced in +the waves from the cave-ins, and the rocking pleased +her fancy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The names along this bit of river awakened her interest; +Blackbird Island was clearly described: Buffalo +Island harked back many years into tradition; Dogtooth +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span> +Island was a matter of river shape; but Saladin, +Tow Head and Orient Field stirred her imagination, +for they might reveal the scene of steamboat disasters +or some surveyor’s memory of the Arabian Nights. +Below Dogtooth Island, under Brooks Point, were a +number of golden sandbars and farther down, in the +lower curve of the famous S-bends she read the name +“Greenleaf,” which was pretty and picturesque.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She was living! Every minute called upon some resource +of her brain. She had read in old books things +which gave even the name Cairo, at the foot of the long, +last reach of the Upper Mississippi, a significance of +far lands and Egyptian mysteries. Gratefully she understood +that the Mississippi was summoning ideals +which ought to have been called upon long since when +in the longings of her girlhood she had been circumspect +and patient, keeping her soul satisfied with dreams of +fairies playing among the petals of hill-side flowers, or +gnomes wandering among the stalks of toll-yielding +cornfields.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Mature, now; fearless—and, as the word romped +through her mind in all its changes, free—free!—she +played with her thoughts. But below Greenleaf +Bend, as another day was lost in waning evening, she +early sought a sandbar mooring at the foot of Missouri +Sister Island, where there were two other shanty-boats, +one of them with two children on the sand. She need +not dread a boat where children were found. Possibly +she would be able to talk to another woman, which +would be a welcome change, having had so much of her +own thoughts!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>This other woman was Mrs. Disbon, out of the Missouri. +She and her husband had been five years coming +down from the Yellowstone, and they had fished, +trapped, and enjoyed themselves in their 35-foot cabin-boat +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span> +home. Of course, taking care of two children on a +shanty-boat was a good deal of work and some worry, for +one or the other was always falling overboard, but +since they had learned to swim it hadn’t been so bad, +and they could take care of themselves.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You all alone?” Mrs. Disbon asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m alone,” Nelia admitted, having told her name +as Nelia Crele.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well, I don’t know as I blame you,” Mrs. Disbon +declared, looking at her husband doubtfully. “Seems +to me that on the average, men are more of a nuisance +than they’re worth. It’s which and t’other about +them. I see you’ve had experience?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia looked down at her wedding ring.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, I’ve had experience,” she nodded.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Going clear down?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You mean––?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“N’Orleans?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, I hadn’t thought much about it.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“The Lower River’s pretty bad.” Disbon looked up +from cleaning his repeating shotgun. “My first trip +was out of the Ohio and down to N’Orleans. I wouldn’t +recommend to no woman that she go down thataway, +not alone. Theh’s junker-pirates use up from N’Orleans, +and, course, there’s always more or less meanness +below Cairo. Above St. Louis it ain’t so bad, but mean +men draps down from Little Klondike.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I haven’t made up my mind,” Nelia said, adding, +with a touch of bitterness, “I don’t reckon it makes so +much difference!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lots that comes down feel thataway,” Mrs. Disbon +nodded, with sympathy, “Seems like some has +more’n their share, and some considerable less!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia remained there three days, for there was good +company, and a two-day rain had set in between midnight +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span> +and dawn on the following morning. There +was no hurry, and she was going nowhere. She had +the whole family over to supper the second night, and +she ate two meals or so with them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The other shanty-boat, about a hundred yards down +stream, was an old man’s. He had a soldier’s pension, +and he lived in serene restfulness, reading General +Grant’s memoirs, and poring over the documents of +the Rebellion, discovering points of military interest +and renewing his own memories of his part in thirty-odd +battles with Grant before Vicksburg and down the +line with the Army of the Potomac.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia could have remained there indefinitely, but +restlessness was in her mind, as long as she had so much +money on board her little shanty-boat. Disbon knew +so many tales of river piracy that she saw the wisdom +of settling her possessions, either at Cairo or Memphis, +whichever should prove best.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Landing against the bank just above the ferry, she +walked over to Cairo and sought for a man who had +hired her father to help him hunt for wild turkeys. +He was a banker, and would certainly be the right kind +of a man to help her, if he would.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Mr. Brankeau,” she addressed him in his office, “I +don’t know if you remember me, but you came hunting +to the River Bottoms below St. Genevieve, one time, +and you and Father went over into Missouri, hunting +turkeys.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Remember you?” he exclaimed. “Why—you—of +course! Mrs. Carline—Nelia Crele!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She met his questioning gaze unflinchingly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I know I can trust you,” she said, simply. “If +you’d known Gus Carline!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I knew his father,” Brankeau said. “I reckon as +faithless a scoundrel as ever lived. Old man Carline +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span> +left his first wife and two babies up in Indiana—I +know all about that family! I saw by the newspapers––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I want some railroad stocks, so I can have interest +on my money,” she said by way of nature of her presence +there. “When we separated, he let me have this +paper, showing he wanted me to share his fortune––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He was white as that?” Brankeau exclaimed, astonished +at the paper Carline had signed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He was that white,” she replied, her eyes narrowing. +Brankeau from the wideness of his experience, laughed. +She, an instant later, laughed, too.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“So you settled the question between you?” he suggested, +“I thought from the newspapers he hadn’t +suspicioned—this paper—um-m!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s not a forgery, Mr. Brankeau,” she assured him. +“He was one of those gay sports, you know, and, for a +change, he sported around with me, once. I came away +between days. You know his failing.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Several of them, especially drink,” the man nodded +“It’s in cash?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Every dollar, taken through his own banks, on his +own orders.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And you want?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Railroads, and some good industrial or two. Here’s +the amount––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She handed him a neatly written note. He took +out a little green covered book, showing lists of stocks, +range of prices, condition of companies, and, together, +they made out a list. When they had finished it, he +read it into the telephone.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Within an hour the stocks had been purchased, and +a week later, he handed her the certificates. She rented +a safe deposit box and put them into it, subject only to +her own use and purposes. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Thank you, Mr. Brankeau,” she said, and turned +to leave.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Where are you stopping?” he asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m a shanty-boater.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You mean it? Not alone?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes,” she admitted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I wish I were twenty years younger,” he mourned.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Do you, why?” she looked at him, and, turning, +fled.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He caught up his top-coat and hat, but he went to +the Ohio River, instead of to the Mississippi, where +Nelia stood doubtfully staring down at her boat from +the top of the big city levee.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>At last, she cast off her lines and dropped on down +into The Forks.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She sat on the bow deck of her boat, looking at the +place where the pale, greenish Ohio waters mingled with +the tawny Missouri flood.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A gleam of gold drew her attention, as she glanced +downward and she was startled to see her wedding ring, +with its guard ring, still on her left hand; it had never +been off since the day her husband placed it there.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For a minute she looked at it, and then deliberately, +with sustained calmness, removed the thin guard, and +slipped the ring from its place. She put it upon the +same finger of her right hand, where it was snug and +the guard was not necessary.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_IX' id='CHAPTER_IX'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A whisper, that became a rumour, which became +a report, reached Gage and found the +ears of Augustus Carline, whose wife had disappeared +sometime previously. After two wild days +of drinking Carline suddenly sobered up when the +fact became assured that Nelia had gone and really +meant to remain away, perhaps forever.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The thing that startled him into certainty was the +paper which he found signed by himself, at the bank. +He had forgotten all about signing the papers that night +when Nelia had shown herself to be the gayest sport of +them all. Now he found that he had signed away his +stocks and bonds, and that he had given over his cash +account.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The amount was startling enough, but it did not include +his real estate, of which about two thirds of his +fortune had been composed. If it had been all stocks +and bonds, he thought he would have been left with +nothing. He considered himself at once fortunate and +unlucky.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I never knew the old girl was as lively as that!” he +told himself, and having tasted a feast, he could not +regard the Widow Plosell as more than a lunch, and +a light lunch, at that.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia had been easily traced to Chester. Beyond +Chester the trail seemed to indicate that Dick Asunder +had eloped with her, but ten days later Asunder returned +home with a bride whom he had married in +St. Louis.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Beyond Chester Nelia had left no trace, and there +was nothing even to indicate whether she had taken +the river steamer, the railroad train, or gone into flight +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span> +with someone who was unknown and unsuspected. +When Carline, sobered and regretful, began to make +searching inquiries, he learned that there were a score, +or half a hundred men for whom Old Crele had acted +as a hunter’s and fisher’s guide. These sportsmen had +come from far and wide during many years, and both +Crele and her wistful mother admitted that many of +them had shown signs of interest and even indications +of affection for the girl as a child and as a pretty maid, +daughter of a poor old ne’er-do-well.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But she was good,” Carline cried. “Didn’t she +tell you she was going—or where she’d go?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Never a word!” the two denied.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But where would she go?” the frantic husband demanded. +“Did she never talk about going anywhere?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well-l,” Old Crele meditated, “peahs like she used +to go down an’ watch Ole Mississip’ a heap. What’d +she use to say, Old Woman? I disremember, I ’clar +I do.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, she was always wishing she knowed where all +that river come from an’ where all it’d be goin’ to,” +Mrs. Crele at last recollected.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But she wouldn’t dare—She wouldn’t go +alone?” Carline choked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Prob’ly not, a gal favoured like her,” Old Crele +admitted, without shame. “I ’low if she was a-picking, +she’d ’a’ had the pick.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Cold rage alternated with hot fear in the mind of +Gus Carline. If she had gone alone, he might yet overtake +her; on the other hand, if she had gone with some +man, he was in honour bound to kill that man. He was +sensitive, now, on points of honour. The Widow Plosell, +having succeeded in creating a favourable condition, +from her viewpoint, sought to take advantage of it. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span> +She was, however, obliged to go seeking her recent admirer, +only to discover that he blamed her—as men do—for +his trouble. She consulted a lawyer to see if she +could not obtain financial redress for her unhappy position, +only to learn of her own financial danger should +Mrs. Carline determine upon legal revenge.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline, between trying to convince himself that he +was the victim of fate and the innocent sufferer from a +domestic tragedy brought upon himself by events over +which he had no control, fell to hating liquor as the +chief cause of his discomfiture.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then a whisper that became a rumour, which at +last seemed to be a fact, said that Nelia Carline was +somewhere down Old Mississip’. Someone who knew +her by sight was reported to have seen her in Cape +Girardeau, and the husband raced down there in his +automobile to see if he could not learn something about +the missing woman, whose absence now proved what a +place she had filled in his heart.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There was no doubt of it. Nelia had been there, +but no one had happened to think to tell Carline about +it. She had landed in a pretty shanty-boat, the wharf-master +said, and had pulled out just before a river man +in a brick-red cabin-boat of small size had left the eddy. +The river man had dropped in just behind her, and, +according to the wharf-master:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I shore kept my eyes on that man, for he was a +riveh rat!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The thought was sickening to Carline. His wife +floating down the river with a river rat close behind +presented but two explanations: she was being followed +for crime, or the two were just flirting on the river, +together.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He bought a pretty 28-foot motorboat, 22-inch draft +with a 7-foot beam and a raised deck cabin. Having +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span> +stocked up with supplies, he started down the Ohio to +find his woman.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He could not tell what his intention was, not even to +himself; his mind, long weakened and depraved by +liquor, lacked clarity of thought and distinctiveness of +purpose. One hour he raged with anger, and murder +blackened his heart; another minute, his shattered +nerves left him in a panic of fears and remorse, and he +hoped for nothing better than to beg his wife and sweetheart +for forgiveness. At all times dread of what he +might find at the end of the trail tormented him from +terror to despair.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His anguish overcame all his other sensations. It +even overcame his lust for liquor. He grew sturdier +under his affliction, so that when he arrived at Cairo, +and swung his craft smartly up to the wharf-boat, his +eyes were clear and his skin was honestly coloured by +sunshine and pure winds. Here fortune favoured him +with more news of his wife. The engineer of the Cairo-Missouri +ferryboat had seen a young and pretty woman +moored at the bank some distance from the landing. +She had remained there upward of a week, having no +visitors, and making daily visits over the levee into the +little city.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“One day she stood there, I bet half an hour, looking +back, like she was waiting,” the engineer said. “I +seen her onto the levee top. Then she come down, +jumped aboard with her lines, an’ pulled out to go on +trippin’ down. I wondered then wouldn’t some man be +following of her.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When Carline passed below the sandbar point, at +which the Ohio and Mississippi mingle their waters, +and the human flotsam from ten thousand towns is +caught by swirling eddies, he found himself subdued +by a shadow that fell athwart his course, dulling the fire +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span> +of his own spirit with a doubt and an awe which he had +never before known.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His wife had gone past the Jumping Off Place; he +had heard a thousand jests about that fork of the +rivers, without comprehending its deeper meaning, till +in his own experience he, too, was flung down the tide +by forces now beyond his control, though he himself +had set them in motion. His suffering was no less +acute, his mind was no less active, but it dawned +slowly on him that, after all, the acute pain which was +in his heart was no greater than the sorrow, the suffering, +the poisoned deliriums of the thousands who had +given themselves to this mighty flood, which was so vast +and powerful that it dwarfed the senses of mortals to +a feeling of the proper proportion of their affairs in the +workings of the universe.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Insensibly, but surely, his pride began to fade and +his selfishness began to give way to better understanding +and kindlier counsels. That much the River Spirit +had done for him. He would not give up the search, +but rather would he increase its thoroughness, and redouble +his efforts. But he would never again be quite +without sympathy, quite without understanding of +sensations and experiences which were not of his own +heart and soul.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The river was a mile wide; its current surged from +the deeps; it flowed down the bend and along the reach +with a noiselessness, a resistlessness, a magnitude that +seemed to carry him out of his whole previous existence—and +so it did carry him. Still human, still +finite, prone to error and lack of comprehension, +nevertheless Augustus Carline entered for the moment +upon a new life recklessly and willingly.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_X' id='CHAPTER_X'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For a minute Elijah Rasba, as the Mississippi +revealed itself to him, contemplated a greater +field for service than he had ever dreamed of. +Then, humbled in his pride at the thought of great success, +he felt that it could not be; for such an opportunity +an Apostle was needed, and Rasba’s cheeks +warmed with shame at the realization of the vanity +in his momentary thought.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He was grateful for the privilege of seeing the panorama +that unrolled and unfolded before his eyes with the +same slow dignity with which the great storm clouds +boiled up from the long backs of the mountains of his +own homeland. He missed the elevations, the clustered +wildernesses, and ledges of stone against a limited +sky, but in their places he saw the pale heavens in a +dome that was uninterrupted from horizon to horizon. +There seemed to be hardly any earth commensurate +with the sky, and the river seemed to be flowing between +bounds so low and insignificant that he felt as +though it might break through one side or the other +and fall into the chaos beyond the brim of the world.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Instinctively he removed his hat in this Cathedral. +Familiar from childhood with mountains and deep valleys, +the sense of power and motion in the river appealed +to him as the ocean might have done. He +looked about him with curiosity and inquiry. He felt +as though there must be some special meaning for him +in that immediate moment, and it was a long time before +he could quite believe that this thing which he +witnessed had continued far back beyond the memory of +men, and would continue into the unquestionable future.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He floated down stream from bend to bend, carried +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span> +along as easily as in the full run of time. He looked +over vast reaches, and hardly recognized other houseboats, +tucked in holes along the banks, as craft like his +own. The clusters of houses on points of low ridges +did net strike him as veritable villages, but places +akin to those of fairyland.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>All the rest of the day he dropped on down, not +knowing which side he should land against, and filled +with doubts as to where his duty lay. Once he caught +up his big oars and began to row toward a number of +little shanty-boats moored against a sandbar, close +down to a wooded bank, only to find that the river current +carried him away despite his most muscular endeavours, +so he accepted it as a sign that he should +not land there.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For a time Rasba thought that perhaps he had better +just let the river carry him whither it would, but upon +reflection he remembered what an old raftsman, who +had run strands of logs down Clinch and Holston, told +him about the nature of rivers:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Come a falling tide, an’ she drags along the banks +and all that’s afloat keeps in the middle; but come a +fresh an’ a risin’ tide, an’ the hoist of the water is in the +mid-stream, and what’s runnin’ rolls off to one side or +the other, an’ jams up into the drift piles.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The philosophy of that was, for this occasion, that +if Old Mississip’ was falling, Elijah Rasba might never +get ashore, not in all the rest of his born days, unless +he stirred his boots. So catching up his sweep handles +he began to push a long stroke toward the west bank, +and his boat began to move on the river surface. Under +the two corners of his square bow appeared little swirls +and tiny ripples as he approached the bank and drifted +down in the edge of the current looking for a place to +land. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Before he knew it, a big patch of woods grew up +behind him, and when he felt the current under the +boat slacken he discovered that he had run out of the +Mississippi River and was in a narrow waterway no +larger than Tug Fork.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Where all mout I be?” he gasped, in wonderment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He saw three houseboats just below him, moored +against a sandbar, with hoop nets drying near by, +blue smoke curling out of tin pipes, and two or three +people standing by to look at the stranger.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He rowed ashore and carried out a big roped stone, +which he used as anchor; then he walked down the bar +toward the man who watched his approach with interest.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I am Elijah Rasba,” he greeted him. “I come +down out of Tug River; I am looking for Jock Drones; +he’s down thisaway, somewheres; can yo’ all tell me +whichaway is the Mississippi River?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t know him,” the fisherman shook his head. +“But this yeah is Wolf Island Chute; the current +caught you off of Columbus bluffs, and you drifted in +yeah; jes’ keep a-floatin’ an’ d’rectly you’ll see Old +Mississip’ down thataway.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s near night,” Rasba remarked, looking at the +sun through the trees. “I’m a stranger down thisaway; +mout I get to stay theh?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ can land anywhere’s,” the man said. “No +man can stop you all!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But a woman mout!” Rasba exclaimed, with sudden +humour. “Yistehd’y evenin’, up yonway, by the Ohio +River, I found a man shot through into his shanty-boat. +He said he ’lowed to land along of the same eddy with a +woman, an’ she shot him almost daid!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Ho law!” the fisherman cried, and another man and +three or four women drew near to hear the rest of the +narrative. “How come hit?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba stood there talking to them, a speaker to an +audience. He told of his floating down into the Mississippi, +and of his surprise at finding the river so large, +so without end. He said he kind of wanted to ask the +way of a shanty-boat, for a poor sinner must needs inquire +of those he finds in the wilderness, and he heard +a groan and a weak cry for help.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I cyard for him, and he thanked me kindly; he +said a woman had shot him when he was trying to be +friendly; a pretty woman, young and alone. Co’rse, +I washed his wound and I linimented it, and I cut the +bullet out of his back; law me, but that man swore! +Come night, an’ he heard say I was a parson, he apologized +because he cursed, and this mo’nin’ he’d done +lit out, yas, suh! Neveh no good-bye. Scairt, likely, +hearin’ me pray theh because I needed he’p, an’ ’count +of me being glad of the chanct to he’p any man in +trouble.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho! Who all mout that man be, Parson?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He said his name were Jest Prebol––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Ho law! Somebody done plugged Jest Prebol!” +one of the women cried out, laughing. “That scoundrel’s +be’n layin’ off to git shot this long time, an’ so +he’s got hit. I bet he won’t think he’s so winnin’ of +purty women no more! He’s bad, that man, gamblin’ +an’ shootin’ craps an’ workin’ the banks. Served him +right, yes, indeedy. But he’d shore hate to know a +parson hearn him cussin’ an’ swearin’ around. Hit don’t +bring a gambler any luck, bein’ heard swearin’, no.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Nor if any one else hears him; not if he thinks +swearin’ in hisn’s heart!” Rasba shook his head gravely. +“How come hit yo’ know that man?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’s used down this riveh ten-fifteen years; besides, +he married my sister what’s Mrs. Dollis now. +Hit were a long time ago, though, ’fore anybody knowed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span> +he wa’n’t no good. I bet we hearn yo’ was comin’, +Parson. Whiskey Williams said they was a Hallelujah +Singer comin’ down the Ohio—said he could hear him +a mile. I bet yo’ sing out loud sometimes?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s so,” Rasba admitted. “I sung right smart +comin’ down the Ohio. Seems like I jest wanted to +sing, like birds in the posey time.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Prebol shore should git to a doctor, shot up thataway. +He didn’t say which lady shot him, Parson?” +a woman asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No; jes’ a lady into an eddy into a lonesome bend.” +Rasba shook his head. “A purty woman, livin’ alone +on this riveh. Do many do that?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Riveh ladies all do, sometimes. I tripped from +Cairo to Vicksburg into a skift once,” a tall, angular +woman said. “My man that use to be had stoled +the shanty-boat what I’d bought an’ paid for with my +own money. I went up the bank at Columbus Hickories, +gettin’ nuts; I come back, an’ my boat was gone. +Wa’n’t I tearin’ an’ rearin’! Well, I hoofed hit down to +Columbus, an’ I bought me a skift, count of me always +havin’ some money saved up.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I bet Vicksburg’s a hundred mile!” Rasba mused.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A hundred mile!” the woman said with a guffaw. +“Hit’s six hundred an’ sixty-three miles from Cairo to +Vicksburg, yes, indeed. A hundred mile! I made +hit in ten days, stoppin’ along. I ketched it theh.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You found yo’ man?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Shucks! Hit wa’n’t the man I wanted, hit were my +boat—a nice, reg’lar pine an’ oak-frame boat. I bet +me I chucked him ovehbo’d, an’ towed back up to +Memphis. Hit were a good $300 bo’t, sports built, +an’ hits on the riveh yet—Dart Mitto’s got hit, junkin’. +You’ll see him down by Arkansaw Old Mouth if yo’s +trippin’ right down.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I expect to,” Rasba replied, doubtfully. Never in +his life before had he talked in terms of hundreds of +miles, cities, and far rivers,</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ll know that boat; he’s went an’ painted hit a +sickly yeller, like a railroad station. I hate yeller! +Gimme a nice light blue or a right bright green.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hyar comes anotheh bo’t!” one of the men remarked, +and all turned to look up the chute, where a +little cabin-boat had drifted into sight.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No one was on deck, and it was apparent that the +Columbus banks had shunted the craft clear across +the river and down the chute, just as Rasba himself +had been carried. The shadow of the trees on the west +side of the chute fell across the boat and immediately +brought the tripper out of the cabin.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A shadow is a warning on wide rivers. It tells of +the nearness of a bank, or towhead, or even of a steamboat. +In mid-stream there is little need for apprehension, +but when the current carries one down into a +caving bend and close to overhanging trees or along +the edges of short, boiling eddies, it is time to get out +and look for snags and jeopardies.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Seeing the group of people on the sandbar, the journeyer, +who was a woman, took the sweeps of her boat +and began to work over to them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit handles nice, that bo’t!” one of the fishermen +said. “Pulls jes’ like a skift. Wonder who that woman +is?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ve seen her some’rs,” the powerful, angular woman, +Mrs. Cooke, said after a time. “Them’s swell +clothes she’s got on. She’s all alone, too, an’ what a +lady travels alone down yeah for I don’t know. She’s +purty enough to have a husband, I bet, if she wants one.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Looks like one of them Pittsburgh er Cincinnati +women,” Jim Caope declared. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No.” Mrs. Caope shook her head. “She’s off’n +the riveh. Leastwise, she handles that bo’t reg’lar. +I cayn’t git to see her face, but I seen her some’rs, I bet. +I can tell a man by hisns walk half a mile.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In surprise she stared at the boat as it came nearer, +and then walked down to the edge of the bar to greet +the newcomer.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, I jes’ knowed I’d seen yo’ somers! How’s +yer maw?” she greeted. “Ho law! An’ yo’s come +tripping down Ole Mississip’! I ’clare, now, I’d seen +yo’, an’ I knowed hit, an’ hyar yo’ be, Nelia Crele. +Did yo’ git shut of that up-the-bank feller yo’ married, +Nelia?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m alone,” the girl laughed, her gaze turning to look +at the others, who stood watching.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If yo’ git a good man,” Mrs. Caope philosophized, +“hang on to him. Don’t let him git away. But if +yo’ git somebody that’s shif’less an’ no ’count, chuck +him ovehbo’d. That’s what I b’lieve in. Well, I declare! +Hand me that line an’ I’ll tie yo’ to them stakes. +Betteh throw the stern anchor over, fo’ this yeah’s a +shallows, an’ the riveh’s eddyin’, an’ if hit don’t go up +hit’ll go down, an’––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh’s a head rise coming out the Ohio,” someone +said. “Yo’ won’t need no anchor over the stern!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho! I’m glad to see yo’!” Mrs. Caope cried, +wrapping her arms around the young woman as she +stepped down to the sand, and kissing her. “How is +yo’ maw?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Very well, indeed!” Nelia laughed, clinging to the +big river woman’s hand. “I’m so glad to find someone +I know!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ll know us all d’rectly. Hyar’s my man, Mr. +Caope—real nice feller, too, if I do say hit—an’ hyar’s +Mrs. Dobstan an’ her two darters, an’ this is Mr. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span> +Falteau, who’s French and married May, there, an’ +this feller—say, mister, what is yo’ name?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Rasba, Elijah Rasba.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Mr. Rasba, he’s a parson, out’n the Tug Fork of +the Big Sandy, comin’ down. Miss Nelia Crele, suh. +I disremember the name of that feller yo’ married, +Nelia.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It doesn’t matter,” Nelia turned to the mountain +man, her face flushing. “A preacher down this river?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m looking for a man,” Rasba replied, gazing at +her, “the son of a widow woman, and she’s afraid for +him. She’s afraid he’ll go wrong.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And you came clear down here to look for him—a +thousand, two thousand miles?” she continued, quickly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I had nothing else to do—but that!” he shook his +head. “You see, missy, I’m a sinner myse’f!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He turned and walked away with bowed head. +They all watched him with quick comprehension and +real sympathy.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58' name='page_58'></a>58</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XI' id='CHAPTER_XI'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Jest Prebol, sore and sick with his bullet +wound, but more alarmed on account of having +sworn so much while a parson was dressing his +injury, could not sleep, and as he thought it over he +determined at last to cut loose and drop on down the +river and land in somewhere among friends, or where +he could find a doctor. But the practised hand of +Rasba had apparently left little to do, and it was superstitious +dread that worried Prebol.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So the river rat crept out on the sandbar, cast off the +lines, and with a pole in one hand, succeeded in pushing +out into the eddy where the shanty-boat drifted into +the main current. Prebol, faint and weary with his +exertions, fell upon his bunk. There in anguish, +delirious at intervals, and weak with misery, he floated +down reach, crossing, and bend, without light or signal. +In olden days that would have been suicide. Now the +river was deserted and no steamers passed him up or +down. His cabin-boat, but a rectangular shade amidst +the river shadows, drifted like a leaf or chip, with no +sound except when a coiling jet from the bottom suckled +around the corners or rippled along the sides.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The current carried him nearly six miles an hour, but +two or three times his boat ran out of the channel +and circled around in an eddy, and then dropped on +down again. Morning found him in mid-stream, +between two wooded banks, as wild as primeval wilderness, +apparently. The sun, which rose in a white mist, +struck through at last, and the soft light poured in first +on one side then on the other as the boat swirled +around. Once the squirrels barking in near-by trees +awakened the man’s dim consciousness, but a few +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span> +minutes later he was in mid-stream, making a crossing +where the river was miles wide.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He passed Hickman just before dawn, and toward +noon he dropped by New Madrid, and the slumping +of high, caving banks pounded in his ears down three +miles of changing channel. Then the boat crossed to +the other side and he lay there with eyes seared and +staring. He discovered a grave stone poised upon the +river bank, but he could not tell whether it was fancy or +fact that the ominous thing bent toward him and fell +with a splash into the river, while a wave tossed his boat +on its way. He heard a quavering whine that grew +louder until it became a shriek, and then fell away +into silence, but his senses were slow in connecting it +with one of the Tiptonville cotton gins. He heard a +voice, curiously human, and having forgotten the old +hay-burner river ferry, worried to think that he should +imagine someone was driving a mule team on the Mississippi. +For a long time he was in acute terror, because +he thought he was blind, and could not see, but to +his amazed relief he saw a river light and knew that +another night had fallen upon him, so he went to sleep +once more.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Voices awakened him. He opened his eyes, and the +surroundings were familiar. He smelled iodine, and +saw a man looking over a doctor’s case. Leaning +against the wall of the cabin-boat was a tall, slender +young man with arms folded.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How’s he comin’ Doc’?” the young man was +saying.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’ll be all right. How long has he been this way?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Don’t know, Doc; he come down the riveh an’ +drifted into this eddy. I see his lips movin’, so I jes’ +towed ’im in an’ sent fo’ yo’!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Just as well, for that wound sure needed dressing. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span> +I ’low a horse doctor fixed hit first time,” the physician +declared. “He’ll need some care now, but he’s comin’ +along.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, we’ll look afteh him, Doc! Friend of ourn.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll come in to-morrow. It’s written down what to +do, and about that medicine. You can read?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Howdy,” Prebol muttered, feebly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’s a comin’ back, Doc!” the young man cried, +starting up with interest.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well, old sport, looks like you’d got mussed up +some?” the doctor inquired.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh,” Prebol grinned, feebly, his senses curiously +clear. “Hit don’t pay none to mind a lady’s +business fo’ her, no suh!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A lady shot you, eh?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh,” Prebol grinned. “’Peahs like I be’n +floatin’ about two mile high like a flock o’ ducks. +Where all mout I be?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Little Prairie Bend.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Into that bar eddy theh?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh—the short eddy.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Much obliged, Doc. Co’se I’ll pay yo’––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Your friend’s paid!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh,” Prebol whispered, sleepily, tired by the +exertion and excitement.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sleep’ll do him good,” the doctor said, and returned +to his little motorboat.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The young man went on board his own boat which +was moored just below Prebol’s. As he entered the +cabin, a burly, whiskered man looked up and said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How’s he coming, Slip?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Doc says he’s all right. Jest said a woman shot +him for tryin’ to mind her business, kind-a laughed +about hit.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh! I always knowed a man that’d chase women +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span> +the way he done’d git what’s comin’. A woman’ll +make trouble quicker’n anything else on Gawd’s earth, +she will.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho! Buck, yo’s soured!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s so ’bout them women!” Buck protested.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If a man’d mind his business, an’ not try to mind +their business, women’d be plumb amusin’,” Slip +laughed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Wait’ll yo’ve had experience,” Buck retorted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Shucks! Ain’t I had experience?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Eveh married?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No-o.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Eveh have a lady sic’ yo’ onto some’n bigger’n +yo’ is?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No-o; reckon I pick my own people to scrap.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh! That shows how much yo’ don’t know +about women. Never had no woman yo’ ’lowed to +marry?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Huh! Catch me gittin’ married—co’se not.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sonny, lemme tell yo’; hit ain’t yo’ll do the catchin’, +an’ hit won’t be yo’ who’ll be decidin’ will yo’ git married. +An’ hit won’t be yo’ who’ll decide how long +yo’ll stay married, no, indeed.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Peah’s like yo’ got an awful grouch ag’in women, +Buck.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why shouldn’t I have?” Buck started up from +shuffling and throwing a book of cards. “Look’t +me. If Jest Prebol’s shot most daid by a woman, +look’t me. Do you know me—where I come from, +where the hell I’m goin’? Yo’ bet you don’t. I’ve +been shanty-boatin’ fifteen years, but I ain’t always +been a shanty-boater, no, I haven’t. Talk to me about +women. When I think what I’ve took from one woman—Sho!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He stared at the floor, his teeth clenched and his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span> +strong face set. Slip stared. His pal had disclosed a +new phase of character.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Buck turned and glared into Slip’s eyes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll tell you, Slip, you’re helpless when it comes to +women. They’ve played the game for ten thousand +years, practised it every day, wearing down men’s +minds and men never knew it. Read history, as I’ve +done. Study psychology, as I have. Go down into +the fundamentals of human experience and human +activities, and learn the lesson. Fifteen years I’ve +been up and down these rivers, from Fort Benton to +the Passes, from the foothills of the Rockies to the +headwaters of Clinch and Holston in the Appalachians. +Why? Because one woman sang her way into my +heart, and because she tied my soul to her little finger, +and when she found that I could not escape—when she +had—when she had—What do you know about +women?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Slip stared at him. His pal, partner in river enterprises, +an old river man, who talked little and who +played the slickest games in the slickest way, had suddenly +emerged like a turtle’s head, and spoken in terms +of science, education, breeding—regular quality folks’ +talk—under stress of an argument about women. +And they had argued the subject before with jest and +humour and without personal feeling.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Buck turned away, bent and shivering.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low I’ll roast up them squirrels fo’ dinner?” +Slip suggested.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They’ll shore go good!” Buck assented. “I’ll +mux around some hot-bread, an’ some gravy.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I got to make some meat soup for that feller, too.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Huh! Jest Prebol’s one of them damned fools +what tried to forget a woman among women,” Buck +sneered. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>At intervals during the day Slip went over and gave +Prebol his medicine, or fed him on squirrel meat broth; +toward night they floated their 35-foot shanty-boat +out into the eddy, and anchored it a hundred yards +from the bank, where the sheriff of Lake County, Tennessee, +no longer had jurisdiction. In the late evening +Slip lighted a big carbide light and turned it toward +the town on the opposite bank.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Pretty soon they heard the impatient dip of skiff +oars, a river fisherman came aboard, and stood for a +minute over the heater stove, warming his fingers. +He soon went to the long, green-topped crap table in +the end of the room, and Slip stood opposite, to throw +bones against him. A tiny motorboat crossed a little +later; and three men, two heavy set and one a slim +youth, entered, to sit down at one of the little round +tables and play a game.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>One by one other patrons appeared, and soon there +were fourteen or fifteen. Slip and Buck glided about +among them quietly, their eyes alert, their hats drawn +down over their eyes, taking a hand here, throwing +bones there, poking up the coal fire, putting on coffee, +making sandwiches, every moment on the <i>qui vive</i>, +communicating with each other by jerks of the hand, +lifting of shoulders, or the faintest of whisperings.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A jar against the side of the boat sent one or other +of the two out to look, to greet a newcomer or to fend +off a drift log. A low whistle from the stern took +Buck through the aisle between the staterooms to +the kitchen where a rat-eyed little man waited him +on the stern deck,</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lo, Buck! I’m drappin’ down in a hurry; I learn +yo’ was heah. Theh’s a feller drapping down out the +Ohio; he’s lookin’ fo’ a feller name of Jock Drones—didn’t +hear what for. Yo’ know ’im?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Nope, but I’ll pass the word around.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“S’long!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Jock Drones—huh!” Buck repeated, turning into +the lamp-lit kitchen where Slip was sniffing the coffee +pot.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Friend of mine just stopped,” Buck whispered. +“There’s a detective coming down out of the Ohio. +Told me to pass the word around. He’s after somebody +by the name of Drones, Dock or Jock Drones.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Slip started, turned white, and his jaws parted. +Buck’s eyes opened a little wider.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“S’all right, Slip! Keep your money in your belt, +to be ready to run or swim. It’s a long river.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Slip could not trust himself to speak. Buck, patting +him on the shoulder, went on into the card room +and closed the kitchen door behind him, drawing the +aisle curtains shut, too, so that no one would go back +until Slip had recovered his equilibrium.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XII' id='CHAPTER_XII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Augustus Carline instinctively slowed down +his motorboat and took to looking at the wide +river, its quivering, palpitating surface; its vistas +at which he had to “look twice to see the end,” as the +river man says with whimsical accuracy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Negligent and thoughtless, he could now feel some +things which had never occurred to him before: his +loneliness, his doubts, his very helplessness and indecision. +His wife had been like an island around which +he sailed and cruised, sure in his consciousness that he +could return at any time to that safe mooring. He +had returned to find the island gone, himself adrift +on a boundless ocean, and he did not know which way +to turn. The cays and islets, the interesting rocks and +the questionable coral reefs supplied him with not the +slightest semblance of shelter, support, or safety.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He did not even know which side of the river to go to, +nor where to begin his search. He was wistful for +human companionship, but as he looked at the distant +shanty-boats, and passed a river town or two, he found +himself diffident and shamed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He saw a woman in a blue mother-hubbard dress +leaning against the cabin of her low, yellow shanty-boat, +a cap a-rake on her head, one elbow resting on her palm, +and in the other a long-stemmed Missouri meerschaum. +Her face was as hard as a man’s, her eyes were as blue +and level as a deputy sheriff’s in the Bad Lands, and +her lips were straight and thin. How could a man ask +her if she had seen his wife going down that way?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He stopped his motor and let his boat drift. He +wondered what he could or would say when he overtook +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span> +Nelia. There struck across his imagination the figure +of a man, the Unknown who had, perhaps, promised +her the care he had never given her, the affection which +she had almost never had from him. Having won her, +this Unknown would likely defy him down there in that +awful openness and carelessness of the river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He found a feeling of insignificance making its way +into his mind. He had been vain of his looks, but what +did looks amount to down there? He had been proud +of his money, but what privilege did money give him +on that flood? He had rejoiced in his popularity and +the attention women paid him, but the indifferent gaze +of that smoking Amazon chilled his self-satisfaction. +He cringed as he seemed to see Nelia’s pretty eyes +glancing at him, her puzzled face as she apparently tried +to remember where she had seen him. The river wilted +the crumpling flower of his pride.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As his boat turned like a compass needle in the surface +eddies he saw a speck far up stream. He brought +out his binoculars and looked at it, thinking that it +was some toy boat, but to his astonishment it turned +out to be a man in a skiff.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It occurred to Carline that he wished he could talk +to someone, to any one, about anything. He had no +resources of his own to draw on. He had always been +obliged to be with people, talk to people, enjoy people; +the silences of his wife’s tongue had been more difficult +for him to bear than her edged words. The skiff traveller, +leisurely floating in that block of river, drew him +irresistibly. He kicked over the flywheel and steered +up stream, but only enough partly to overcome the +speed of the current. The sensation of being carried +down in spite of the motor power, complicated with +the rapid approach of the stranger in his skiff, was novel +and amusing. When he stopped the motor, the rowboat +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span> +was within a hundred feet of him, and the two men +regarded each other with interest and caution.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The traveller was unusual, in a way. On his lap +was a portable typewriter, in the stern of the boat a +bundle of brown canvas; a brass oil stove was on the +bottom at the man’s feet; behind him in the bow were a +number of tins, cans, and boxes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Neither spoke for some time, and then Carline hailed:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Nice, pretty day on the river!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Fine!” the other replied. “Out the Ohio?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No—well, yes—I started at Evansville, where I +bought this boat, but I live up the Mississippi, at Kaskaskia—Gage, +they call it now.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes? I stopped at Menard’s on my way down from +St Louis.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“When was that?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“About ten days ago—tell you in a minute—Monday +a week!” A big quarto loose-leaf notebook had revealed +the day and date.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well, say—I––?” Carline’s one question leaped +to his lips but remained unasked. For the minute he +could not ask it. The thing that had been his rage, +and then his wonder, suddenly drew back into his heart +as a secret sorrow.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Won’t you come over?” Carline asked, “it’d be +company!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, it’ll be company,” the other admitted, and +with a pull of his oars brought the skiff alongside. +He climbed aboard, painter in hand, and making the +light line fast to one of the cleats, sat down on the locker +across from his host.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“My name’s Carline.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Mine’s Lester Terabon; a newspaper let me come +down the river to write stories about it; it’s the biggest +thing I ever saw!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s an awful size!” Carline admitted, looking +around over his shoulder, and Terabon watched the +face.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Are you a river man?” the visitor asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No. My father was a big farmer, and he made +some money when they put a railroad through one of his +places.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Just tripping down to see the river?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No-o—well––” Carline hesitated, looking overside +at the water.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That must be Wolf Island over there?” the reporter +suggested.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline looked at the island. He looked down the +main river and over toward the chute toward which +the Columbus bluffs had shunted them. Then he +started the motor and steered into the main channel +to escape the rippling shoals which flickered in the sunshine +ahead of them, past an island sandbar.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t know if it’s Wolf Island.” Carline shook +his head. “I’m looking for somebody—somebody +who came down this way.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The traveller waited. He looked across the current +to the bluffs now passing up stream, Columbus and all.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t suppose you find very much to write about, +coming down?” Carline changed his mind.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For answer Terabon drew his skiff alongside and +reached for his typewriter. As he began to write, he +said: “I write everything down—big or little. A man +can’t remember everything, you know.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Make good money writing for the newspapers?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Enough to live on,” Terabon replied, “and, of +course, it’s living, coming down Old Mississip’!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You like it travelling in that skiff? Where do you +sleep?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I stretch that canvas between the gunwales in those +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span> +staples; I put those hoops up, and draw a canvas over +the whole length of the boat. I can sleep like a baby +in its cradle.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well, that’s one way,” Carline replied, doubtfully. +“If I owned this old river, you could buy it for two +cents.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon laughed, and after a minute Carline joined +in, but he had told the truth. He hated the river, and +he was cowed by it; yet he could not escape its clutches.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I fancy it hasn’t always treated you right,” Terabon +remarked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Treated me right!” Carline doubled his fists and +stiffened where he sat. “It’s!—it’s––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He could not speak for his emotion, but his little +pointed chin trembled a minute later as he relaxed and +looked over his shoulder again. The typewriter clicked +along for minutes, Terabon’s fingers dancing over the +keys as he put down, word for word, and motion for +motion, the man who was afraid of the river and yet +was tripping down it. It seemed as though the man +afraid must have some kind of courage, too, because +he was going in spite of his fears.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s passing noon, and I think I’ll get something +to eat,” Terabon suggested; “I’ll get up my––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I forgot to eat!” Carline said. “I’ve got everything, +and that knob there is a three-burner oil stove. We’ll +eat on board. Never mind your stuff, I’ve got so +much it’ll spoil—but I ain’t much of a cook!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m the original cook the Cæsars wanted to buy for +gold!” Terabon boasted. “I got some squirrels, there, +I killed up on Buffalo Island, and we’ll fry them.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nor did he fail to make his boast good, for he soon +had hot-bread, gravy browned in the pan, boiled sweet +potatoes, and canned corn ready for the table. When +they sat down to eat, Carline confessed that he hadn’t +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span> +had a real meal for a week except one he ate in a Cairo +restaurant.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I could have got a kind of a meal,” he admitted, +“but you see I was worried a good deal. Did you stop +at Stillhouse Island?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Where’s that?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Just above Gage, kind of across from St. Genevieve.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Let’s see—oh, yes. There was an old fellow there, +what’s his name? He told me if I happened to see his +daughter I should tell her to write him, for her mother +wanted to hear.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He said that! And you—it was Crele, Darien +Crele said that?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s the name—Nelia, his daughter.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir. I know. I guess I know! She’s my +wife—she was—It’s her––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’re looking for?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir; she ran away and left me. She came +down here.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Kind of a careless girl, I imagine?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Careless! God, no! The finest woman you ever +saw. It was me—I was to blame. I never knew, I +never knew!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For a minute he held up his arms, looking tensely at +the sky, struggling to overcome the emotion that long +had been boiling up in his heart, rending the self-complacency +of his mind. Then he broke down—broke +down abjectly, and fell upon the cabin floor, crying +aloud in his agony, while the newspaper man sitting +there whispered to himself:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Poor devil, here’s a story! He’s sure getting his. +I don’t want to forget this; got to put this down. +Poor devil!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIII' id='CHAPTER_XIII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And he says he’s a sinner himself,” Nelia repeated, +when she returned on board her cabin-boat +in the sheltering safety of Wolf Island +chute, with Mamie Caope, Parson Rasba, and the +other shanty-boaters within a stone’s toss of her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Till she was among them, among friends she trusted, +she had not noticed the incessant strain which she endured +down those long, grim river miles. Now she +could give way, in the privacy of her boat, to feminine +tears and bitterness. Courage she had in plenty, but +she had more sensitiveness than courage. She was not +yet tuned to the river harmonies.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Something in Rasba’s words, or it was in his voice, +or in the quick, full-flood of his glance, touched her +senses.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You see, missy, I’m a sinner myse’f!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>What had he meant? If he had meant that she, too, +was a sinner, was that any of his business? Of course, +being a parson—she shrugged her shoulders. Her +thoughts ran swiftly back to her home that used-to-be. +She laughed as she recalled the deprecatory little man +who had preached in the church she had occasionally +attended. She compared the trim, bird-like perspicuity +and wing-flap gestures of Rev. Mr. Beeve with the +slow, huge turn and stand-fast of Parson Rasba.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She was glad to escape the Mississippi down this +little chute; she was glad to have a phrase to puzzle +over instead of the ever-present problem of her own +future and her own fate; she was glad that she had +drifted in on Mrs. Mame Caope and Jim and Mr. +Falteau and Mrs. Dobstan and Parson Rasba, instead +of falling among those other kinds of people. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Mrs. Caope was an old acquaintance of her mother +who had lived all her life on the rivers. She was a +better boatman than most, and could pilot a stern-wheel +whiskey boat or set hoop nets for fish.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If I get a man, and he’s mean,” Mrs. Caope had +said often, “I shift him. I ’low a lady needs protection +up the bank er down the riveh, but I ’low if my cookin’ +don’t pay my board, an’ if fish I take out’n my nets +ain’t my own, and the boat I live in ain’t mine—well, +I’ve drapped two men off’n the stern of my boat to +prove hit!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Mrs. Caope had not changed at all, not in the years +Nelia could recall, except to change her name. It was +the custom, to ask, perfectly respectfully, what name +she might be having now, and Mrs. Mame never took +offence, being good natured, and understanding how +hard it was to keep track of her matrimonial adventures, +episodes of sentiment but without any nonsense.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Mrs. Caope had said once, “I disremember +if I couldn’t stand him er he couldn’t stand me!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia, adrift in her own life, and sure now that she +never had really cared very much for Gus Carline, admitted +to herself that her husband had been only a step +up out of the poverty and misery of her parents’ shack.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You see, missy, I’m a sinner myse’f!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Her ears had caught the depths of the pathos of +his regret and sorrow, and she pitied him. At the +same time her own thoughts were ominous, and her +face, regular, bright, vivacious, showed a hardness +which was alien to it.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia went over to Mrs. Caope’s for supper, and Parson +Rasba was there, having brought in a wild goose +which he had shot on Wolf Island while going about his +meditations that afternoon. Mrs. Caope had the goose +sizzling in the big oven of her coal range—coal from +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span> +Pittsburgh barges wrecked along the river on bars—and +the big supper was sweeter smelling than Rasba ever +remembered having waited for.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Mrs. Caope told him to “ask one of them blessin’s +if yo’ want, Parson!” and the four bowed their heads.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Jim Caope then fell upon the bird, neck, wings, and +legs, and while he carved Mrs. Caope scooped out the +dressing, piled up the fluffy biscuits, and handed around +the soup tureen full of gravy. Then she chased the +sauce with glass jars full of quivering jellies, reaching +with one hand to take hot biscuits from the oven while +she caught up the six-quart coffee pot with the other.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ain’t got no patience with them women that don’t +feed their men!” she declared. “About all men +want’s a full stomach, anyhow, an’ if you could only +git one that wa’n’t lazy, an’ didn’t drink, an’ wasn’t +impedent, an’ knowed anything, besides, you’d have +something. Ain’t that so, Nelia?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, indeed yes,” Nelia cried, from the fullness of +her experience, which was far less than that of the +hostess.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After they had eaten, they went from the kitchen into +the sitting room, where Rasba turned to Nelia.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You came down the river alone?” he asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes,” she admitted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I wonder you wouldn’t be scairt up of it—nights, +and those lonesome bends?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s better than some other things.” Nelia shook +her head. “Besides, you’ve come alone down the Ohio +yourself.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He looked at her, and Mrs. Caope chuckled.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But—but you’re a woman!” Rasba exclaimed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Suppose a mean man came aboard your boat, and—and +tried to rob you,” Nelia asked, level voiced, “what +would you do?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, course, I’d—I’d likely stop him.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’d throw him overboard?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well—if hit were clost to the bank an’ he could +swim, I mout.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia and the Caopes laughed aloud, and Rasba +joined in the merriment. When the laughter had subsided, +Rasba said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“The reason I was asking, as I came by the River +Forks I found a little red boat there with a man on the +cabin floor shot through––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Dead?” Nelia gasped.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, just kind of pricked up a bit, into one shoulder. +He said a lady shot him because he ’lowed to land into +the same eddy with her.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But—where––?” Nelia half-whispered. “Where +did he go?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit were Jest Prebol,” Mrs. Caope said. “You +was tellin’ of him, Parson.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit were Prebol,” Rasba nodded, “an’ he shore +needed shooting!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh. That kind has to be shot some to make +’em behave theirselves,” Mrs Caope exclaimed, sharply. +“If it wa’n’t fer ladies shootin’ men onct in awhile, down +Old Mississip’, why, ladies couldn’t git to live here +a-tall!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And women, sometimes, don’t do men any good,” +Rasba mused, aloud, “I’ve wondered right smart about +hit. You see, a parson circuit rides around, an’ he +sees a sight more’n he tells. Lawse, he shore do!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The two women glared at him, but he was studying +his huge hands, first the backs and then the calloused +palms. He was really wondering, so the two women +glanced at each other, laughing. The idea that probably +some men needed protection from women could +not help but amuse while it exasperated them. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Prebol said,” Rasba continued, “hit were a pretty +woman, young an’ alone. ‘How’d I know?’ he asked. +‘How’d I know she were a spit-fire an’ mean, theh all +alone into a lonesome bend? How’d I know?’”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low he shore found out,” Mrs. Caope spoke up, +tartly, and Nelia looked at her gratefully. “Hit takes +a bullet to learn fellers like Jest Prebol—an’ him thinkin’ +he’s so smart an’ such a lady killer. I bet he knows +theh’s some ladies that’s men killers, too, now. Next +time he meets a lady he’ll wait to be invited ’fore he +lands into the same eddy with her, even if hit’s a three-mile +eddy.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh’s Mrs. Minah,” Jim Caope suggested.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Mrs. Minah!” Mrs. Caope exclaimed. “Talk +about riveh ladies—theh’s one. She owns Mozart +Bend. Seventeen mile of Mississippi River’s her’n, +an’ nobody but knows hit, if not to start with, then by +the end. She stands theh, at the breech of her rifle, +and, ho law, cayn’t she shoot! She’s real respectable, +too, cyarful an’ ’cordin’ to law. She’s had seven +husbands, four’s daid an’ two’s divorced, an’ one she’s +got yet, ’cordin’ to the last I hearn say about it. I tell +you, if a lady’s got any self-respect, she’ll git a divorce, +an’ she’ll git married ag’in. That’s what I say, with +divorces reasonable, like they be, an’ costin’ on’y +$17.50 to Mendova, or Memphis, er mos’ anywheres.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How long—how long does it take?” Nelia asked, +eagerly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, hardly no time at all. You jes’ go theh, an’ +the lawyer he takes all he wants to know, an’ he says +come ag’in, an’ next day, er the next trip, why, theh’s +yo’ papers, an’ all for $17.50. Seems like they’s got +special reg’lations for us shanty-boaters.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m glad to know about that,” Nelia said. “I +thought—I never knew much about—about divorces. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span> +I thought there was a lot of—of rigmarole and testimony +and court business.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Nope! I tell yo’, some of them Mendova lawyers +is slick an’ ’commodatin’. Why, one time I was in an +awful hurry, landin’ in ’long of the upper ferry, an’ I +went up town, an’ seen the lawyer, an’ told him right +how I was fixed. Les’ see, that wa—um-m––Oh, +I ’member now, Jasper Hill. I’d married him up the +line, I disremember—anyhow, ’fore I’d drapped down +to Cairo, I knowed he’d neveh do, nohow, so I left him +up the bank between Columbus an’ Hickman—law +me, how he squawked! Down by Tiptonville, where +I’d landed, they was a real nice feller, Mr. Dickman. +Well, we kind of co’ted along down, one place an anotheh, +an’ he wanted to git married. I told how hit was, +that I wasn’t ’vorced, an’ so on, but if he meant business, +we’d drap into Mendova, which we done. He +wanted to pay for the divorce, but I’m independent +thataway. I think a lady ought to pay for her own +’vorces, so I done hit, an’ I was divorced at 3 o’clock, +married right next door into the Justice’s, an’ we drapped +out an’ down the riveh onto our honeymoon. Mr. +Dickman was a real gentleman, but, somehow, he +couldn’t stand the riveh. It sort of give him the malary, +an’ he got to thinking about salmon fishin’ so he +went to the Columbia. We parted real good friends, +but the Mississippi’s good ’nough for me, yes, indeed. +I kind of feel zif I knowed hit, an’ hit’s real homelike.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It is lovely down here,” Nelia remarked. “Everything +is so kind of—kind of free and easy. But wasn’t +it dreadful—I mean the first time—the first divorce, +Mamie?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Course, yes, course,” Mrs. Caope admitted, slowly, +with a frown, “I neveh will forget mine. I’d shifted +my man, an’ I was right down to cornmeal an’ bacon. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span> +Then a real nice feller come along, Mr. Darlet. I had +to take my choice between a divorce an’ a new weddin’ +dress, an’ I tell you hit were real solemocholy fer me +decidin’ between an’ betwixt. You know how young +gals are, settin’ a lot by dresses an’ how they look, an’ +so on. Young gals ain’ got much but looks, anyhow. +Time a lady gits experience, she don’t set so much +store by looks, an’ she don’t have to, nohow. Well, +theh I was, with a nice man, an’ if I didn’t divorce that +first scoundrel where’d I be? So I let the dress go, an’ +mebby you’ll b’lieve hit, an’ mebby yo’ won’t, but I +had $18.97, an’ I paid my $17.50 real reg’lar, an’ I +had jest what was left, $1.47, an’ me ready to bust out +crying, feelin’ so mean about marryin’ into an old walking +skirt.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I was all alone, an’ I had a good notion to run down +the back way, an’ trip off down the riveh without no +man, I felt so ’shamed. An’ theh, right on the sidewalk, +was a wad of bills, $99 to a penny. My lan’! +I wropped my hand around hit, an’ yo’ should of seen +Mr. Darlet when he seen me come walking down, new +hat, new dress, new shoes, new silk stockings—the whole +business new. I wa’n’t such a bad-lookin’ gal, afteh +all. That taught me a lesson. I’ve always be’n real +savin’ sinct then, an’ I ain’t be’n ketched sinct with the +choice to make of a ’vorce er a weddin’ dress. No, +indeed, not me!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Parson Rasba looked at her, and Nelia, her eyes +twinkling, looked at the Parson. Nelia could understand +the feelings in all their minds. She had her own +viewpoint, too, which was exceedingly different from +those of the others. The strain of weeks of questioning, +weeks of mental suffering, was relieved by the river +woman’s serious statement and Parson Rasba’s look +of bewilderment at the kaleidoscopic matrimonial +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span> +adventuring. At the same time, his wonder and Mrs. +Caope’s unconscious statement stirred up in her +thoughts a new questioning.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When Nelia returned on board her boat, and sat in +its cabin, a freed woman, she very calmly reckoned +up the advantages of Mrs. Caope’s standards. Then +seeing that it was after midnight, and that only the +stars shone in that narrow, wooded chute, she felt she +wanted to go out into the wide river again, to go where +she was not shut in. She cast off her lines and noiselessly +floated out and down the slow current.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She saw Parson Rasba’s boat move out into the current +behind her and drift along in the soft, autumn +night. Her first thought was one of indignation, but +when a little later they emerged into the broad river +current and she felt the solitude of the interminable +surface, her mood changed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>What the big, quizzical mountain parson had in +mind she did not know. It was possible that he was a +very bad man, indeed. She could not help but laugh +under her breath at his bewilderment regarding Mrs. +Caope, which she felt was a genuine expression of his +real feelings. At the same time, whatever his motive +in following her, whether it was to protect her—which +she could almost believe—or to court her, which was +not at all unlikely, or whether he had a baser design, +she did not know, but she felt neither worry nor fear.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t care,” she shook her head, defiantly, “I +like him!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIV' id='CHAPTER_XIV'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline recovered his equilibrium after a time. +His nerves, long on the ragged edge, had given +way, and he was ashamed of his display of +emotion.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Seems as though some things are about all a man can +stand,” he said to Terabon, the newspaper man. +“You know how it is!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, yes! I’ve had my troubles, too,” Terabon +admitted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It isn’t fair!” Carline exclaimed. “Why can’t a +man enjoy himself and have a good time, and not—and +not––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Have a headache the next day?” Terabon finished +the sentence with a grave face.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s it. I’m not what you’d call a hard drinker; +I like to take a cocktail, or a whiskey, the same as any +man. I like to go out around and see folks, talk to +’em, dance—you know, have a good time!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Everybody does,” Terabon admitted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And my wife, she wouldn’t go around and she was—she +was––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Jealous because you wanted to use your talents to +entertain?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s it, that’s it. You understand! I’m a good +fellow; I like to joke around and have a good time. +Take a man that don’t go around, and he’s a dead one. +It ain’t as though she couldn’t be a good sport—Lord! +Why, I’d just found out she was the best sport that ever +lived. I thought everything was all right. Next day +she was gone—tricky as the devil! Why, she got me +to sign up a lot of papers, got all my spare cash, stocks, +bonds—everything handy. Oh, she’s slick! Bright, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80' name='page_80'></a>80</span> +too—bright’s anybody. Why, she could talk about +books, or flowers, or birds—about anything. I never +took much interest in them.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And brought up in that shack on Distiller’s Island?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Stillhouse Island, yes, sir. What do you know +about that?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A remarkable woman!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir—I—I’ve got some photographs,” and Carline +turned to a writing desk built into the motorboat. +He brought out fifteen or twenty photographs. Terabon +looked at them eagerly. He could not associate +the girl of the pictures with the island shack, with this +weakling man, nor yet with the Mississippi River—at +least not at that moment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“She’s beautiful,” he exclaimed, sincerely.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir.” Carline packed the pictures away.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He started the motor, straightened the boat out and +steered into mid-stream, looking uncertainly from side +to side.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“There’s no telling,” he said, “not about anything.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“On the river no one can tell much about anything!” +Terabon assented.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’re just coming down, I suppose, looking for +hist’ries to write?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s about it. I just sit in the skiff, there, and +I write what I see, on the machine: A big sandbar, a +flock of geese, a big oak tree just on the brink of the +bank half the roots exposed and going to fall in a +minute or a day—everything like that!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I bet some of these shanty-boaters could tell you +histories,” Carline said. “I tell you, some of them are +bad. Why, they’d murder a man for ten dollars—those +river pirates would.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No doubt about it!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But they wouldn’t talk, ’course. It must be awful +hard to make up them stories in the magazines.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, if a man gets an idea, he can work it up into a +story. It takes work, of course, and time.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t see how anybody can do it.” Carline +shook his head. “There’s a man up to Gage. He wants +to write a book, but he ain’t never been able to find +anything to write about. You see, Gage ain’t much but +a little landing, you might say.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Chester, and the big penitentiary is just below there, +isn’t it?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, yes!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d think there might be at least one story for him +to write there.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, he don’t want to write about crooks; he wants +to write about nice people, society people, and that +kind, and big cities. He says it’s awful hard to find +anybody to write about.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ve got to look to find heroes,” Terabon admitted. +“I came more than a thousand miles to see a +shanty-boat.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You di-i-d? Just to see a shanty-boat!” Carline +stared at Terabon in amazement.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In spite of Terabon being such a queer duck he made +a good companion. He was a good cook, for one thing, +and when they landed in below Hickman Bend, he +went ashore and killed three squirrels and two black +ducks in the woods and marsh beyond the new levee.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When he returned, he found a skiff landed near by on +the sandbar. Carline was talking to the man, who had +just handed over a gallon jug. The man pulled away +swiftly and disappeared down the chute. Carline +explained:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’s a whiskey pedlar; a man always needs to +have whiskey on board; malaria is bad down here, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span> +a fellow might catch cold. You see how it is if a man +don’t have some whiskey on board.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I understand,” Terabon admitted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After supper Carline decided that there was a lot +of night air around, and that a man couldn’t take too +many precautions against that deadly river miasma +whose insidious menace so many people have ignored +to their great cost. As for himself, Carline didn’t +propose to be taken bad when he had so universal a +specific, to take or leave alone, just as he wanted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon, having put up the hoops of his skiff and +stretched the canvas over them, retired to his own +boat and spent two hours writing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In the morning, when he stirred out, he found Carline +lying in the engine pit, oblivious to the night air that +had fallen upon him, protected as he was by his absorption +of the sure preventive of night air getting him +first. The jug was on the floor, and Terabon, after a +little thought, poured out about two and a half quarts +which he replaced with distilled water from the motorboat’s +drinking bottle. Then he dropped down the +chute into the main river to resume his search for really +interesting “histories.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The river had never been more glorious than that +morning. The sun shone from a white, misty sky. It +was warm, with the slight tang of autumn, and the yellow +leaves were fluttering down; squirrels were barking, +and a flock of geese, so high in the air that they +sparkled, in the sunshine, were gossiping, and the +music of their voices rained upon the river surface +as upon a sounding board.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon was approaching Donaldson’s Point, Winchester +Chute, Island No. 10, and New Madrid. An +asterisk on his map showed that Slough Neck was interesting, +and sure enough, he found a 60-foot boat just +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span> +above Upper Slough Landing, anchored off the sandbar. +This was a notorious whiskey boat, and just +below it was a flight of steps up the steep bank. No +plantation darky ever used those steps. He would +rather scramble in the loose silt and risk his neck than +climb that easy stairway—yes, indeed!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon, drifting by, close at hand, gazed at the +scene. From that craft Negroes had gone forth to +commit crime; white men had gone out to do murder, +and one of them had rolled down those steps, shot dead. +On the other side of Slough Neck, just outside of Tiptonville, +there was a tree on which seven men had been +lynched.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He pulled across to the foot of Island No. 10 sandbar, +to walk up over that historic ground, and to visit +the remnants of Winchester Chute where General +Grant had moored barges carrying huge mortars with +which to drop shells into the Confederate works on +Island No. 10.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He hailed a shanty-boat just below where he landed, +and as the window opened and he saw someone within, +he asked:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Will you kindly watch my skiff? I’m going up +over the island.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, glad to!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Thank you.” He bowed, and went upon his exploration.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was hard to believe that this sandbar, grown to +switch willows which increased to poles six or seven +inches in diameter, had once been a big island covered +with stalwart trees, with earthworks, cannon, and desperate +soldiers. Its serene quiet, undulating sands +and casual weed-trees, showing the stain of floods that +had filled the bark with sediment, proved the indifference +of the river to fleeting human affairs—the trifling +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span> +work of human hands had been washed away in a +spring tide or two, and Island No. 10 was half way to +the Gulf by this time.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon returned to his skiff three or four hours +later, and taking up his typewriter, began to write +down what he had seen, elaborating the pencil notes +which he had made. As he wrote he became conscious +of an observer, and of the approach of someone +who was diffident and curious—a familiar enough +sensation of late.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He looked up, started, and reached for his hat. It +was a woman, a young woman, with bright eyes, grace, +dignity—and much curiosity.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she apologized. “I +was just wondering what on earth you could be doing!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, I’m writing—making notes––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes. But—here!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m a newspaper writer,” he made his familiar +statement. “My name is Lester Terabon. I’m from +New York. I came down here from St. Louis to see +the Mississippi.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You write for newspapers?” she repeated.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She came and sat down on the bow deck of his skiff, +frankly curious and interested.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“My name’s Nelia Crele,” she smiled. “I’m a +shanty-boater. That’s my boat.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m sure I’m glad to meet you,” he bowed, “Mrs. +Crele.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You find lots to write about?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I can’t write fast enough,” he replied, enthusiastically, +“I’ve been coming six weeks—from St. Louis. +I’ve made more than 60,000 words in notes already, and +the more I make the more I despair of getting it all down. +Why, right here—New Madrid, Island 10, and—and––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And me?” she asked. “Did you stop at Gage?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“At Stillhouse Island,” he admitted, circumspectly. +“Mr. Crele there said I should be sure and tell his +daughter, if I happened to meet her, that her mother +wanted her to be sure and write and let her know how +she is getting along.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, I’ll do that,” she assured him. “I was just +writing home when you landed in. Isn’t it strange +how everybody knows everybody down here, and how +you keep meeting people you know—that you’ve heard +about? You knew me when you saw me!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes—I’d seen your pictures.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Mammy hadn’t but one picture of me!” She stared +at him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s so,” he thought, unused to such quick +thought.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked him, looking around +her. “Do you try to write all that, too—I mean this +sandbar, and those willows, and that woods down +there, and—the caving bank?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Everything,” he admitted. “See?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He handed her the page which he had just written. +Holding it in one hand—there was hardly a breath of +air stirring—she read it word for word.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, that’s it!” She nodded her head. “How +do you do it? I’ve just been reading—let me see, +‘... the best romance becomes dangerous if by its +excitement it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, +and—and––’ I’ve forgotten the rest of it. +Could anything make this life down here—anything +written, I mean—seem uninteresting?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He looked at her without answering. What was this +she was saying? What was this shanty-boat woman, +this runaway wife, talking about? He was dazed at +being transported so suddenly from his observations to +such reflections. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s right,” he replied, inanely. “I remember +reading that—somewhere!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ve read Ruskin?” she cried. “Really, have +you?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sesame and Lilies—there’s where it was!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, you know?” she exclaimed, looking at him. +He caught the full flash of her delight, as well as surprise, +at finding someone who had read what she +quoted, and could place the phrase.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“The sun’s bright,” she continued. “Won’t you +come down on my boat in the shade? I’ve lots of +books, and I’m hungry—I’m starving to talk to somebody +about them!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was a pretty little boat, sweet and clean; the sitting +room was draped with curtains along the walls, and +there was a bookcase against the partition. She drew a +rocking chair up for him, drew her own little sewing +chair up before the shelves, and began to take out +books.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had but to sit there and show his sympathy with +her excitement over those books. He could not help +but remember where he had first heard her name, seen +the depressed woman who was her mother. And the +bent old hunter who was her father. It was useless for +him to try to explain her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Just that morning, too, he had left Nelia Crele’s +husband in an alcoholic stupor—a man almost incredibly +stupid!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I know you don’t mind listening to me prattle!” +she laughed, archly. “You’re used to it. You’re +amused, too, and you’re thinking what a story I will +make, aren’t you, now?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If—if a man could only write you!” he said, with +such sincerity that she laughed aloud with glee.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, I’ve read books!” she declared. “I know—I’ve +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span> +been miserable, and I’ve been unhappy, but I’ve +turned to the books, and they’ve told me. They kept +me alive—they kept me above those horrid little things +which a woman—which I have. You’ve never been +in jail, I suppose?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What—in jail? I’ve been there, but not a prisoner. +To see prisoners.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You couldn’t know, then, the way prisoners feel. +I know. I reckon most women know. But now I’m +out of jail. I’m free.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He could not answer; her eyes flashed as they narrowed, +and she fairly glared at him in the intensity of +her declaration.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, you couldn’t know,” she laughed, “but that’s +the way I feel. I’m free! Isn’t the river beautiful +to-day? I’m like the river––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Which is kept between two banks?” he suggested.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I was wrong,” she shook her head. “I’m a bird––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I can well admit that,” he laughed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh,” she cried, in mock rebuke, “the idea!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s your own—and a very brilliant one,” he retorted, +and they laughed together.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There was no resisting the gale of Nelia Crete’s +effervescent spirits. It was clear that she had burst +through bonds of restraint that had imprisoned her soul +for years. Terabon was too acute an observer to +frighten the sensitive exhilaration. It would pass—he +was only too sure of that. What would follow?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The sandbar was miles long, miles wide; six or seven +miles of caving bend was visible below them, part +of it over another sandbar that extended out into the +river. There was not a boat, house, human being, or +even fence in sight in any direction. Across the river +there was a cotton field, but so far away it was that the +stalks were but a purple haze under the afternoon sun. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You think I’m queer?” she suddenly demanded.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, but I would be if––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If what?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If I didn’t think you were the dandiest river tripper +in the world,” he exclaimed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’re a dear boy,” she laughed. “You don’t +know how much good you’ve done me already. Now +we’ll get supper.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ve two black ducks,” he said. “I’ll bet they’ll +make a good––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Roast,” she took his word. “I’ll show you I’m a +dandy cook, too!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XV' id='CHAPTER_XV'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The Mississippi River brings people from the +most distant places to close proximity; Pittsburg +and even Salamanca meet Fort Benton +and St. Paul at the Forks of the Ohio. On the other +hand, with uncanny certainty, those most eager to +meet are kept apart and thrown to the ends of the +world.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Parson Rasba saw Nelia Crele’s boat drift out into +the current and drop down the Chute of Wolf Island, +and impelled by solitude and imagination he followed +her. She had awakened sensations in his heart which +he had never before known, so he acted with primitive +directness and moved out into the Mississippi.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The river carried him swiftly toward a town whose +electric lights sparkled on a high bluff, Hickman, and +he saw the cabin-boat of the young and venturesome +woman clearly outlined between him and the town. +For nearly an hour he was conscious of the assistance +of the river in carrying him along at an even pace, +permitting him to remain as guardian of the woman. +He felt that she needed him, that he must help her, and +there grew in his heart an emotion which strangely +made him desire to sing and to shout.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He watched the cabin-boat drift down right into the +pathway of reflections that fell from the lights on Hickman +bluffs. His eyes were apparently fixed upon the +boat, and he could not lose sight of it. The river carried +him right into the same glare, and for a few minutes +he looked up at the arcs, and shaded his eyes to +get some view of the town whose sounds consisted of +the mournful howling of a dog.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba looked back at the town, and felt the awe +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span> +which a sleeping village inspires in the thoughts of a +passer-by. He thought perhaps he would never again +see that town. He wondered if there was a lost soul +there whose slumberings he could disturb and bring it +to salvation. He looked down the river, and the next +instant his boat was seized as by a strong hand and +whirled around and around, and flung far from its +course. He remembered the phenomenon at the Forks +of the Ohio, and again at Columbus bluff’s. With difficulty +he found his bearings.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He looked around and saw to his surprise that he +was drifting up stream. He looked about him in +amazement. He searched the blackness of the river, +and stared at the blinding lights of the town. He began +to row with his sweeps, and look down stream whither +had disappeared the cabin-boat whose occupant he had +felt called upon to guard and protect.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>That boat was gone. In the few minutes it had disappeared +from his view. He surmised, at last, that +he had been thrust into an eddy, for the current was +carrying him up stream, and he rowed against it in +vain. Only when he had floated hundreds of yards in +the leisurely reverse current below the great bar of +Island No. 6 and had drifted out into the main current +again, almost under the Hickman lights once more, was +he able in his ignorance to escape from the time-trap +into which he had fallen.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Standing at his oars, and rowing down stream, he +tried to overtake the young woman whose good looks, +bright eyes, sympathetic understanding, and need of +his spiritual tutoring had caught his mind and made +it captive.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Dawn, following false dawn, saw him passing New +Madrid, still rowing impatiently, his eyes staring down +the wild current, past a graveyard poised ready to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span> +plunge on the left bank, and then down the baffling +crossing at Point Pleasant and through the sunny +breadths up to Tiptonville, half sunk in the river, only +to fall away toward Little Cypress—and still no sight +of the lost cabin-boat.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In mid-afternoon, weary and worn by sleeplessness +and expectancy, he pulled his boat into the deadwater +at the foot of an eddy and having thrown over his stone +anchor, sadly entered his cabin and, without prayer, +subsided into sleep.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>If he dreamed he was not awakened to consciousness +by his visions. He slept on in the deep weariness which +followed the wakefulness that had continued through a +night of undiminished anxiety into a day of doubt and +increasing despair. It had not occurred to him, in his +simplicity, that the young woman would escape from +him. The shadow and the gloom next to the bank on +either side had not suggested his passing by the object of +his intention. His thought was that she must have +gone right on down stream, though he might have +divined from his own condition that she, too, long since +must have been weary.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He awakened some time in the morning, after twelve +hours or so of uninterrupted slumber. He turned out +into the fascinating darkness of early morning on the +Mississippi. A gust of chill wind swept down out of +the sky, rippling the surface and roaring through the +woods up the bank. The gust was followed by a raw +calm and further blanketing of the few stars that penetrated +the veil of mist.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had in mind the further pursuit of Nelia, and +hauling in his anchor he pulled out into mid-current +and then by lamp-light prepared his breakfast. While +he worked, he discovered that dawn was near, and at +lengthening intervals he went out to look ahead, hoping +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span> +to see the object of his pursuit. Perhaps he would +have gone on down to New Orleans, only it is not written +in Mississippi weather prophecies that the tenor of +one’s way shall be even.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He heard wind blowing, and felt his boat bobbing +about inexplicably. He went out to look about him, +and in the morning twilight he discovered that the +whole aspect of the Mississippi had changed. With +the invisible sunrise had come an awe-inspiring spectacle +which excited in his mind forebodings and dismay.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>First, there was the cold wind which penetrated his +clothes and shrivelled the very meat of his bones. +The river’s surface, which he had come to regard as a +shimmering, polished floor, was now rumpled and +broken into lumpy waves, like mud on a road, and the +waves broke into dull yellow foam caps. There was +not a light gleam on the whole surface, and dark shadows +seemed to crawl and twist about in the very substance +of the heavy and turgid waters.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba stared. Born and trained in mountains, +where he remembered clear streams of pale, beautiful +green, catching reflections of white clouds and clean +foliage, with only occasional patches of sullen clay-bank +wash, he refused to acknowledge the great tawny Mississippi +at its best, as a relation of the streams he knew. +Certainly this menacing dawn reminded him of nothing +he had ever witnessed. Waves slapped against +his boat, waves which did not conceal, but rather accentuated, +the sullen and relentless rush of the vast +body of the water. While the surface leaped and struggled, +wind-racked, the deeps moved steadily on. Elijah +saw that his boat was being driven into a river chute, +and seizing his sweeps, he began to row toward a +sandbar which promised shoal water and a landing. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He managed to strike the foot of the bar, and threw +out his anchor rock. He let go enough line to let the +boat swing, and went in to breakfast. While he was +eating, he noticed that the table turned gray and that +a yellowish tinge settled upon everything. When he +went out to look around, he found that the air was full +of a cloud that filled his eyes with dust, and that a little +drift of sand had already formed on the deck of his +boat, gritting under his feet. The cloud was so thick +that he could hardly see the river shores; a gale was +blowing, and a whole sandbar, miles long, was coming +down upon him from the air. The sandbar, when +he looked at it, seemed fairly to be running, like water.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Parson Rasba remembered the storms of biblical +times, and better understood the wrath that was visited +upon the Children of Israel.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He dwelt in that storm all that day. He shut the +door to keep the sand out, but it spurted through the +cracks. He could see the puffing gusts as they burst +through the keyhole, and he could hear the heavier +grains rattling upon the thin, painted boards of his +roof. His clothes grayed, his hands gritted, his teeth +crunched fine stone; he pondered upon the question of +what sin he had committed to bring on him this ancient +punishment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For a long time his finite mind was without inspiration, +without understanding, and then he choked with +terror and regret. He had beguiled himself into +believing that it was his duty to take care of Nelia +Crele, the fair woman of the river. He had believed +only too readily that his duty lay where his heart’s +desire had been most eager. He sat there in dumb +horror at the sin which had blinded him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I come down yeah to find Jock Drones for his +mother!” He reminded himself by speaking his mission +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span> +aloud, adding, “And hyar I’ve be’n floating down looking +for a woman, looking for a pretty woman!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>And because he could remember her shoes, the smooth +leather over those exquisite ankles, Parson Rasba knew +that his sin was mortal, and that no other son of man +had ever strayed so far as he.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No wonder he was caught in a desert blizzard where +no one had ever said there was a desert!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lord God,” he cried out, “he’p this yeah po’r +sinner! He’p! He’p!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVI' id='CHAPTER_XVI'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Jock, <i>alias</i> “Slip,” Drones, was discovering +how small the world really is. Like many +another man, he had figured that no one would +know him, no one could possibly find him, down the +Mississippi River, more than a thousand miles from +home. Having killed, or at least fought his man in a +deadly feud war, he had escaped into the far places. +His many months of isolation had given him confidence +and taken the natural uneasiness of flight from his +mind.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Now someone was coming down the Mississippi inquiring +for Jock Drones! A detective, as relentless, +as sure as a bullet in the heart, was coming. He might +even then be lurking in the brush up the bank, waiting +to get a sure drop. He might be dropping down that +very night. He might step in among the players, unnoticed, +unseen, and wait there for the moment of +surprise and action.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Slip’s mind ransacked the far places of which he had +heard: Oklahoma, the Missouri River, California, the +Mexican border, Texas. Far havens seemed safest, +but against their lure he felt the balance of Buck’s +comradeship.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Caruthersville had a sporting crowd with money, +lots of money. The people there were liberal spenders, +and they liked a square game better than any other +sport in the world. The boat was making good money, +big money. The two partners had only to break even +in their own play to make a big living out of the kitty +in the poker tables, and there was always a big percentage +in favour of the boat, because Buck and Slip +understood each other so well. Slip’s share often +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span> +amounted to more in a week than he had earned in two +years up there in the mountains felling trees, rafting +them in eddies, and tripping them down painfully to the +sawmills. These never did pay the price they were advertised +to pay for timber, and one had to watch the +sealers to see that they didn’t short the measure in the +under water and goose-egg good logs.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He remembered Jest Prebol, who was lying shot +through in the boat alongside, and he went over to the +boat, lighted the lamp, and sat down by the wounded +man. Prebol was a little delirious, and Slip went over +on his own boat, and called Buck out.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We got a sick man on our hands,” he whispered. +“Ain’t Doc Grell come oveh yet?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Come the last boat,” Buck said, and called the +doctor out.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Say, Doc, that sick feller out here, will you look’t +him?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Doctor Grell went over to the boat. He looked at +the wounded man, and frowned as he took the limp +wrist. He tried the temperature, too, and then shook +his head.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’s a sick man, Slip,” he said. “Thought he +was coming all right last night. Now––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He looked at the wound, and gazed at the great, blue +plate around the bullet hole.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’s bad?” Slip said, in alarm. “Poison’s workin’, +Doc?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Mighty bad!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There was nothing for it. Doctor Grell’s night of +pleasure had turned into one of life-saving and effort. +He sent Slip over to drag away one of the young men +from his game, and they rigged up two square trunks +and a waterproof tarpaulin into an operating table. +Then, as Slip was faint and sick, the two drove him back +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span> +to the gambling boat, while they, the graduate and the +student, entered upon a gamble with a human life the +stake.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Of that night’s efforts, fighting the “poison” with +the few sharp weapons at their command—later reinforced +by a hasty trip across the river to get others—the +two need never tell. While they worked, they +could hear at intervals the shout of a winner in the +other boat. In moments of perfect quiet they heard +the quick rustling of shuffled cards; they heard the +rattling of dice in hard, muffled boxes; they heard, at +intervals, the rattling of stove lids and smelt the soft-coal +smoke which blew down on them from the kitchen +chimney. Slip, not forgetful of them, brought over +pots of black coffee and inquired after the patient. He +found the two men paler on each visit, and stripped +down more and more, till they were merely in their +sweaty undershirts.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Toward morning the wind began to blow; it began +to grow cold. The noises on the neighbouring boat +grew fainter in the low rumble of a stormy wind out of +the northwest, and the shanty-boat lifted at intervals +on a wave that rolled out of the main current and across +the eddy, making their operating room even more +unstable.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Under their onslaught the death which was taking +hold of Jest Prebol was checked, and the river rat +whose life had been forfeited for his sly crimes became +the object of a doctor’s sentiment and belief in his own +training.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Long after midnight, when some few of the patrons +of the games had already taken their departure, the +doors opened oftener and oftener, letting the geometrical +shaft of the yellow light flare out across the waters, +and the grotesque shadows of those who departed stood +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span> +out against the night and waters as the men shivered +in the wind and bent to feel their way into the boats.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After dawn Doctor Grell and his assistant, peaked +and white, limp with their tremendous effort, and shivering +with exhaustion of mind and body, walked out of +the little shanty-boat, up to the big one, sat down with +Buck and Slip to breakfast, and then took their own +course across the ruffled and tumble-surfaced river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low he’ll pull through,” Doctor Grell admitted, +almost reluctantly. “He’s in bad shape, though, with +the things the bullet carried into him, but we sure +swabbed him out. How’d the game go to-night, +boys?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Purty good.” Buck shook his head. “Tammer +sure had luck his way—won a seventy-dollar pot onct.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I sure wanted to play,” Grell shook his head, “but +in my profession you aren’t your own, and you cayn’t +quit.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We owe you for it,” Buck said. “He’s our +friend––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And he’s ourn, too,” Grell declared, “so we’ll +split the difference. I expect it was worth a hundred +dollars what we two did to-night. That’ll be fifty, +boys, if it’s all right.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, suh,” Slip said, handing over five ten-dollar +bills, and Grell handed two of them to his companion, +who shook his head, saying:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Nope, Doc! Ten only to-night. My first fee!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And you’ll never have a more interesting case,” +Grell declared. “No, indeed! You’ll see cases, come +you go to college, but none more interesting, and if +we’ve pulled him through, you’ll never have better +reason for satisfaction.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The two got into a little motorboat and went bounding +and rocking in the wind and waves toward the town +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span> +behind the levee on the far bank. The two gamblers +watched the little boat rocking along till it was but a +black fleck in the midst of the weltering brown waters.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t reckon any one’ll drap down to-day,” +Slip muttered, looking up the river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We’ll keep our eyes open,” Buck replied. “You +needn’t to worry, you’re plumb worn out, Slip. Git to +bed, now, an’ I’ll slick up around.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was a cold, dry gale. From sharp gusts with near +calms between the wind grew till it was a steady, driving +storm that flattened against the shanty-boat sides, +and whistled and roared through the trees up the bank. +And instead of dying down at dusk, it increased so much +that the big acetylene light was not hung out, and if +any one came down to the opposite shore he saw that +there would be no game that night.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Buck went in and sat down by the wounded man’s +bed, giving him the medicines Doctor Grell had left. +For the attentions Prebol, in lucid intervals, showed +wondering looks of gratitude, like an ugly dog which +has been trapped and then set free. What he had +suffered during the night even he could hardly recall in +the enfeebled condition of his mind, but the spoonfuls +of broth, the medicine that thrilled his body, the man’s +very companionship, lending strength, took away the +feeling of despair which a man in the extremities of +anguish and alone in the world finds hardest to resist.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Buck, sitting there, gazed at the wan countenance, +studying it. Prebol had forgotten, but when Buck +first arrived on the river, the pirate, a much younger +man then, had carelessly and perhaps for display told +the stranger and softpaw many things about the river +which were useful. It occurred to Buck that he was +now paying back a debt of gratitude.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Something boiled up in his thoughts, and he swore +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span> +to himself that he owed nothing, that the world owed +him, and he bridged the years of his disappointment +and desolation back to the hour when he had stormed +out of the life he had known, to come down the Mississippi +to be a gambler. Prebol, in his lapses into delirium, +called a woman’s name, Sadie—always Sadie! +And if he would have cursed that name in his consciousness, +out of the depths of his soul it came with softness +and gentleness of affection.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Buck wondered what Jest Prebol had done to Sadie +that she had driven him down there, and he cursed +with his own lips, while he stifled in the depths of his +own soul another name. His years, his life, had been +wasted, just as this man Prebol’s life was wasted, just +as Slip’s life was being wasted. Buck gave himself +over to the exquisite torture of memories and reflections. +He wondered what had become of the woman +for love of whom he had let go all holds and degenerated +to this heartless occupation of common gambler?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>True to Slip, he had watched the river for the stranger +whose inquiries had been carried down in fair warning +to all the river people—and Buck, suddenly conscious +of his own part in that river system, laughed in surprise.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why,” he said to himself, “humans are faithful +to one another! It’s what they live for, to be faithful +to one another!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was an incredible, but undeniable theory. In +spite of his own wilful disbelief in the faith of mankind, +here he was sitting by one poor devil’s bed +while he kept his weather eye out upon the rough river +in the interests of another—a murderer! He pondered +on the question of whether any one kept faith with him. +His mind cried out angrily, “No!” but on second +thought, in spite of himself, he realized distinctly that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span> +he had let one person’s faithlessness overcome his trust +of all others.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No day on the Mississippi is longer than the cold, +bleak monotone of a dry gale out of the north. There +is an undertone to the voices which depresses the soul +as the rank wind shrivels the body. On whistling +wings great flocks of wild fowl come driving down before +the wintry gales, or they turn back from the prospect of +an early spring. Steamboats are driven into the refuge +of landing or eddy, and if the power craft cannot stand +the buffetings, much less are the exposed little houseboats, +toys of current and breeze, able to escape the resistless +blasts. So the wind possesses itself of the whole +river breadth and living creatures are driven to shelter.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Prebol, shot through and conscious of the reward of +his manner of living; Slip, a fugitive under the menace +of a murderer’s fate; and Buck, given over to melancholy, +were but types on the lengths and tributaries of +the indifferent flood.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nothing happened, nothing could happen. The +arrival of Slip from his restless bunk relieved Buck of +his vigil, and he went to bed and slept into the dawn of +another day—a day like the previous one, and fit to +drive him up the bank, into the woods, and among the +fallen branches of rotten trees seeking in physical activity +to check the mourning and tauntings of a mind +over which he found, as often before, that he had no +control.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>And yet, when the storm suddenly blew itself out +with a light puff and a sudden flood of sunshine, just +as the sun went down, Prebol’s condition took a sudden +turn for the better, Slip forgot his fears, and Buck burst +into a gay little whistled tune, which he could never +whistle except when he was absurdly and inexplicably +merry.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVII' id='CHAPTER_XVII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon’s notebooks held tens of thousands +of words describing the Mississippi River +and the people he had met. He had drifted +down long, lonely bends, and he had surprised a flock +of wild geese under a little bluff on an island sandbar +just above Kaskaskia, in the big cut-off there. Until +this day the Mississippi had been growing more and +more into his consciousness; not people, not industries, +not corn, wheat, or cotton had become interesting and +important, but the yellow flood itself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His thought had been, when he left St. Louis, to stop +in towns and gather those things which minds not of +the newspaper profession lump under the term of +“histories,” but now, after his hundreds of miles of +association with the river, his thought took but brief +note of those trifling and inconspicuous appearances +known as “river towns.” He had passed by many +places with hardly a glance, so entrancing had been the +prospect of endless miles of earth-bound flood!—bound +but wearing away its bonds.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Now, in one of the most picturesque of all the scenes +he had witnessed, in the historic double bend above +New Madrid, he found himself with a young and attractive +woman. He realized that, in some way, the +Mississippi River “spirit”—as he always quoted it in +his calm and dispassionate remarks and dissertations +and descriptions—had encompassed him about, and, +without giving him any choice, had tied him down to +what in all the societies he had ever known would have +been called a “compromising position.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>That morning he had left the husband of this pretty +girl lying in a drunken stupor, and now in the late evening +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span> +the fugitive wife was taking it for granted that +he would dine with her on her boat—and he had himself +entered upon a partnership with her for that meal +which could not by any possibility be called prosaic +or commonplace. He had a vivid recollection of having +visited a girl back home—he thought the phrase +with difficulty—and he remembered the word “chaperon” +as from a foreign language, or at least from an +obsolete and forgotten age.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His familiarity with newspaper work did not relieve +him of a feeling of uncertainty. In fact, it emphasized +the questionableness of the occasion. “I’ll show you +I’m a dandy cook,” she had said, and while he followed +her on board the boat, with the two big black ducks to +help prepare, he wondered and remembered and, in +spite of his life-long avoidance of all appearance of evil, +submitted to this irresistible circumstance, wherever +it might lead.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So he built the fire in her kitchen stove. She mixed +up dressing and seasoned the birds, made biscuit batter +for hot-bread, brought out stacks and stores of things +to eat, or to eat with, and they set the table, ground the +coffee, and got the oven hot for the roasting and baking.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>One thing took the curse off their position: They +had to have all the windows and doors wide open so +that they seemed fairly to be cooking on an open sandbar +at the edge of the river. Terabon took an inward +satisfaction in that fact. It is not possible to feel exceedingly +wicked or depraved when there is a mile-wide +Mississippi on the one hand and a mile-wide +sandbar on the other side, and the sun is shining calmly +upon the bright and innocent waters.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As the ducks were young and tender, their cooking +took but an hour, or a little more, and the interim was +occupied in the countless things that must be done to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104' name='page_104'></a>104</span> +prepare even a shanty-boat feast. He stirred some +cranberry sauce, and she had to baste the ducks, get +the flour stirred with water, and condensed cream for +gravy, besides setting the table and raising the biscuits, +to have them ready for the ducks. She must needs +wonder if she’d forgotten the salt, and for ten minutes +she was almost in a panic at the thought, while he +watched her in breathless wonderment, and took covert +glances up the Mississippi River, fearful of, and yet +almost wishing to see, that pursuing motorboat come +into view.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When at last the smoking viands were on the ample +table and they sat with their knees under it, and he +began to carve the ducks and dish out the unblessed +meal, he glanced up stream through the cabin window +on his right. He caught a glimpse of a window pane +flashing miles distant in the light of the setting sun—the +whiskey boat without doubt. He saw a flock of ducks +coming like a great serpent just above the river surface, +then a shadow lifted as out of the river, swept up the +trees in the lost section of Kentucky opposite, and from +spattering gold the scene turned to blue which rapidly +became purple, darkening visibly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Through the open doors and windows swept the +chill of twilight, and while she lighted the big lamp +he did her bidding and closed the doors and windows. +Those shelves of books, classics and famous, time-tried +fiction, leered at him from their racks. The gold of +titles, the blues and reds and greens of covers fairly +mocked him, and he saw himself struggling with the +menace of sin; he saw an honourable career and carefully +nurtured ambition fading from view, for did not +all those master minds warn the young against evil?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>But they talked over the ducks of what a pity it was +that all towns could not engage themselves in thought +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span> +the way Athens used to do, and they wondered to each +other when the hurrying passion of greed and its varying +phenomena would become reconciled to a modest +competence and the simplicity which they, for example, +were enjoying down the Mississippi.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When he looked up from his meat sometimes he +caught her eyes looking at him. He recognized her +superiority of experience and position; she made him +feel like a boy, but a boy of whom she was really quite +fond, or at least in whom she was interested. For that +feeling he was grateful, though there was something in +her smile which led him to doubt his own success in +veiling or hiding the doubts or qualms which had, +unbidden, risen in his thoughts at the equivocal nature +of their position.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Having dined on the best meal he had had since leaving +home, they talked a little while over the remains of +the sumptuous repast. But their mood grew silent, +and they kept up the conversation with difficulty.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I think I’d better put up my canvas top,” he blurted +out, and she assented.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And then you must come back and help me wash +this awful pile of dishes,” she added.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, of course!” he exclaimed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll help with the canvas,” she said, and he dared +not look at her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>By the light of his lantern they put up the canvas +to protect the boat from dew. Then they looked +around at the night; stars overhead, the strange haze +from the countless grains of sand which wavered over +the bar, and the river in the dark, running by.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They looked at the river together, and they felt its +majesty, its power, its resistlessness.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s overwhelming,” he whispered. “When you +can’t see it you hear it, or you feel it!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And it makes everything else seem so small, so unimportant, +so perfectly negligible,” she added, consciously, +and then with vivacity: “I’ll not make you +wipe those dishes, after all. But you must take me +for a walk up this sandbar!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Gladly,” he laughed, “but I’ll help with the dishes +as well!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She put on a jacket, pinned on a cap, and together, +in merry mood, they romped up the sandbar. It was +all sand; there was not a log of timber, not a drift barrel, +not a stick of wood anywhere as far as they could +see. But as they walked along every foot of the +sandbar was different, wind-rifts, covering long, water-shaped +reefs; or rising knolls, like hills, and long depressions +which held shadows darker by far than the gloom +of the night. They walked along, sometimes yards +apart, sometimes side by side. They forgot Ruskin +and Carlyle—they remembered Thoreau’s “Cape Cod” +and talked of the musical sands which they could hear +now under their own feet. In the silence they heard +river voices; murmurings and tones and rhythms and +harmonies; and Terabon, who had accumulated a vast +store of information from the shanty-boaters, told her +some of the simple superstitions with which the river +people beguile themselves and add to the interest and +difficulties of their lives.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“An old river man can look at the river and tell +when a headrise is coming,” he told her. “He knows +by the looks of the water when the river is due to +fall again. When he dreams, he says he knows what is +going to happen, and where to find buried treasure, and +if there is going to be an earthquake or a bad storm.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They get queer living alone!” she said, thoughtfully. +“Lots of them used to stop in at our slough +on Kaw River. I was afraid of them!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You afraid of anything!” he exclaimed. “Of any +one!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, that was a long time ago—ages ago!” She +laughed, and then gave voice to that most tragic riverside +thought. “But now—nothing at all matters +now!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She said it with an intonation which was almost relief +and laughing, that Terabon, whose mind had grappled +for years with one of Ruskin’s most touching +phrases, understood how it could be that the heart of a +human being could become so used to sorrows that no +misery could bring tears.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He knew in that very moment, as by revelation, that +he had caught from her lips one of the bitterest phrases +which the human mind is capable of forming. He was +glad of the favour which fate had bestowed upon him, +and he thrilled, while he regretted, that in that hour he +could not forget that he was a seeker of facts, a gatherer +of information.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>To match her mood was beyond his own power. +By a simple statement of fact she had given herself a +place in his thought comparable to—he went at making +ideas again, despite himself—comparable to one of +those wonderful widows which are the delight, while +they rend to tatters the ambitions of delvers into +the mysteries of Olympian lore. This bright, pretty, +vivacious young woman had suffered till she had arrived +at a Helen’s recklessness—nothing mattered!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There was a pause.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I think you are in a fair way to become unforgetable +in connection with the Mississippi River,” he suggested, +with even voice.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What do you mean?” she demanded, quickly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well, I’ll tell you,” with the semblance of perfect +frankness. “I’ve been wondering which one of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span> +Grecian goddesses you would have been if you had +lived, say, in Homer’s time.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Which one of them I resemble?” she asked, amused.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Exactly that,” he declared.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, that’s such a pretty compliment,” she cried. +“It fits so well into the things I’ve been thinking. The +river grows and grows on me, and I feel as though I +grew with it! You don’t know—you could never know—you’re +a man—masculine! For the first time in my +life I’m free—and—and I don’t—I don’t care a damn!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But the future!” he protested, feebly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s it!” she retorted. “For a river goddess +there is no future. It’s all in the present for her, because +she is eternal.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They had walked clear up to the southernmost tip +of the sandbar point. They could hear someone, perhaps +a chorus of voices, singing on the whiskey boat +at the Upper Landing. They could see the light of the +boat’s windows. There they turned and started back +down the sandbar, reaching the two boats moored side +by side in the deadwater.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Shall I help with those dishes to-night?” he asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, we’ll do them in the morning,” she replied +without emphasis and as a matter of course, which +left him unassisted in his obvious predicament.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well,” he drawled, after a time, “it’s about midnight. +I must say a river goddess is—is beyond my +most vivid dreams. I wonder––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What do you wonder?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If you’ll let me kiss you good-night now?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes,” she answered.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The stars twinkled as he put his arm around her +and took the kiss which her lips gave—smiling.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll help with those dishes in the morning,” he said, +helping her up the gang plank of her boat. “Good-night!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Good-night,” she answered, and entered the cabin, +the dim light of her turned-down lamp flashing across +the sandbar and revealing his face for a moment. +Then the door closed between them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He went to his skiff, raised the cover, and crawled +into his canvas hammock which was swung from both +sides of his boat. Before going to sleep he looked under +the canvas at the river, at the stars, at the dark cabin-boat +forty feet distant in the eddy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>At the same moment he saw a face against a window +pane in the cabin.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What does it mean?” he asked himself, but there +was no answer. The river, when asked, seldom answers. +Just as he was about to go to sleep, he started +up, wide awake.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For the first time on the river, he had forgotten to +post up his notes. He felt that he had come that day, +as never before, to the forks in the road—when he must +choose between the present and the future. He +lighted his lantern, sat up in his cot, and reached for +his typewriter.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He wrote steadily, at full speed, for an hour. When +he had those wonderful and fleeting thoughts and +observations nailed down and safe, he again put out his +lantern, and turned in once more.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then he heard a light, gay laugh, clear and distinct-a +river voice beyond question—full of raillery, and yet +beneath the mocking note was something else which +he could neither identify nor analyze, which he hoped +was not scorn or mere derision, which he wished might +be understanding and sympathy—till he thought of +his making those notes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then he despised himself, which was really good for +his soul. His conscience, instead of rejoicing, rebuked +him as a cad. He swore under his breath.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVIII' id='CHAPTER_XVIII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Augustus Carline was a long time recovering +even his consciousness. A thousand dreams, +a thousand nightmares tormented his thoughts +while the mangling grip of unnumbered vises and ropes +sank deep into his flesh; ploughs and harrows dragged +through his twisted muscles.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Yet he did rise at last out of his pit and, leaning +against the cabin of his boat, look about him to see +what hell he had escaped into. The sun was shining +somewhere, blinding his eyes, which were already +seared. A river coiled by, every ripple a blistering +white flame. He heard birds and other music which +sounded like an anvil chorus performing in the narrow +confines of a head as large as a cabin.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He remembered something. It was even worse than +what he was undergoing, but he could not quite call +the horror to the surface of the weltering sea of his +feelings; he did not even know his name, nor his place, +nor any detail except the present pain—and he didn’t +want to know. He fought against knowing, till the +thing pressed exuberantly forward, and then he knew +that the beautiful girl, the woman he loved and to +whom he was married, had left him. That was the +exquisite calamity of his soul, and he flinched from the +fact as from a blow. He was always flinching, he +remembered. He was always turning from the uncomfortable +and the bothering to seek what was easy +and unengaging. Now, for the moment, he could not +undertake any relief from his present misery.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Acres and lakes of water were flowing by, but his +thirst was worse than oceans could quench. He wanted +to drink, but the thought of drinking disgusted him +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span> +beyond measure. It seemed to him that a drop of +water would flame up in his throat like gasolene on a +bed of coals, and at that moment his eyes fell upon the +jug which stood by the misty engine against the intangible +locker. The jug was a monument of comfort +and substantiality.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>At the odour which filled the air when he had taken +out the cork his very soul was filled with horror.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But I got to drink it!” he whimpered. “It’s the +only thing that’ll cure me, the only thing I can stand. +If I don’t I’ll die!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Not to drink was suicide, and to drink was living +death! He could not choose between the suggestions; +he never had been trained to face fate manfully. +His years’ long dissipation had unfitted him for every +squarely made decision, and now with horror on one +side and terror on the other, he could not procrastinate +and wonder what folly had brought him to this state.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why couldn’t it smell good!” he choked. “The +taste’ll kill me!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Taste he must, or perish! The taste was all that +he had anticipated, and melted iron could hardly have +been more painful than that first torture of cold, fusil +acid. Gulping it down, he was willing to congratulate +himself on his endurance and wisdom, his very heroism +in undertaking that deadly specific.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After it was over with, however, the raw chill, which +the heat of the sun did not help, began to yield to a glow +of warmth. He straightened his twisted muscles and +after a hasty look around retreated into his cabin and +flung himself on his bunk.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>What length of time he spent in his recovery from +the attacks of his enemy, or rather enemies of a misspent +youth, he could not surmise. He did at last stir +from his place and look with subdued melancholy into +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span> +a world of woe. He recalled the visitor, the man who +wrote for newspapers, and in a panic he searched for +his money.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The money was gone; $250, at least, had disappeared +from his pockets. An empty wallet on the cabin floor +showed with what contemptuous calm the funds had +been abstracted from his pockets. He turned, however, +to a cunning little hiding place, and found there +his main supply of currency—a thousand dollars or +more.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No man likes to be robbed, and Carline, fixing upon +his visitor Terabon as his assailant, worked himself +into a fine frenzy of indignation. The fellow had purposely +encouraged him to drink immoderately—Carline’s +memory was clear and unmistaken on that point—and +then, taking advantage of his unconsciousness, +the pseudo writer had committed piracy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d ought to be glad he didn’t kill me!” Carline +sneered to himself, looking around to conjure up the +things that might have been.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The prospect was far from pleasing. The sky was +dark, although it was clearly sometime near the middle +of a day—what day, he could but guess. The wind was +raw and penetrating, howling through the trees, and +skipping down the chute with a quick rustling of low, +breaking waves. The birds and animals which he had +heard were gone with the sunshine.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When Carline took another look over his boat, he +found that it had been looted of many things, including +a good blanket, his shot gun and rifle, ammunition, +and most of his food supply—though he could not recall +that he had had much food on board.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He lighted the coal-oil heater to warm the cabin, +for he was chilled to the bone. He threw the jug overboard, +bound now never again to touch another drop +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span> +of liquor as long as he lived—that is, unless he happened +to want a drink.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Wearily he set about cleaning up his boat. He was +naturally rather inclined to neatness and orderliness. +He picked up, folded, swept out, and put into shape. He +appeased his delicate appetite with odds and ends of +things from a locker full of canned goods which had +escaped the looter.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As long as he could, Carline had not engaged his +thoughts with the subject of his runaway wife. Now, +his mind clearing and his body numb, his soul took up +the burden again, and he felt his helplessness thrice +confounded. He did not mind anything now compared +to the one fact that he had lost and deserved to lose +the respect of the pretty girl who had become his +wife. He took out the photographs which he had of +her, and looked at them, one by one. What a fool he +had been, and what a scoundrel he was!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He could not give over the pursuit, however; he felt +that he must save her from herself; he must seek and +rescue her. He hoisted in his anchor and starting the +motor, turned into the chute and ran down before the +wind into the river. Never had he seen the Mississippi +in such a dark and repellent mood.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When he had cleared the partial shelter of Island No. +8, he felt the wind and current at the stern of his boat, +driving it first one way then the other. Steering was +difficult, and fear began to clutch at his heart. He felt +his helplessness and the hopelessness of his search down +that wide river with its hundred thousand hiding places. +He knew nothing of the gossiping river people except +that he despised them. He could not dream that his +ignorance of things five or ten miles from his home was +not typical of the shanty-boaters; he could not know that +where he was a stranger in the next township to his own +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span> +home, a shanty-boater would know the landing place of +his friends a thousand miles or so down stream.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Without maps, without knowledge, without instinct, +he might almost as well have been blind. His careless, +ignorant glance swept the eight or nine miles of shoreline +of sandbar from above Island No. 10 clear down to +the fresh sloughing above Hotchkiss’s Landing, opposite +the dry Winchester Chute—in which deep-draft gun-barges +had been moored fifty years or so before. He +did not even know it was Island No. 10, Donaldson’s +Point; he didn’t know that he was leaving Kentucky to +skirt Tennessee; much less did he dream that he was +passing Kentucky again. He looked at a shanty-boat +moored at the foot of a mile-long sandbar; saw, without +observing, a skiff against the bar just above the cabined +scow. His gaze discovered smoke, houses, signs +of settlement miles below, and he quickened the beat +of his motor to get down there.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He longed for people, for humanity, for towns and +cities; and that was a big sawmill and cotton-gin town +ahead of him, silhouetted along the top of a high bank. +He headed straight for it, and found his boat inexplicably +slowed up and rebuffed. Strangers on the river +always do find themselves baffled by the big New Madrid +eddy, which even power boats engage with difficulty +of management. He landed at last against a +floating dock, and found that it was a fish market.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Having made fast, he went up town and spent hours, +till long after dark, buying supplies, talking to people, +getting the lonesomeness out of his system, and making +veiled inquiries to learn if anything had been heard +about a woman coming down the Mississippi. He succeeded +in giving the impression that he was a detective. +In the restaurant he talked with a cocky little +bald-headed man all spruced up and dandyish. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m from Pittsburgh,” the man said. “My name’s +Doss, Ronald Doss; I’m a sportsman, but every winter +I drop down here, hunting and fishing; sometimes on +the river, sometimes back in the bottoms. I suppose, +Mr. Carline, that you’re a stranger on the river?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, yes-s, down this way; I live near it, up at +Gage.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I see, your first trip down. Got a nice gasolene +boat, though!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, yes! You’re stopping here?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Just arrived this morning; trying to make up my +mind whether I’ll go over on St. Francis, turkey-and +deer-hunting, or get a boat and drop down the Mississippi. +Been wondering about that.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well, say, now—why can’t you drop down with me?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, I’d be in the way––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Not a bit––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Costs a lot to run a motorboat, and I’d have to––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, you wouldn’t! Not a cent! Your experience +and my boat––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Well, of course, if you put it that way. If it’d be +any accommodation to you to have an old river man—I +mean I’ve always tripped the river, off and on, for sport.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’d be an education for me, a great help!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, I expect it would be an education, if you don’t +know the river.” Doss smiled.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They walked over to the river bank. An arc light +cast its rays upon the end of the street, down the sloping +bank, and in a light circle upon the rocking, muddy +waters where the fish dock and several shanty-boats +rested against the bank.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Doss whistled a little tune as he rested on his cane.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The front door of the third houseboat up the eddy +opened and closed. A man climbed the bank and +passed the two with a basket on his arm. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Come on down,” Carline urged.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Not to-night,” Doss said. “I’ve got my room up +at the hotel, and I’ll have to get my stuff out of the +railroad baggage room. But I’ll come down about 10 +or 11 o’clock in the morning. Then we’ll fit up and +drop down the river. Good-night!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Doss watched Carline go down to the dock and on to +his boat. Then he went up the street and held earnest +confab with a man who had a basket on his arm. They +whispered ten minutes or so, then the man with the +basket returned to his shanty-boat, and within half an +hour was back up town, carrying two suitcases, a gun +case, and a duffle bag.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Doss went to the smaller hotel with these things and +registered. He walked down to the river in the morning +and noticed that the third shanty-boat had dropped +out into the river during the night, in spite of the storm +that was blowing up. He went down and ate breakfast +with Carline, and the two went up and got Doss’s +outfit at the hotel. They returned to the motorboat, +and, having laid in a supply of groceries, cast off their +lines and steered away down the river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir, we’ll find that girl if it takes all winter!” the +fish-market man heard Doss tell Carline in a loud voice.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>That afternoon a man in a skiff came down the +river and turned into the dock. As he landed, the +fish-market man said to him:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Yes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If you see any lady coming down, tell her a detector +is below, lookin’ fo’ her. He’s a cheap skate, into a motorboat—but +I don’t expect he’ll be into hit long, ’count of +some river fellers bein’ with him. But he mout be bad, +that detector. If you should see a nice lady, tell her.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You bet!” the skiff man, who was Lester Terabon, +exclaimed.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIX' id='CHAPTER_XIX'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For long hours Parson Rasba endured the drifting +sand and the biting wind which penetrated +the weather-cracks in his poplar shanty-boat. +It was not until near nightfall that it dawned on him +that he need not remain there, that it was the simplest +thing in the world to let go his hold and blow before the +wind till he was clear of the sandblast.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He did haul in his anchor and float away. As he +rode the waves and danced before the wind the clouds +of sand were flung swiftly down upon the water, where +the surface was covered with a film and a sheet of dust.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Standing at his sweeps, he saw that he was approaching +the head of another sandbar, and as he felt the +water shoaling under the boat he cast over the anchor +and rode in clear air again. He was not quite without +a sense of humour.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Shaking the dust out of his long hair and combing it +out of his whiskers, he laughed at his ignorance and lack +of resource. He swept the decks and floor of his cabin, +and scooped the sand up with an ash shovel to throw +overboard. A lesson learned on the Mississippi is +part of the education of the future—if there is anything +in the pupil’s head to hold a memory of a fact or experience.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Even though he knew it was his own ignorance that +had kept him a prisoner in that storm, Parson Rasba +did not fail to realize that his ignorance had been sin, +and that his punishment was due to his absorption in +the fate of a pretty woman.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Certainly after such a sharp rebuke he could not +fail to return to his original task, imposed upon him +because of his fault in bringing the feud fighters of his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span> +home mountains together, untrained and unrepentant, +to hear the voice of his pride declare the Word for the +edification of sinners. Parson Rasba did not mince +his words as he contemplated the joy he had felt in +being eloquent and a “power” of a speaker from the +pulpits of the mountain churches. The murdering by +the feud fighters had taught him what he would never +forget, and his frank acknowledgment of each rebuke +gave him greater understanding.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>While the gale lasted he watched the river and the +sky. The wild fowl flying low, and dropping into +woods behind him led to forays seeking game, and in a +bayou a mile distant he drew down with deadly aim on +one of a flock of geese. He killed that bird, and then as +its startled and lumbering mates sought flight, he got +two more of them, missing another shot or two in the +excitement.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The three great birds made a load for him, and he +returned to his boat with a heart lighter than he had +known in many a day because it seemed to him a +“sign” that he need not hate himself overmuch. The +river consoled him, and its constancy and integrity +were an example which he could not help but take to +heart.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Gales might blow, fair weather might tempt, islands +might interpose themselves in its way, banks and sandbars +might stand against the flood, but come what +might, the river poured on through its destined course +like a human life.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He entertained the whimsical fancy, as his smallest +goose was roasting, that perhaps the Mississippi might +sin. In so many ways the river reminded him of humankind. +He had stood beside a branch of the Mississippi +which was so small and narrow that he could +dam it with his ample foot, or scoop it up with a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span> +bucket—and yet here it was a mile wide! In its youth it was +subject to the control of trifling things, a stone or a log, +or the careless handiwork of a man. Down here all +the little threads of its being had united in a full tide +of life still subject to the influences of its normal course, +but wearing and tearing along beyond any power to +stop till its appointed course was run.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Insensibly Parson Rasba felt the resources of his +own mind flocking to help him. Just being there beside +that mighty torrent helped him to get a perspective +on things. Tiny things seemed so useless in the +front of that overwhelming power. What were the +big things of his own life? What were the important +affairs of his existence?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He could not tell. He had always meant to do the +right thing. He could see now, looking back on his +life, that his good intentions had not prevented his ignorance +from precipitating a feud fight.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I should have taken them, family by family, and +brought them to their own knees fustest,” he thought, +grimly. “Then I could have helt ’em all together in +mutual repentance!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Having arrived at that idea, he shrugged his shoulders +almost self-contemptuously. “I’m a learnin’. +That’s one consolation, I’m a learnin’!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>And then Rasba heard the Call!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was Old Mississip’s voice; the river was heaping +duties upon him more and more. So far, he had +been rather looking out for himself, now he recalled +the houseboats which he had seen moored down the +reaches and in the bends. Those river people, dropping +down incessantly with the river current, must sometimes +need help, comfort, and perhaps advice. His +humility would not permit him to think that he could +preach to them or exhort them. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Man to man, likely I could he’p some po’r sinner +see as much as I can see. If I could kind of get ’em +to see what this big, old riveh is like! Hit’s carryin’ +a leaf er a duck, an’ steamboats an’ shanty-bo’ts; +hit carries the livin’ an’ hit carries the daid; hit begrudges +no man it’s he’p if he comes to it to float down +a log raft er a million bushels of coal. If Ole Mississip’ll +do that fo’ anybody, suttin’ly hit’s clear an’ plain +that God won’t deny a sinner His he’p! Yas, suh! +Now I’ve shore found a handle to keep hold of my religion!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Peace of mind had come to him, but not the peace +of indolence and neglect. Far from that! He saw +years of endless endeavour opening before him, but +not with multitudes looking up to him as he stood, grand +and noble, in the bright light of a thousand pulpits, circuit +riding the earth. Instead, he would go to a sinning +man here, a sorrowing woman there, and perhaps +sit down with a little child, to give it comfort and instruction.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>People were too scattered down the Mississippi +to think of congregations. All days were Sunday, +and for him there could be no day of rest. If he could +not do big work, at least he could meet men and women, +and he could get to know little children, to understand +their needs. He knew it was a good thought, and when +he looked across the Mississippi, he saw night coming +on, but between him and the dark was sunset.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The cold white glare changed to brilliant colours; +clouds whose gray-blue had oppressed the soul of the +mountain man flashed red and purple, growing thinner +and thinner, and when he had gazed for a minute at +the glow of a fixed government light he was astonished +by the darkness of night—only the night was filled with +stars. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Thus the river, the weather, the climate, the sky, +the sandbars, and the wooded banks revealed themselves +in changing moods and varying lights to the +mountain man whose life had always been pent in +and narrowed, without viewpoint or a sense of the +future. The monster size of the river dwarfed the +little affairs of his own life and humbled the pride which +had so often been humbled before. At last he began +to look down on himself, seeing something of the true +relation of his importance to the immeasurable efforts +of thousands and millions of men.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The sand clouds carried by the north wind must +ever remain an epoch in his experience. Definitely +he was rid of a great deal of nonsense, ignorance, and +pride; at the same time it seemed, somehow, to have +grounded him on something much firmer and broader +than the vanities of his youth.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His eyes searched the river in the dark for some place +to begin his work, and as they did so, he discovered a +bright, glaring light a few miles below him across the +sandbar at the head of which he had anchored. He +saw other lights down that way, a regular settlement of +lights across the river, and several darting firefly +gleams in the middle of the stream which he recognized +were boats, probably small gasolene craft.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In forty minutes he was dipping his sweep blades to +work his way into the eddy where several small passenger +craft were on line-ends from a large, substantial +craft which was brightly lighted by lanterns and a +big carbide light. Its windows were aglow with cheeriness, +and the occupants engaged in strange pastimes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Come, now, come on, now!” someone was crying +in a sing-song. “Come along like I said! Come along, +now—Seven—Seven—Seven!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Parson Rasba’s oar pins needed wetting, for the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span> +strain he put on the sweeps made them squeak. The +splash of oars down the current was heard by people +on board and several walked out on the deck.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Whoe-e-e!” one hailed. “Who all mout yo’ be?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Rasba!” the newcomer replied. “Parson Elijah +Rasba, suh. Out of the Ohio!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hi-i-i!” a listener cried out, gleefully, “hyar comes +the Riveh Prophet after yo sinners. Hi-i-i!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There was a laugh through the crowd. Others +strolled out to see the phenomenon. A man who had +been playing with fortune at one of the poker tables +swore aloud.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I cayn’t neveh git started, I don’t shift down on my +luck!” he whined. “Las’ time, jes’ when I was coming +home, I see a piebald mewl, an’ now hyar comes a parson. +Dad drat this yeah ole riveh! I’m goin’ to quit. +I’m gwine to go to Hot Springs!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>These casual asides were as nothing, however, to the +tumult that stirred in the soul of Jock Drones, who had +been cutting bread to make boiled-ham sandwiches for +their patrons that night. His acute hearing had picked +up the sound of the coming shanty-boat, and he had +felt the menace of a stranger dropping in after dark. +Few men not on mischief bent, or determined to run +all night, run into shanty-boat eddies.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He even turned down the light a little, and looked +toward the door to see if the way was clear. The hail +relieved the tension of his mind strain, but only for a +minute. Then he heard that answer.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Rasba!” he heard. “Parson Elijah Rasba, suh. +Out of the Ohio!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In a flash he knew the truth! Old Rasba, whose +preaching he had listened to that bloody night away +up in the mountains, had come down the rivers. A +parson, none else, was camping on the mountain fugitive’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span> +trail. That meant tribulation, that meant the +inescapableness of sin’s punishment—not in jails, not +in trial courts, not on the gallows, but worse than that!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Come abo’d, Parson!” someone shouted, and the +boats bumped. There was a scramble to make a line +fast, and then the trampling of many feet, as the +Prophet was introduced to that particular river hell, +amid stifled cries of expectancy and murmurs of warning. +Next to being raided by the sheriff of an adjacent +county, having a river prophet come on board is the +greatest excitement and the smartest amusement of +the bravados down the river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hyar’s the Prophet!” a voice shouted. “Now git +ready fo’ yo’ eternal damnation. See ’im gather hisse’f!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba gathering himself! Jock could not help but +take a peep. It was Rasba, gaunt, tall, his head up +close to the shanty-boat roof and his shoulders nearly +a head higher than the collars of most of those men who +stood by with insolence and doubtful good humour.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Which’d yo’ rather git to play, Parson?” someone +asked, slyly. “Cyards er bones er pull-sticks?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ve a friend down yeah, gentlemen.” The Prophet +ignored the insult. “His mother wants him. She’s +afeared likely he mout forget, since he was jes’ a boy +friendly and needing friends. He’s no runt, no triflin’ +no-’count, puppy man, like this thing,” in the direction +whence the invitation had come, “but tall an’ square, +an’ honourable, near six foot, an’ likely 160 pounds. +Not like this little runt thing yeah, but a real man!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There was a yell of approval and delight.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Who all mout yo’ friend be?” Buck asked, respectfully, +seeing that this was not a raid, but a visit.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Jock, suh, Jock Drones, his mammy wants him, +suh!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Buck eyed the visitor keenly for a minute. Someone +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span> +said they never had heard of him. Buck, who saw that +the visitor was in mind to turn back, suggested:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Won’t yo’ have a cup of coffee, suh? Hit’s raw +outside to-night, fresh and mean. Give him a chair, +boys! I’m friendly with any man who takes a message +from a mother to her wandering son.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A dozen chairs were snatched out to the stove, and +when Parson Rasba had accepted one, Buck stepped +into the kitchen. He found Slip, <i>alias</i> Jock Drones, +standing with beads of sweat on his forehead. No need +to ask the first question; Buck poured out a cup of coffee +and said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What’ll I tell him, Slip?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I cayn’t go back, Buck!” Slip whimpered. “Hit’s +a hanging crime!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Something may have changed,” Buck suggested.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, suh, I’ve heard. Hit were my bullet—I’ve +heard. Hit’s a trial, an’ hit’s—hit’s hanging!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sh-h! Not so loud!” Buck warned. “If it’s lawyer +money you need?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I got ’leven hundred, an’ a trial lawyer’ll cost only +a thousand, Buck! Yo’s a friend—Lawse! I’d shore +like to talk to him. He’s no detector, Parson Rasba +yain’t. Why, he’s be’n right into a stillhouse, drunk +the moonshine—an’ no revenue hearn of hit, the way +some feared. My sister wrote me. I want to talk to +him, Buck, but—but not let them outside know.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll fix it,” Buck promised, carrying out steaming +coffee, a plate of sandwiches, and two big oranges for +the parson.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He returned, filled up the trays for the others, and +took them out. Soon the crowd were sitting around, or +leaning against the heavy crap table, talking and listening.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ come way down from the mountangs to find a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span> +mammy’s boy?” someone asked, his tone showing +better than his words how well he understood the sacrifice +of that journey.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s seo,” Rasba nodded. “I’m partly to blame, +myse’f, for his coming down. I was a mountain +preacher, exhorter, and I ’lowed I knowed hit all. +One candlelight I had a congregation an’ I hit ’er up +loud that night, an’ I ’lowed I’d done right smart +with those people’s souls. But—but hit were no such +thing. This boy, Jock, he runned away that night, +’count of my foolishness, an’ we know he’s down thisaway; +if I could git to find him, his mammy’d shore be +comforted. She’s a heap more faith in me’n I have, +but I come down yeah. Likely I couldn’t do much for +that boy, but I kin show I’d like to.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Trippin’ a thousand miles shows some intrust!” +somebody said.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I lived all my life up theh in the mountangs, an’ +hit’s God’s country, gem’men! This yeah—” he +glanced around him till his glance fell upon the card +cabinet on the wall between two windows, full of decks +of cards and packets of dice and shaker boxes—“this +yeah, sho! Hit ain’t God’s country, gem’men! Hit’s +shore the Devil’s, an’ he’s shore ketched a right smart +haul to-night! But I live yeah now!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Buck, who had been coming and going, had stopped +at the parson’s voice. He did not laugh, he did not even +smile. The point was not missed, however. Far from +it! He went out, bowed by the truth of it, and in the +kitchen he looked at Slip, who was sitting in black and +silent consideration of that cry, carried far in the echoes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’re one of us, Parson!” a voice exclaimed in disbelief.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh,” Rasba smiled as he looked into the man’s +eyes, “I’m one of you. I ’low we uns’ll git thar together, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span> +’cordin’ as we die. Look! This gem’men gives +me bread an’ meat; he quenches my thirst, too. An’ +I take hit out’n his hands. ’Peahs like he owns this +boat!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh,” someone affirmed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Then I shall not shake hit’s dust off my feet when +I go,” Rasba declared, sharply. Buck stared; Rasba +did not look at even his shoes; Buck caught his breath. +Whatever Rasba meant, whatever the other listeners +understood, Buck felt and broke beneath those statements +which brought to him things that he never had +known before.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’ll not shake the dust of this gambling dive from +his feet!” Buck choked under his breath. “And this +is how far down I’ve got!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba, conscious only of his own shortcomings, had +no idea that he had fired shot after shot, let alone +landed shell after shell. He knew only that the men +sat in respectful, drawn-faced silence. He wondered if +they were not sorry for him, a preacher, who had fallen +so far from his circuit riding and feastings and meetings +in churches. It did not occur to him that these men +knew they were wicked, and that they were suffering +from his unintentional but overwhelming rebuke.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They turned away impatiently, and went in their +boats to the village landing across the river; a night’s +sport spoiled for them by the coming of a luck-breaking +parson. Others waited to hear more of what they knew +they needed, partly in amusement, partly in curiosity, +and partly because they liked the whiskery fellow who +was so interesting. At the same time, what he said +was stinging however inoffensive.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Game’s closed for the night!” Buck announced, +and the gamesters took their departure. They made +no protest, for it was not feasible to continue gambling +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span> +when everyone knows a parson brings bad luck to a +player.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The outside lights were extinguished, and Buck +brought Slip from the kitchen inside to Rasba.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“This is Slip,” Buck explained, and the two shook +hands, the fugitive staring anxiously at the other’s face, +expecting recognition.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Don’t yo’ know me, Parson?” Slip exclaimed. +“Jock Drones. Don’t yo’ know me?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Jock Drones?” Rasba cried, staring. “Why, Sho! +Hit is! Lawse—an’ I found yo’ right yeah—thisaway!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yassuh,” Jock turned away under that bright +gaze, “but I’m goin’ back, Parson! I’m goin’ back to +stand trial, suh! I neveh knowed any man, not a blood +relation would think so much of me, as to come way +down yeah to tell me my mammy, my good ole mammy, +wanted me to be safe––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“An’ good, Jock!” Rasba cried.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“An’ good, suh,” the young man added, obediently.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d better go over and see our sick man,” Buck +turned to Slip.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A sick man?” Rasba asked. “Where mout he be?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“In that other shanty-boat, that little boat,” Slip +exclaimed. “We’ll all go!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When they entered the little boat, which sagged +under their combined weights, Slip held the light so it +would shine on the cot.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Rasba exclaimed. “Hyar’s my friend who +got shot by a lady!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, suh, Parson!” Prebol grinned, feebly. “Seems +like I cayn’t get shut of yo’ nohow, but I’m shore glad +to see yo’. These yeah boys have took cyar of me +great. Same’s you done, Parson, but I wa’nt your kind, +swearin’ around, so I pulled out. Yo’ cayn’t he’p me +much, but likely—likely theh’s some yo’ kin.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d shore like to find them,” Rasba declared, +smoothing the man’s pillow. “But there’s not so +many I can he’p. Yo’ boys are tired; I’ll give him his +medicine till to’d mornin’. Yo’d jes’ soon, Prebol?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’d be friendly,” Prebol admitted. “Yo’ needn’t +to sit right yeah––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low I shall,” Rasba nodded. “I got some +readin’ to do. I’ll git my book, an’ come back an’ set +yeah!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He brought his Bible, and looking up to bid the two +good-night, he smiled.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s considerable wrestle, readin’ this yeah Book! +I neveh did git to understand hit, but likely I can git +to know some more now. I’ve had right smart of experiences, +lately, to he’p me git to know.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XX' id='CHAPTER_XX'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon possessed a newspaper man’s feeling +of aloofness and detachment. When he went +afloat on the Mississippi at St. Louis he had no +intention of becoming a part of the river phenomena, +and it did not occur to his mind that his position might +become that of a participator rather than an observer.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The great river was interesting. It had come to his +attention several years before, when he read Parkman’s +“La Salle,” and a little later he had read almost a column +account of a flood down the Mississippi. The +A. P. had collected items from St. Louis, Cincinnati, +Memphis, Cairo, Natchez, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, +and New Orleans, and fired them into the aloof East. +New York, Boston, Bangor, Utica, Albany, and other +important centres had learned for the first time that a +“levee”—whatever that might be—had suffered a +cravasse; a steamboat and some towbarges had been +wrecked, that Cairo was registering 63.3 on the gauge; +that some Negroes had been drowned; that cattle +thieves were operating in the Overflow, and so on and +so forth.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The combination of La Salle’s last adventure and +the Mississippi flood caught the fancy of the newspaper +man.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Shall I ever get out there?” Terabon asked himself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His dream was not of reporting wars, not of exploring +Africa, not of interviewing kings and making presidents +in a national convention. Far from it! His mind +caught at the suggestion of singing birds in their native +trees, and he could without regret think of spending +days with a magnifying glass, considering the ant, or +worshipping at the stalk of the flowering lily. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He was astonished, one day, to discover that he had +several hundred dollars in the Chambers Street Savings +Bank. It happened that the city editor called him to +the desk a few minutes later and said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Go see about this conference.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You go to hell!” the reporter replied, smilingly, +gently replacing the slip on the greenish desk.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“T-t-t-t-t––” Mr. Dekod sputtered. There <i>is</i> +something new under the sun!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Lester Terabon strolled forth with easy nonchalance, +and three days later he was in the office of the secretary +of the Mississippi River Commission, at St. Louis, +calmly inquiring into the duties and performance +thereof, involving the efforts of 100,000 Negroes, +40,000 mules, 500 contractors, 10,000 government +officials, a few hundred pieces of floating plant, and +sundry other things which Terabon had conceived were +of importance.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had approached the Mississippi River from the +human angle. He knew of no other way of approach. +His first view of the river, as he crossed the Merchants +Bridge, had not disturbed his equilibrium in the least, +and he had floated out of an eddy in a 16-foot skiff still +with the human-viewpoint approach.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then had begun a combat in his mind between all +his preconceived ideas and information and the river +realities. Faithfully, in the notebooks which he carried, +he put down the details of his mental disturbances.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>By the time he reached Island No. 10 sandbar he +had about resigned himself to the whimsicalities of +river living. He had, however, preserved his attitude +of aloofness and extraneousness. He regarded himself +as a visiting observer who would record the events in +which others had a part. It still pleased his fancy to +say that he was interviewing the Mississippi River +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span> +as he might interview the President of the United +States.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>But as Lester Terabon rowed his skiff back up the +eddy above New Madrid, and breasted the current in +the sweep of the reach to that little cabin-boat half a +mile above the Island No. 10 light, his attitude was +undergoing a conscious change. While he had been +reporting the Mississippi River in its varying moods +something had encircled him and grasped him, and was +holding him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For some time he had felt the change in his position; +glimmerings of its importance had appeared in his +notes; his mind had fought against it as a corruption, +lest it ruin the career which he had mapped out for +himself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When the New Madrid fish-dock man told him to +carry the warning that a “detector” was hunting for a +certain woman, and that the detective had gone on +down with some river fellows, his place as a river man +was assured. River folks trusted and used him as +they used themselves. Moreover, he was possessed of +a vital river secret.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia Crele, <i>alias</i> Nelia Carline, was the woman, +and they were both stopping over at the Island No. 10 +sandbar. He knew, what the fish-dock man probably +did not know, that the pursuer was the woman’s husband.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What’ll I tell her?” Terabon asked himself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>With that question he uncovered an unsuspected +depth to his feelings. It was a dark, dull day. The +waves rolled and fell back, sometimes the wind seeming +the stronger and then the current asserting its +weight. With the wind’s help over the stern, Terabon +swiftly passed the caving bend and landed in the +lee above the young woman’s boat. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He carried some things he had bought for her into +the kitchen and they sat in the cabin to read newspapers +and magazines which he had obtained.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I heard some news, too,” he told her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes? What news?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“The fish-dock man at New Madrid told me to tell +the people along that a detective has gone on down, +looking for a woman.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A detective looking for a woman?” she repeated.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A man the name of Carline––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh!” she shrugged her shoulders. “Why didn’t +you tell me!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He flushed. Almost an hour had elapsed since he had +returned. He had found it difficult to mention the +subject.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I did not tell you either,” he apologized, “that I +happened to meet Mr. Carline up at Island No. 8, when +I had no idea the good fortune would come to me +of meeting you, whose—whose pictures he showed me. +I could not—I saw––There was––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And you didn’t tell me,” she accused him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It seemed to me none of my affair. I’m a newspaper +man—I––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And did that excuse you from letting me know of +his—of that pursuit of me?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His newspaper impartiality had failed him, and he +hung his head in doubt and shame. She claimed, and +she deserved, his friendship; the last vestige of his pretence +of mere observation was torn from him. He +was a human among humans—and he had a fervid +if unexpected thought about the influence and exasperation +of the river out yonder.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I could not tell you!” he cried. “I didn’t think—it +seemed––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You know, then, you saw why I had left him?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Liquor!” he grasped at the excuse. “Oh, that was +plain enough.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Perhaps a woman could forgive liquor,” she suggested, +thoughtfully, “but not—not stupidity and +indifference. He never disturbed the dust on any of +the books of his library. Oh, what they meant my +books mean to me!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She turned and stared at her book shelves.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Suppose you hadn’t found books?” he asked, glad +of the opportunity for a diversion.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d be dead, I think,” she surmised, “and one day, I +did deliberately choose.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How was that?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Get your notebook!” she jeered. “I thought if +he was going to rely on the specious joys of liquor I +would, and tried it. It was a blizzard day last winter. +He had gone over to see the widow, and there was a +bottle of rum in the cupboard. I took some hot milk, +nutmeg, sugar, and rum. I’ve never felt so happy in +my life, except––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“With what exception?” he asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yesterday,” she answered, laughing, “and last +night and to-day! You see, I’m free now. I say and +do what I please. I don’t care any more. I’m perfectly +brazen. I don’t love you, but I like you very +much. You’re good company. I hope I am, too––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You are—splendid!” he cried, almost involuntarily, +and she shivered.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Let’s go walking again, will you?” she said. “I +want to get out in the wind; I want to have the sky +overhead, a sandbar under my feet, and all outdoors at +my command. You don’t mind, you’d like to go?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“To the earth’s end!” he replied, recklessly, and her +gay laugh showed how well he had pleased her mood.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They kept close up to the north side of the bar because +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span> +down the wind the sand was lifting and rolling +up in yellow clouds. They went to Winchester Chute, +and followed its winding course through the wood +patch. There was a slough of green water, with a +flock of ducks which left precipitately on their approach. +They returned down to the sandbar, and pressed their +way through the thick clump of small willows into the +switch willows and along the edge of the unbroken +desert of sand. They could see the very surface of the +bar rolling along before the wind, and as they walked +along they found their feet submerged in the blast.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>But when they arrived at the boat night was near at +hand, and the enveloping cold became more biting and +the gloom more depressing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Just when they had eaten their supper together, +and had seated themselves before the fire, and when +the whirl and whistle of the wind was heard in the mad +music of a river storm, a motorboat with its cut-out +open ploughed up the river through the dead eddy and +stopped to hail.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Jim Talum, a fisherman whose line of hoop nets filled +the reach of Island No. 9 for eight or ten miles, was on +his way to his tent which he had pitched at the head of +Winchester Chute.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He tramped aboard, and welcomed a seat by the fire.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“’Lowed I’d drap in a minute,” he declared. “Powerful +lonesome up on the chute where I got my tent. +Be’n runnin’ my traps down the bank, yeah, an’ along +of the chute, gettin’ rats. Yo’ trappin’?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, just tripping,” Terabon replied. “I was down +to New Madrid this morning.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m just up from there. Ho law! Theh’s one man +I’d hate to be down below. I expect yo’ve hearn tell +of them Despard riveh pirates? No! Well, they’ve +come drappin’ down ag’in, an’ they landed into New +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span> +Madrid yestehd’y evenin’. Likely they ’lowed to raid +some commissary down b’low—cayn’t tell what they did +’low to do. But they picked good pickin’s down theh! +Feller come down lookin’ fo’ a woman, hisn’s I expect. +Anyhow, he’s a strangeh on the riveh. He’s got a +nice power boat, an’ likely he’s got money. If he has, +good-bye! Them Despards’d kill a man for $10. +One of ’em, Hilt Despard’s onto the bo’t with him, pretendin’ +to be a sport, an’ they’ve drapped out. The rest +the gang’s jes’ waitin’ fo’ the wind to lay, down b’low, +an’ down by Plum P’int, some’rs, Mr. Man’ll sudden +come daid.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The fisherman had been alone so much that the pent-up +conversation of weeks flowed uninterruptedly. He +told details; he described the motorboat; he laughed at +the astonishment the man would feel when the pirates +disclosed their intentions with a bullet or knife; and he +expected, by and by, to hear the story of the tragedy +through the medium of some whiskey boater, some river +gossip coming up in a power boat.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For an hour he babbled and then, as precipitately as +he had arrived, he took his departure. When he was +gone, Nelia Crele turned to Terabon with helpless dismay. +Augustus Carline was worthless; he had been +faithless to her; he had inflicted sufferings beyond her +power of punishment or forgiveness.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But he’s looking for me!” she recapitulated, “and +he doesn’t know. He’s a fool, and they’ll kill him like a +rat! What can I do?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Obviously there was nothing that she could do, but +Lester Terabon rose instantly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d better drop down and see if I can’t help him—do +something. I know that crew.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ll do that for me!” her voice lifted in a cry of +thankfulness. “Oh, if you would, if you would. I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136' name='page_136'></a>136</span> +couldn’t think of his being—his being killed, trying to +find me. Get him; send him home!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d better start right down,” Terabon said, “it’s +sixty or seventy miles, anyhow. They’ll not hurry. +They can’t, for the gang’s in a shanty-boat.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She walked up to him with her arms raised.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How can I thank you?” she demanded. “You +do this for me—a stranger!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why not, if I can help?” he asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Where shall I see you again?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He brought in his book of river maps, and together +they looked down the tortuous stream; he rested the +tip of his pencil on Yankee Bar below Plum Point.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s a famous pirate resort, this twenty miles of +river!” he said. “I’ll wait at Fort Pillow Landing. Or +if you are ahead?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We’ll meet there!” she cried. “I’ll surely find you +there. Or at Mendova—surely at Mendova.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She followed him out on the bow deck.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Just a minute,” she whispered, “while I get used +to the thought of being alone again. I did not know +there were men like you who would rather do a favour +than ask for kisses.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It isn’t that we don’t like them!” he blurted out. +“It’s—it’s just that we’d rather deserve them and +not have them than have them and not deserve them!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She laughed. “Good-bye—and don’t forget, Fort +Pillow!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Does a man forget his meals?” he demanded, +lightly, and with his duffle packed low in his skiff he +rowed out into the gray river and the black night.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Having found a lee along the caving bank above +New Madrid he gain-speeded down the current behind +the sandbar, but when he turned the New Madrid +bend he pulled out into mid-river and with current and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span> +wind both behind him, followed the government lights +that showed the channel.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had expected to linger long down this historic +stretch of river with its Sunk Lands of the New Madrid +earthquakes, with its first glimpse of the cotton country, +and with its countless river phenomena.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“But Old Mississip’ has other ideas,” he said to himself, +and miles below he was wondering if and when +he would meet the girl of Island No. 10 again.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXI' id='CHAPTER_XXI'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Pirates have infested the Mississippi from the +earliest days. The stranger on the river cannot +possibly know a pirate when he sees one, and +even shanty-boaters of long experience and sharp eyes +penetrate their disguises with difficulty. How could +Gus Carline suspect the loquacious, ingratiating, and +helpful Renald Doss?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Lonely; pursued by doubts, ignorance, and a lurking +timidity, Carline was only too glad to take on a companion +who discoursed about all the river towns, called +river commissioners by their first names, knew all the +makes of motors, and called the depth of the water in +Point Pleasant crossing by reading the New Madrid +gauge.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He relinquished the wheel of his boat to the dapper +little man, and fed the motor more gas, or slowed down +to half speed, while he listened to volumes of river lore.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ve been landing along down?” Doss asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“All along,” Carline replied, “everywhere.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Seen anybody?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I should say so; there was a fellow come down +pretending to be a reporter. He stopped over with me, +got me full’s a tick, and then robbed me.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Eh—<i>he</i> robbed you?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir! He got me to drinking heavy. I like +my stew a little, but he fixed me. Then he just went +through me, but he didn’t get all I had, you bet!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>This was rich!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lucky he didn’t hit you on the head, and take the +boat, too!” Doss grinned.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I suppose so.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir! Lots of mean men on this river, they play +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span> +any old game. They say they’re preachers, or umbrella +menders, or anything. Every once in a while some +feller comes down, saying he’s off’n some magazine. +They come down in skiffs, mostly. It’s a great game +they play. Everybody tells ’em everything. If I +was going to be a crook, I bet I’d say I was a hist’ry +writer. I’d snoop around, and then I’d land—same’s +that feller landed on you. Get much?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Two—three hundred dollars!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The little man laughed in his throat. He handled +the boat like a river pilot. His eyes turned to the +banks, swept the sandbars, gazed into the coiling waters +alongside, and he whispered names of places as he +passed them—landings, bars, crossings, bends, and +even the plantations and log cuttings. He named the +three cotton gins in Tiptonville, and stared at the ferry +below town with a sidelong leer.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline would have been the most astonished man on +the Mississippi had he known that nearly all his money +was in the pockets of his guest. He babbled on, and +before he knew it, he was telling all about his wife running +away down the Mississippi.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What kind of a boat’s she in?” Doss asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t know.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How do you expect to find her if you don’t know the +boat?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why—why, somebody might know her; a woman +alone!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“She’s alone?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why—yes, sir. I heard so.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Good looker?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Without a word Carline handed the fellow a photograph. +Doss made no sign. For two minutes he +stared at that fine face.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I bet she’s got an awful temper,” he half whispered. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“She’s quick,” Carline admitted, fervently.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“She’d just soon shoot a man as look at him,” Doss +added, with a touch of asperity.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why—she––” Carline hesitated. He recalled +a day in his own experience when she took his own shot +gun from him, and stood a fury, flaming with anger.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir, she would,” Doss declared, with finality.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Doss had seen her. By that time a thousand shanty-boaters +had heard about that girl’s one shot of deadly +accuracy. The woman folks on a thousand miles of +reach and bend had had a bad example set before +them. Doss himself felt an anger which was impotent +against the woman who had shot Jest Prebold down. +Probably other women would take to shooting, right +off the bat, the same way. He despised that idea.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline, doubtful as to whether his wife was being +insulted, congratulated, or described, gazed at the photograph. +The more he looked, the more exasperated +he felt. She was a woman—what right had she to run +away and leave him with his honour impugned? He +felt as though he hadn’t taught her her place. At the +same time, when he looked at the picture, he discovered +a remembrance of his feeling that she was a very difficult +person to teach anything to. Her learning always +had insulted his own meagreness of information and +aptness in repartee. Next to not finding her, his big +worry had become finding her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They steered down the river without great haste. +Doss studied the shanty-boats which he saw moored +in the various eddies, large and small. Some he spoke +of casually, as store-boats, fishermen, market hunters, +or, as they passed between Caruthersville and the opposite +shore, a gambling boat. Even the river pirate, +gloating over his prey, and puzzled only as to the +method of making the most of his victim, could not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span> +penetrate the veil which it happened the Mississippi +River interposed between them and the river gambling +den—for the moment. There is no use seeking the +method of the river, nor endeavouring to discover the +processes by which the lives of thousands who go afloat +down the Mississippi are woven as woof and warp +in the fabric of river life and river mysteries. The +more faithful an effort to select one of the commonest +and simplest of river complications, the more improbable +and fanciful it must seem.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Doss, in intervals when he was not consciously registering +the smile of good humour, the generosity of an +experienced man toward the chance visitor, and the +willingness to defer to the gentleman from Up the Bank, +brought his expression unconsciously to the cold, rough +woodenness of blank insensitiveness—the malignance +of a snapping turtle, to mention a medium reptilian +face. A whim, and the necessity of delay, led Doss +to suggest that they take a look up the Obion River +as a likely hiding place. Of course, Doss knew best, +and they quit the tumbling Mississippi for the quiet +wooded aisle of the little river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When they emerged, two days later, Augustus Carline +could well thank his stars, though he did not know +it, that he was still on the boat. All unconscious of the +real nature and habits of river rats he had given the +little wretch a thousand opportunities to commit one +of the many crimes he had in mind. But he developed +a reluctance to choose the easiest one, when from hint +after hint he understood that a mere river piracy and +murder would be folly in view of the opportunity for a +more profitable stake which a man of means offered.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As he steered by the government boat which was +surveying Plum Point bars, Doss showed his teeth +like an indignant cat. Five or six miles below he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span> +offered the supine and helpless Carline the information:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“There’s Yankee Bar. We’ll swing wide and land +in below, so’s not to scare up any geese or ducks that +may be roosting there.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Eagerly Doss searched through the switch willows for +a glimpse of the setback of the water beyond the bar. +Away down in the old eddy he discovered a shanty-boat, +and to cover his involuntary exclamation of satisfaction +he said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Shucks! There’s somebody theh. I hoped we’d +have it to ourselves but they may be sports, too. If +they are, we’ll sure have a good time. Some of these +shanty-boaters are great sports. We’ll soon find out!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He steered into the eddy and the two men stepped +out on the flat boat’s deck to greet them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Seems like I’ve seen them before,” Doss said in a +low voice; “I believe they’re old timers. Hello, boys! +Hunting?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, suh! Lots of game. Sho, ain’ yo’ Doss, Ren +Doss?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You bet. I knew you! I told Mr. Carline, here, +that I knew you, that I’d seen you before! I’m glad +to see you boys again. Catch a line there.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No doubt about it, they were old friends. In a minute +they were shaking hands all around, then went +into the shanty-boat, and they sat down in assorted +chairs, and Doss, Jet, and Cope exchanged the gossip of +a river year.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline’s eyes searched about him with interest, +and the three men watched him more and more openly. +When he walked toward the bow of the boat, where the +slope of the yellow sand led up to the woods of Flower +Island, one of them casually left his seat and followed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline looked at the stand of guns in the cabin corner +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span> +and started with surprise. He reached and picked +up one of them to look at it.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why,” he shouted, “this is my shot gu––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No more. His light went out on the instant and he +felt that he was suspended in mid-air, poised between +the abyss and the heavens.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXII' id='CHAPTER_XXII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Fortune, or rather the Father of Waters, had +favoured Parson Elijah Rasba in the accomplishment +of his errand. It might not have +happened in a decade that he locate a fugitive within +a hundred miles of Cairo, where the Forks of the Ohio +is the jumping-off place of the stream of people from a +million square miles.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba knew it. The fervour of the prophets was in +his heart, and the light of understanding was brightening +in his mind. Something seemed to have caught +the doors of his intelligence and thrown them wide +open.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In the pent-up valleys of the mountains, with their +little streams, their little trails, their dull and hopeless +inhabitants, their wars begun in disputes over pigs and +abandoned peach orchards, their moonshine and hate of +government revenues, there had been no chance for +Parson Rasba to get things together in his mind.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The days and nights on the rivers had opened his +eyes. When he asked himself: “If this is the Mississippi, +what must the Jordan be?” he found a perspective.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Sitting there beside the wounded Jest Prebol, by +the light of a big table lamp, he “wrestled” with his +Bible the obscurities of which had long tormented his +ignorance and baffled his mental bondage.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The noises of the witches’ hours were in the air. +Wavelets splashed along the side and under the bow +of the Prebol shanty-boat. The mooring ropes stretched +audibly, and the timber heads to which they were +fastened squeaked and strained; the wind slapped and +hissed and whined on all sides, crackling through the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span> +heavy timber up the bank. The great river pouring +by seemed to have a low, deep growl while the wind in +the skies rumbled among the clouds.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No wonder Rasba could understand! He could +imagine anything if he did not hold fast to that great +Book which rested on his knees, but holding fast to it, +the whisperings and chucklings and hissings which filled +the river wilderness, and the deep tone of the flood, +the hollow roar of the passing storm, were but signs of +the necessity of faith in the presence of the mysteries.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So Rasba wrestled; so he grappled with the things +he must know, in the light of the things he did know. +And a kind of understanding which was also peace +comforted him. He closed the Book at last, and let +his mind drift whither it would.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Panoramas of the river, like pictures, unfolded before +his eyes; he remembered flashes taken of men, women, +and children; he dwelt for a time on the ruin of the +church up there in the valley, standing vainly against a +mountain slide; his face warmed, his eyes moistened. +His mind seized eagerly upon a vision of the memory, +the pretty woman, whose pistol had shot down the deluded +and now stricken wretch there in the cabin.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The anomaly of the fact that he was caring for her +victim was not lost on his shrewd understanding. He +was gathering up and helping patch the wreckage she +was making. It was a curious conceit, and Elijah +Rasba, while he smiled at the humour of it, was at the +same time conscious of its sad truth.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Her presence on the river meant no good for any one; +Prebol was but one of her victims; perhaps he was the +least unfortunate of them all! Others might perish +through her, while it was not too much to hope that +Prebol, through his sufferings, might be willing to profit +by their lesson. Rasba was glad that he had not overtaken +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span> +her that night of inexplicable pursuit. Her +brightness, her prettiness, her appeal had been irresistible +to him, and he could but acknowledge, while he +trembled at the fact, that for the time he had been +possessed by her enchantment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Thus he meditated and puzzled about the things +which, in his words, had come to pass. Before he knew +it, daylight had arrived, and Jock Drones came over to +greet him with “Good mo’nin’, Parson!” Prebol was +sleeping and there was colour in his cheeks, enough to +make them look more natural. When Doctor Grell +arrived, just as the three sat down to breakfast, he +cheered them with the information that Prebol was +coming through though the shadow had rested close to +him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>None of them admitted, even to himself, the strain +the wounded man had been and was on their nerves. +Under his seeming indifference Buck was near the +breaking point; Jock, victim of a thousand worries, +was bent under his burdens. Grell, having fought the +all-night fight for a human life, was still weak with +weariness from the effort. Rasba, a newcomer, brought +welcome reserves of endurance, assistance, and confidence.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ men shore have done yo’ duty by a man in +need,” he told them, and none of them could understand +why that truthful statement should make them +feel so very comfortable.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They left the sick man to go on board the gaming +boat, and they sat on the stern deck, where they +looked across the river and the levee to the roofs of +Caruthersville. If they looked at the horizon, their +attention was attracted and their gaze held by the +swirling of the river current. Their eyes could not be +drawn away from that tremendous motion, the rush of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span> +a thousand acres of surface; the senses were appalled by +the magnitude of its suggestion.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Going to play to-night?” Grell asked, uneasily.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No,” Buck replied, instantly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“So!” the doctor exclaimed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Slip’s going up on the steamboat.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“For good?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“So’m I!” Buck continued, breathlessly; “I’m quitting +the riveh, too! I’ve been down here a good many +years. I’ve been thinking. I’m going back. I’m +going up the bank again.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What’ll you do with the boat?” Grell continued.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Slip and I’ve been talking it all over. We’re +through with it. We guessed the Prophet, here, could +use it. We’re going to give it to him.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Going to give hit to me!” Rasba started up and +stared at the man.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, Parson; that poplar boat of yours isn’t what +you need down here.” Buck smiled. “This big pine +boat’s better; you could preach in this boat.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Tears started in Rasba’s eyes and dripped through +his dark whiskers. Buck and Jock had acted with the +impulsiveness of gambling men. Something in the +fact that Rasba had come down those strange miles +had touched them, had given Drones courage to go +back and face the music, and to Buck the desire to return +into his old life.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We’re going up on the <i>Kate</i> to-morrow morning,” +Buck explained. “Slip’d better show you how to run the +gasolene boat if you don’t know how, Parson!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Dazed by the access of fortune, Rasba spent the mid-afternoon +learning to run the 28-foot gasolene launch +which was used to tow the big houseboat which would +make such a wonderful floating church. It was a big +boat only a little more than two years old. Buck had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span> +made it himself, on the Upper Mississippi, for a gambling +boat. The frame was light, and the cabin was built +with double boards, with building paper between, to +keep out the cold wintry winds.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Gentlemen,” Rasba choked, looking at the two +donors of the gift, “I’m going to be the best kind of a +man I know how––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s your job to be a parson,” Buck laughed. “If +it wasn’t for men like us, that need reforming, you’d +be up against it for something to look out for. You +aren’t much used to the river, and I’ll suggest that when +you drop down you land in eddies sheltered from the +west and south winds. They sure do tear things up +sometimes. I’ve had the roof tore off a boat I was in, +and I saw sixty-three boats sunk at Cairo’s Kentucky +shanty-boat town one morning after a big wind.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll keep a-lookin’,” Rasba assured him, “but I’ve +kind-a lost the which-way down heah. One day I had +the sun ahead, behind, and both sides––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“There’s maps in that pile of stuff in the corner,” +Buck said, going to the duffle. “You’re on Sheet 4 +now. Here’s Caruthersville.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh. Those red lines?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“The new survey. You see, that sandbar up in +Little Prairie Bend has cut loose from Island No. 15, +and moved down three miles, and we’re at the foot of +this bar, here. That’s moved down, too, and that +big bar down there was made between the surveys. You +see, they had to move the levee back, and Caruthersville +moved over the new levee––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Rasba gasped. “What ails this old riveh?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“She jes’ wriggles, same’s water into a muddy road +downhill,” Kippy laughed. “Up there in Little +Prairie Bend hit’s caved right through the old levee, and +they had to loop around. Now they’ve reveted it.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Reveted?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They’ve woven a willow mattress and weighted it +down with broken rock from up the river—more than +a mile of it, now, and they’ll have to put down another +mile before they can head the river off there.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Put a carpet down. How wide?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Four hundred feet probably––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“An’ a mile long!” Rasba whispered, awed. “Every +thing’s big on the riveh!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir—that’s it—big!” Buck laughed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Thus the four gossiped, and when Doctor Grell had +taken his departure the three talked together about +the river and its wonders. At intervals they went +over to look after Prebol whose chief requirement was +quiet, meat broths, and his medicines.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As night drew down Drones turned to Buck:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s goin’ to be hard leaving the riveh! I neveh will +forget, Buck. If I’m sent to jail for all my life, I’ll +have something to remember. If they hang me, I +shore will come back to walk with those that walk in +the middle of the river.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What’s that?” Rasba turned and demanded.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Riveh folks believe that thousands of people who +died down thisaway, sunk in snagged steamers, caught +in burned-up boats, blown to kingdom come in boiler +explosions, those that have been murdered, and who +died along the banks, keep a-goin’ up and down.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Rasba exclaimed. “Yo’ b’lieve that?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A man believes a heap more after he’s tripped the +riveh once or twice, than he ever believed in all his +borned days, eh, Buck?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“It’s so!” Buck cried out. “Last night I was thinking +that I’d wasted my life down here; years and years +I’ve been a shanty-boater, drifter, fisherman, trapper, +market hunter, and late years, I’ve gambled. I’ve +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span> +been getting in bad, worse all the while. The Prophet +here, coming along, seemed to wake me up—the man I +used to be—I mean. It wasn’t so much what you said, +Parson, but your being here. Then I’ve been thinking +all over again. I’ve an idea, boys, that when I go +back up to-morrow I won’t be so sorry for what I’ve +been, as glad that I didn’t grow worse than I did. It +won’t be easy, boys—going back. I’m taking the old +river with me, though. I’ve framed its bends and islands, +its chutes and reaches, like pictures in my mind. +Old Parson here, too, coming in on us the way he did, +saying that this was hell, but he’d come here to live +in it. That’s what waked me up, Parson! I could see +how you felt. You’d never seen such a place before, +but you said in your heart and your eyes showed it, +Parson, that you would leave God’s country to help +us poor devils. It’s just a point of view, though. I’m +going right up to my particular hell, and I’ll look back +here to this thousand miles of river as heaven. Yes, +sir! But my job is up there—in that hell!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So they talked, and always their thoughts were on +the river channel, and their minds groping into the future.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When the <i>Kate</i> whistled way down at Bell’s Landing, +Rasba took the two across to Caruthersville and bade +them good-bye at the landing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The <i>Kate</i> pulled out and Parson Rasba crossed to +the three houseboats, two of them his own. He +went in to see Prebol, who was lonesome and wanted to +talk a little.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What you going to do, Parson?” Prebol asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d kind-a like to get to see shanty-boaters, and talk +to them,” the man answered. “I wonder couldn’t yo’ +sort of he’p me; tell me where I mout begin and where +it’d he’p the most, an’ hurt people’s feelin’s the least? +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span> +I’d jes’ kind-a like to be useful. Course, I got to get +you cured up an’ took cyar of first.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I cayn’t say much about being pious on Old Mississip’,” +Prebol grinned, “but theh’s two ways of findin’ +trouble. One’s to set still long enough, and then, +again, you can go lookin’ fo’ hit. Course, yo’ know me! +I’ve hunted trouble pretty fresh, an’ I’ve found hit, +an’ I’ve lived onto hit. I cayn’t he’p much about doin’ +good, an’ missionaryin’, an’ River Prophetin’.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When Prebol’s voice showed the strain of talking +Rasba bade him rest. Then he went over to the big +boat, a gift that would have sold for $1,000. He looked +at the crap table, the little poker tables with the brass-slot +kitties; he stared at the cabinet of cards and dice.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“All mine!” he said.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He walked out on the deck where he could commune +with the river, using his eyes, his ears, and the feeling +that the warm afternoon gave him. The sun shone +upon him, and made a narrow pathway across the +rushing torrent. The sky was blue and cloudless. +Of the cold, the wind, the sea of liquid mud, not one +trace remained.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He looked down and up the river, and his eyes caught +a flicker which became a flutter, like the agitation of a +duck preening its feathers on a smooth surface.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He watched it for a long time. He did not know +what it was. As a river man, his curiosity was excited, +but there was something more than mere curiosity; +the river instinct that the inexplicable and unknown +should be watched and inquired into moved him almost +unconsciously to watch that distant agitation which +became a dot afloat in a mirage of light. A little later a +sudden flash along the river surface disclosed that the +thing was a shanty-boat turning in the coiling currents +at the bend. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The sun drew nearer the tree tops. The little cabin-boat +was seeking a place to land or anchor for the night. +If it was an old river man, the boat would drop into +some little eddy at Caruthersville or down below; but a +stranger on the river would likely shoot across into the +gamblers’ eddy tempted, perhaps, by the three boats +already there.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The boat drew swiftly near, and as it ran down, the +navigator rowed to make the shanty-boat eddy. Parson +Rasba discovered that it was a woman at the +sweeps, and a few strokes later he knew that it was +a slim, young woman. When she coasted down outside +the eddy, to swing in at the foot, and arrived opposite +him, he recognized her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“God he’p me!” he choked, “hit’s Missy Nelia. +Hit’s Missy Nelia! An’ she’s a runned away married +woman—an’ theh’s the man she shot!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hello-o, Parson!” she hailed him, “did you see a +skiff with a reporter man drop by?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, missy!” he shook his head, his heart giving a +painful thump</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m a-landing in, Parson!” she cried. “I want to +talk with you!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>With that she leaned forward, drove the sweeps +deep, and her boat started in like a skiff. It seemed to +Parson Rasba that he had never seen a more beautiful +picture in all his days.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIII' id='CHAPTER_XXIII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Lester Terabon rowed down the rolling river +waters in the dark night. He had, of course, +looked out into the Mississippi shades from the +security of landing, anchorage, and sandbar; he knew +the looks of the night but not the activities of currents +and bends when a gale is sweeping by and the air is, by +turns, penetrated by the hissing of darting whitecaps +and the roar of the blustering winds.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He would not from choice have selected a night of +gale for a pull down the Mississippi, and his first sensation +as he sought a storm wave stroke was one of doubt. +What dangers might engulf him was not plain, not the +waves, for his skiff bobbed and rocked over them; not +river pirates bent on plunder, for they could not see +him; perhaps a snag in the shallows of a crossing; perhaps +the leap of a sawyer, a great tree trunk with +branches fast in the mud and the roots bounding up +and down in the current; perhaps a collision with some +other craft.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had salt-water rowlocks on his boat, open-topped +“U” sockets, and the oars he used were cased with a +foot of black leather and collars of leather strips; the +tips were covered with copper sheets which gave +them weight and balance. At first he pulled awkwardly, +catching crabs in the hollows and backing into +the heft of the waves, but after a time he felt the +waves as they came, and the oars feathered and caught. +While he watched ahead and searched the black horizon +for the distant sparkle of government lights, he fell into +the swing of his stroke before he knew it, and he was +interested and surprised to observe that he swayed to the +side-wash while he pulled to the rhythm of the waves. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The government lights guided him. He had not paid +much attention to them before; he had seen their white +post standards as he dropped down, day after day, but +his skiff, drawing only five inches of water, passed over +the shallowest crossings and along the most gradually +sloping sandbars. Now he must keep to the deep +water, follow the majestic curves and sweeps of the +meandering channel, lest he collide with a boiling +eddy, ram the shore line of sunken trees, or climb the +point of a towhead.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was all a new experience, and its novelty compelled +him at times to pause in his efforts to jot down a few +hasty words by light of a little electric flash to preserve +in his memory the sequence of the constantly varying +features of the night, beginning with the curtain of the +shanty-boat which flicked its good luck after him, +passing the bright, clear lights of New Madrid. After +leaving far behind their glow against the thin haze in +the night he “made” the scattered shoals of Point +Pleasant, and hugged down vanishing Ruddles Point, +taking a glimpse of Tiptonville—which withdraws +year by year from the fatal caving brink of its site—wishing +as he passed that he might return to that +strange place and visit Reelfoot Lake three or four miles +beyond, where the New Madrid earthquakes drowned a +forest whose dead stubs rise as monuments to the +tragedy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In Little Cypress Bend, twenty-five miles below +where he had left the young woman, he heard the +splash and thud of a caving bank, and felt the big +rollers from the falling earth twisting and tumbling +him about for a third of a mile.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was after 1 o’clock when he looked at his watch. +He was beginning to feel the pull on his shoulders, and +the crick which constantly looking over his shoulder +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span> +to see the lights ahead caused him. The dulness of +his vision, due to inevitable fatigue, compelled him constantly +to sit more alert and dash away the fine spray +which whipped up from the waves. A feeling of listlessness +overpowered him. He could not row on +forever, without resting at all. Taking advantage of a +moment of calm in the wind, he pulled the bow around +and drifted down stern first.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had lost track of his position; he had not counted +the lights, and now for many miles there was no town +distinguishable. He had felt the loneliness of a mile-breadth; +now he wondered whether he was in Missouri +or Arkansas, whether he had come forty miles or +eighty, and after a little he began to worry for fear he +might have gone more than a hundred.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>With the wind astern or nearly astern, he knew that +he had pulled four or five miles an hour, and he did +not know how fast the current of the river ran; it might +be four miles or eight miles. In ten hours he might +leave more than a hundred miles of river bank behind +him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A new sensation began to possess him: the feeling +that he was not alone. He looked around, while he +rested trying to find what proximity thus affected him. +The wind? Those dull banks, seemingly so distant? +Perhaps some fellow traveller? It was none of those +things.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was the river! The “feel” of the flood was that +of a person. He could not shake off the sensation, +which seemed absurd. He shook his head resolutely +and then searched through the gloom to discover +what eyes might be shining in it. He saw the inevitable +government lights between which was deep water +and a safe channel. He had but to keep on the line +between the lights, cutting across when he spied another +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span> +one far ahead. The lights but accentuated the certainty +that on all sides, but a little way from him, a +host of invisible beings speculated on his presence and +influenced his course.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A newspaper man of much experience could not help +but protest in his practical mind against such a determination +of the invisible and the unknown to give him +such nonsensical ideas. He had in play, in intellectual +persiflage, and with some show of traditional reasonableness, +called Nelia Crele “a river goddess.” She was +very well placed in his mind—a reckless woman, pretty, +with a fine character for a masterpiece of fiction (should +he ever get to the story-writing stage) and a delight to +think about; commanding, too, mysterious and exacting; +and now he thought it might be the laughter of her +voice that carried in the wind, not a mocking laugh, +nor a jeering one, but one of sweet encouragement which +neither distance nor circumstances could dismiss from +a distressed and reluctant heart, let alone a heart so +willing to receive as his.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Lester Terabon accepted the possibility of river lore +and proclaimed beliefs. Fishermen, store-boaters, trippers, +pirates, and all sorts of the shanty-boaters whom +he had interviewed on his way down had solemnly +assured him that there were spirits who promenaded +down mid-stream, and who sometimes could be seen.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon was sorry when his cool, calculating mind +refused to believe his eyes, which saw shapes; his flesh, +which felt creeps; his ears, which heard voices; and his +nostrils, which caught a whiff of a faint, sweet perfume +more exquisite than any which he remembered. +He knew that when he had kissed the river goddess +whose eyes were blue, whose flesh was fair, whose grace +was lovely, he had tasted that nectar and sniffed that +ambrosia. He wondered if she were near him, watching +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span> +to see whether he performed well the task which +she had set for him, the rescue of the husband who had +forfeited her love, and yet who still was under her protection +since in his indignant sorrow he had supposed +himself capable of finding and retaining her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon would have liked nothing better than to believe +what the Grecians used to believe, that goddesses +and gods do come down to the earth to mingle among +mankind. He fought the impossibility with his reason, +and night winds laughed at him, while the voices +of the waves chuckled at his predicament. They assailed +him with their presence like living things, and +then roared away to give room to new voices and new +presences.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Anyhow,” Terabon laughed, in spite of himself, +“you’re good company, Old Mississip’!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Yet he felt the chilling and depressing possibility +that he might never again see that woman who would +remain as a “river goddess” in his imagination. He +had been heart-free, a bystander in the world’s affairs. +Now he knew what it was to see the memory of a woman +rise unbidden to disturb his calculations; more +than that, too, he was a part of the affairs of the River +People.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As a reporter “back home” he had never been able +quite to reconcile himself to his constant position as a +spectator, a neutral observer, obliged to write news +without feeling and impartially. A politician could +look him in the eye and tell him any smooth lie, and +he could not, with white heat, deny the statement. +He could not rise with his own strength to champion +the cause of what he knew to be right against wrong; +he could not elaborate on the details of things that he +felt most interested in, but must consult the fancies of a +not-particularly discriminating public, whose average +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span> +intelligence, according to some learned students, must +be placed at seventeen-years plus. As he was twenty-four +plus, Terabon was immensely discouraged with the +public when he had set forth down the Mississippi.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Now he was on the way from a river goddess to interfere +with the infamous plans of river pirates, through +a dry gale out of the north, on the winding course of the +Mississippi, a transition which troubled the self-possession +while it awakened the spirit of the young man.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Dawn broke on the troubled river, and the prospect +was enchanting to the heroic in the mind of the skiff-tripper. +He could not be sure which was east or west, +for the gray light appeared on all sides, in spots and +patches of varying size. No gleam reflected from the +yellow clay of the tumbling and tortured waters. As +far as he could see there was light, but not a bright +light. Dull purples, muddy waters, gray tree trunks, +black limbs against dark clouds; Terabon felt the weariness +of a desert, the melancholy of a wet, dripping-tree +wilderness, and of a tumbling waste of waters; and yet +never had the solid body of the stream been so awe-inspiring +as in that hour of creeping and insinuating +dawn.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He ran out into the main river again, and a wonderful +prospect opened before his eyes. Sandbars spread +out for miles across the river and lengthwise of the +river; the bulk of the stream seemed broken up into +channels and chutes and wandering waterways. He +saw column after column of lines of spiles, like black +teeth, through which the water broke with protesting +foam.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When he thought to reckon up, as he passed Osceola +Bar, he found that he had come ninety-five miles. +Yankee Bar was only five or six miles below him, and +he eagerly pulled down to inspect the long beaches, the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span> +chutes and channels, which the river pirates had used +for not less than 150 years; where they still had their +rendezvous.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Wild ducks and geese were there in many flocks. +There were waters sheltered from the wind by willow +patches. The woods of Plum Point Peninsula were +heavy and dark. The river main current slashed +down the miles upon miles of Craighead Point, and +shot across to impinge upon Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1, +where a made dirt bank was silhouetted against the sky.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Not until his binoculars rested upon the bar at the +foot of Fort Pillow Bluff did Terabon’s eyes discover +any human beings, and then he saw a white houseboat +with a red hull. He headed toward it to ask the familiar +river question.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, suh!” the lank, sharp-eyed fisherman shook +his head. “Theh’s no motorboat landed up theh, not +this week. Who all mout you be?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lester Terabon; I’m a newspaper writer; I live in +New York; I came down the Mississippi looking for +things to tell about in the newspapers. You see, lots +of people hardly know there’s a Mississippi River, and +it’s the most interesting place I ever heard of.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Terabon? I expect you all’s the feller Whiskey +Williams was tellin’ about; yo’n a feller name of Carline +was up by No. 8. He said yo’ had one of them +writin’ machines right into a skift. Sho! An’ yo’ +have! The woman an’ me’d jes’ love to see yo’ all +use hit.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ll see me,” Terabon laughed, “if you’ll let me +sit by your stove. I’ve some writing I could do. Here’s +a goose for dinner, too.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho! The woman shore will love to cook that +goose! I’m a fisherman but no hunter. ’Tain’t +of’en we git a roast bird!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So Terabon sat by the stove, writing. He wrote +for more than an hour—everything he could remember, +with the aid of his pencilled midnight notes, about that +long run down. With his maps before him he recognized +the bends and reaches, the sandbars and islands +which had loomed up in the dark. Of all the parts of +the river, the hundred miles from Island No. 10 down +to Fort Pillow became the most familiar to his thoughts, +black though the night had been. Even each government +light began to have characteristics, and the sky-line +of levee, wilderness, sandbar, and caving bank grew +more and more defined.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Having written his notes, and Jeff Slamey having +fingered the nine loose-leaf sheets with exclamatory +interest and delight, Terabon said he must go rest +awhile.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh,” the fisherman cried, “when a man’s +pulled a hundred mile he shore needs sleep. When +the woman’s got that goose cooked, I bet yo’ll be ready +to eat, too.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So Terabon turned in to sleep. He was awakened +at last by the sizzling of a goose getting its final +basting. He started up, and Slamey said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s ready. I bet yo’ feel betteh, now; six hours +asleep!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It didn’t seem like six minutes of dreamless recreation.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>With night the wind fell. The flood of sunset brilliance +spread down the radiant sandbars and the +bright waterways. The trees were plated with silver +and gold, and the sweep of the caving bend was a dark +shadow against which the river current swept with +ceaseless attack.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For hours that night Terabon amused his host +with his adventures, except that he made but most casual +mention of the woman whom Carline was seeking. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span> +He was cautious, too, about the motorboat and +the companion who had taken Carline down the river, +till Slamey burst out:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I know that feller. He’s a bad man; he’s a river +rat. If he don’t kill Gus Carline, I don’t know these +yeah riveh fellers. They use down thisaway every +winter. I know; I know them all. I leave them alone, +an’ they leave me alone. I knew they was comin’. +They got three four boats now. One feller, name of +Prebol—he’s bad, too—was shot by a lady above +Cairo. He’s with a coupla gamblers to Caruthersville +now. Everybody stops yeah; I know everybody; +everybody knows me.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The next day was calm all day long, and Terabon +went up the bank to shoot squirrels or other woods +game; he went almost up to the Plum Point, killed +several head of game, and rejoiced in the bayous and +sloughs and chutes of a changing land.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The following morning he was hailed by Slamey:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hi—i, Terabon! Theh’s a shanty-boat up the +head of Flower Island Bar jes’ drappin’ in. They’ve +floated down all night!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Through his glasses Terabon saw two men walking +a shanty-boat across the dead water below Yankee +Lower Bar to the mainland.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They were too far away for him to distinguish their +personalities, but one was a tall, active man, the other +obviously chunky, and when they ran their lines out +and made fast to half-buried snags, it was with the quick +decision of men used to work against currents and to +unison of effort. There was something suggestive in +their bearing, their scrutiny up and down the river, +their standing close to each other as they talked. +If Terabon had not suspected them of being pirates, +their attitude and actions would have betrayed them. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon, after a little while, pulled up the eddy +toward them; he was willing to take a long chance. +Few men resent a newspaper man’s presence. The +worst of them like to put themselves, their ideas, +right with the world. Terabon risked their knavery to +win their approbation. Come what might, he would +seek to save Augustus Carline from the consequences +of his ignorance, money, folly, and remorse.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIV' id='CHAPTER_XXIV'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The flow of the Mississippi River is down stream—a +perfectly absurd and trite statement at +first thought. On second thought, one reverts +to the people who are always trying to fight their way +up that adverse current, with the thrust of two miles +perpendicular descent and the body of a thousand +storms in its rush.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There are steamers which endeavour to stem the +current, but they make scant headway; sometimes a +fugitive afraid of the rails will pull up stream; the +birds do fly with the spring winds against the retreat +of winter; but all these things are trifles, and merely +accentuate the fact that everything goes down.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The sandbars are not fixed, they are literally rivers +of sand flowing down, tormenting the current, and keeping +human beings speculating on their probable course +and the effect, when after a few years on a point, they +disappear under the water. Later they will lunge up +and out into the wind again, gallumphing along, some +coarse gravel bars, some yellow sand, some white sand, +some fine quicksand, some gritty mud, and others of +mud almost fit to use in polishing silver.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Thousands of people in shanty-boats, skiff’s, fancy +little yachts, and jon-boats, rag-shacks on rafts, and serviceable +cruisers drift down with the flood, and are a +part of it.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Autumn was passing; most of the birds had speeded +south when the wild geese brought the alarm that a cold +norther was coming. When the storm had gone by, +shanty-boaters, having shivered with the cold, determined +not to be caught again. The sunshine of the +evening, when the wind died, saw boats drifting out for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164' name='page_164'></a>164</span> +the all-night run. Dawn, calm and serene, found +boats moving out into mid-channel more or less in +haste.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So they floated down, sometimes within a few hundred +feet of other boats, sometimes in merry fleets tied +together by ropes and common joyousness, sometimes +alone in the midst of the vacant waters. The migration +of the shanty-boaters was watched with mingled hate, +envy, and admiration by Up-the-Bank folks, who pretend +to despise those who live as they please.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>And Nelia Carline pulled out into the current and +followed her river friend, Lester Terabon, who had gone +on ahead to save her husband from the river pirates. +She despised her husband more as she let her mind +dwell on the man who had shown no common frailties +while he did enjoy a comradeship which included the +charm of a pretty woman, recognizing her equality, +and not permitting her to forget for a moment that he +knew she was lovely, as well as intelligent.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She had not noticed that fact so much at the time, as +afterward, when she subjected him to the merciless +scrutiny of a woman who has heretofore discovered in +men only depravity, ignorance, selfishness, or brutality. +Her first thought had been to use Terabon, play with +him, and, if she could, hurt him. She knew that there +were men who go about plaguing women, and as she +subjected herself to grim analysis, she realized that in +her disappointment and humiliation she would have +hurt, while she hated, men.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The long hours down the river, in pleasant sunshine, +with only an occasional stroke of the oar to set the boat +around broadside to the current, enabled her to sit +on the bow of her boat and have it out with herself. +She had never had time to think. Things crowded her +Up-the-Bank. Now she had all the time in the world, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span> +and she used that time. She brought out her familiar +books and compared the masters with her own mind. +She could do it—there.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Ruskin, Carlyle, Old Mississip’, Plato, Plutarch, +Thoreau, the Bible, Shelley, Byron, and I, all together, +dropping down,” she chuckled, catching her breath. +“I’m tripping down in that company. And there’s +Terabon. He’s a good sport, too, and he’ll be better +when I’ve—when I’ve caught him.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon was just a raw young man as regards women. +He might flatter himself that he knew her sex, +and that he could maintain a pose of writing her into +his notebooks, but she knew. She had seen stunned +and helpless youth as she brought into play those subtle +arts which had wrenched from his reluctant and fearful +soul the kiss which he thought he had asked for, and +the phrase of the river goddess, which he thought +he had invented. She laughed, for she had realized, +as she acted, that he would put into words the subtle +name for which she had played.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It all seemed so easy now that she considered the sequence +of her inspired moves. Drifting near another +shanty-boat, she passed the time of day with a runaway +couple who had come down the Ohio. They had dinner +together on their boat. A solitaire and an unscarred +wedding ring attested to the respectability of the association.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Larry’s a river drifter,” the girl explained, “and +Daddy’s one of those set old fellows who hate the +river. But Mamma knew it was all right. Larry’s +saved $7,000 in three years. He’d never tell me that +till I married him, but I knew. We’re going clear down +to N’Orleans. Are you?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Probably.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And all alone—aren’t you afraid?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166' name='page_166'></a>166</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, I’ll be all right, won’t I?” She looked at the +stern-featured youth.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If you can shoot and don’t care,” Larry replied +without a smile.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I can shoot,” Nelia said, showing her pistol.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s river Law!” Larry cried, smiling. “That’s +Law. You came out the Upper River?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes,” she nodded.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Then I bet––” the girl-wife started to speak, +but stopped, blushing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes,” Nelia smiled a hard smile. “I’m the woman +who shot Prebol above Buffalo Island—I had to.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You did right; men always respect a lady if she +don’t care who she shoots,” Larry cried, enthusiastically. +“Wish you’d get my wife to learn how to +shoot. She’s gun shy!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So Nelia coaxed the little wife to shoot, first the 22-calibre +repeating rifle and then the pistol. When +Nelia had to go down they parted good friends and +Larry thanked her, saying that probably they would +meet down below somewhere.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ll make Caruthersville,” Larry told her. +“There’s a good eddy on the east side across from the +town. There’s likely some boats in there. They’ll +know, perhaps, if the folks you are looking for are +around. There’s an old river man there now, name of +Buck. He’s a gambler, but he’s all right, and he’ll +treat you all right. He’s from up in our country, on +the Ohio. Hardly anybody knows about him. He was +always a dandy fellow, but he married a woman that +wasn’t fit to drink his coffee. She bothered the life +out of him, and—well, he squared up. He gave her +to the other fellow with a double-barrelled shotgun.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When Nelia ran down to the gambling boat and +found Parson Rasba there, she enjoyed the idea. Certainly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span> +the River Prophet and the river gambler were an +interesting combination. She was not prepared to +find that Buck had taken his departure and that Parson +Rasba was converting the gambling hell into a mission +boat. Least of all was she prepared when Parson Rasba +said with an unsteady voice:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Theh’s a man sick in that other boat, and likely +he’d like to see somebody.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, if there’s anything I can do!” she exclaimed, as +a woman does.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He led the way to the brick-red little boat, the like +of which could be found in a thousand river eddies. +She followed him on board and over to the bed. There +she looked into the wan countenance and startled +eyes of Jest Prebol.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s Mister Prebol,” Rasba said. “I know you +have no hard feelings against him, and I know he has +none against you, Missy Carline!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>An introduction to a contrite river pirate, whom she +had shot, for the moment rendered the young woman +speechless. Prebol was less at loss for words.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m glad to git to see yo’,” he said, feebly. “If +I’d knowed yo’, I shore would have minded my own +business. I’m bad, Missy Carline, but I ain’ mean—not +much. Leastwise, not about women. I reckon +the boys shore will let yo’ be now. I made a mistake, +an’ I ’low to ’pologise to yo’.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I was—I was scairt to death,” she cried, sitting +in a chair. “I was all alone. I was afraid—the +river was so big that night. I was so far away. I +should have given you fair warning. I’m sorry, too, +Jest.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lawse!” Prebol choked. “Say hit thataway +ag’in––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m sorry, too, Jest!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168' name='page_168'></a>168</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I cayn’t thank yo’ all enough,” the man-whispered. +“I’ve got friends along down the riveh. I’ll +send word along to them, they’ll shore treat yo’ nice. +Treat friends of yourn nice, too. Huh! ’Pologizin’ +to me afteh what I ’lowed to do!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We’ll be good friends, Jest. The Prophet here +and I are good friends, too. Aren’t we, Parson?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I hearn say, Missy,” the Prophet said, slowly, +picking his words, “I hearn say you’ve a power and a +heap of book learning! Books on yo’ boat, all kinds. +What favoured yo’ thataway?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, I read lots!” she exclaimed, surprised by the +sudden shift of thought. “Somehow, I’ve read lots!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“In my house I had a Bible, an almanac, and the +‘Resources of Tennessee,’ Yo’ have that many +books?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, I’ve a hundred—more than a hundred +books!” she answered.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A Bible?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Would you mind, Missy, comin’ on board this boat +to-night, an’ tellin’ us about these books you have? +I’m not educated; my daddy an’ I read the Bible, +an’ tried to understand hit. Seems like we neveh did +git to know the biggest and bestest of the words.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You had a dictionary?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A which?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A dictionary, a book that explains the meaning +of all the words!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Ho law! A book that tells what words mean, Missy. +Where all kin a man git to find one of them books?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, I’ve got––I’m hungry, Mr. Rasba, I must +get something to eat. After supper we’ll bring some +books over here and talk about them!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“My supper is all ready, keeping warm in the oven,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span> +Rasba said. “I always cook enough for one more +than there is. Yo’ know, a vacant chair at the table +for the Stranger.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And I came?” she laughed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“An’ yo’ came, Missy!” he replied.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Parson,” Prebol pleaded, “I’m alone mos’ the +time. Mout yo’ two eat hyar on my bo’t? The table—hit’d +be comp’ny.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Certainly we’ll come,” Nelia promised, “if he’d +just soon.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d rather,” Rasba assented, and at his tone Nelia +felt a curious sensation of pity and mischievousness. +At the same time, she recovered her self-possession. +She demanded that Rasba let her help him bring over +the supper, add a feminine relish, and set the table +with a daintiness which was an addition to the fascination +of her presence. Gaily she fed Prebol the delicate +things which he was permitted to eat, then sat down +with Rasba, her face to the light, and Prebol could +watch her bantering, teasing, teaching Parson Rasba +things he had never known he lacked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After supper she brought over a basket full of books, +twenty volumes. She dumped them onto the table, +leather, cloth, and board covers, of red, blue, gray, +brown, and other gay colours. Parson Rasba had seen +government documents and even some magazines with +picture covers, but in the mountains where he had ridden +his Big Circuit with such a disastrous end he had never +seen such books. He hesitated to touch one; he cried out +when three or four slipped off the pile onto the floor.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Missy, won’t they git muddied up!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They’re to read!” she told him. “Listen,” and +she began to read—poetry, prose at random.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The Prophet did not know, he had never been trained +to know—as few men ever are trained—how to combat +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span> +feminine malice and spoiled power. He listened, +but not with averted eyes. Prebol, himself a spectator +at a scene different from any he had ever witnessed, +was still enough more sophisticated to know what she +was doing, and he was delighted.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>By and by the injured man drifted into slumber, +but Rasba gave no sign of flagging interest, no traces +of a mind astray from the subject at hand. He felt +that he must make the most of this revelation, which +came after the countless revelations which he had had +since arriving down the river. There was a fear +clutching at his heart that it might end; that in a moment +this woman might depart and leave him unenlightened, +and unable ever to find for himself the unimaginable +world of words which she plucked out of those +books and pinned into the great vacant spaces of his +mind which he had kept empty all these years—not +knowing that he was waiting for this night, when he +should have the Mississippi bring into his eddy, alongside +his own mission boat, what he most needed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He sat there, a great, pathetic figure, shaggy, his +heart thumping, taking from this trim, neat, beautiful +woman the riches which she so casually, almost wantonly, +threw to him in passing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The corridors of his mind echoed to the tread of hosts; +he heard the rumblings of history, the songs of poets +whose words are pitched to the music of the skies, and +he hung word pictures which Ruskin had painted in his +imagination.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Fate had waited long to give him this night. It had +waited till the man was ready, then with a lavish hand +the storehouses of the master intellects of the world +were opened to him, for him to help himself. Nelia +suddenly started up from her chair and looked around, +herself the victim of her own raillery, which had grown +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span> +to be an understanding of the pathetic hunger of the +man for these things.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was daylight, and the flood of the sunrise was at hand.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Parson,” she said, “do you like these things—these +books?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Missy,” he whispered, “I could near repeat, word for +word, all those things you’ve said and read to me to-night.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“There are lots more,” she laughed. “I want to do +something for your mission boat, will you let me?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lawse! Yo’ve he’ped me now more’n yo’ know!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She smiled the smile that women have had from all +the ages, for she knew a thousand times more than even +the Prophet.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ll give you a set of all these books!” she said; +“all the books that I have. Not these, my old pals—yes, +these books, Mr. Rasba. If you’ll take them? +I’ll get another lot down below.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lawd God! Give me yo’ books!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, they’re not expensive—they’re––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They’re yours. Cayn’t yo’ see? It’s your own +books, an’ hit’s fo’ my work. I neveh knowed how +good men could be, an’ they give me that boat fo’ a +mission boat. Now—now—missy—I cayn’t tell yo’—I’ve +no words––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>And with gratitude, with the simplicity of a mountain +parson, he dropped on his knees and thanked God. +As he told his humility, Prebol wakened from a deep +and restful sleep to listen in amazement.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When at last Rasba looked up Nelia was gone. +The books were on the table and he found another stack +heaped up on the deck of the mission boat. But the +woman was gone, and when he looked down the river +he saw something flicker and vanish in the distance.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He stared, hurt; he choked, for a minute, in protest, +then carried that immeasurable treasure into his cabin.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXV' id='CHAPTER_XXV'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Renn Doss, the false friend, saw the danger of +the recognition of the firearms by Carline. +The savage swing of a half pound of fine shot +braided up in a rawhide bag, and a good aim, reduced +Carline to an inert figure of a man. “Renn Doss” +was Hilt Despard, pirate captain, whose instantaneous +action always had served him well in moments of peril.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The three men carried Carline to a bunk and dropped +him on it. They covered him up and emptied a cupful +of whiskey on his pillow and clothes. They even +poured a few spoonfuls down his throat. They thus +changed him to what might be called a “natural condition.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then, sitting around the stove, they whispered among +themselves, discussing what they had better do. Half +a hundred possibilities occurred to their fertile fancies +and replete memories. Men and women who have +always led sheltered lives can little understand or +know what a pirate must understand and know even +to live let alone be successful.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What’s Terabon up to?” Despard demanded. +“Here he is, drappin’ down by Fort Pillow Landing, +running around. Where’s that girl he had up above +New Madrid? What’s his game? Coming up here +and talking to us? Asking us all about the river and +things—writin’ it for the newspapers?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That woman’s this Carline’s wife!” Jet sneered.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sure! An’ here’s Terabon an’ here’s Carline. +Terabon don’t talk none about that woman—nor about +Carline,” Dock grumbled.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I bet Terabon would be sorry none if Carline hyar +dropped out. Y’ know she’s Old Crele’s gal,” Jet +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span> +said. “Crele’s a good feller. Sent word down to +have us take cyar of her, an’ Prebol, the fool, didn’t +know ’er, hadn’t heard. Look what she give him, bang +in the shoulder! That old Prophet’ll take cyar of him, +course. See how hit works out. She shined up to +Terabon, all right.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low I better talk to him,” Despard suggested. +“Terabon’s a good sport. He said, you’ know, that +graftin’ and whiskey boatin’, an’ robbin’ the bank +wa’n’t none of his business. He said, course, he could +write it down in his notes, but without names, ’count +of somebody might read somethin’ in them an’ get +some good friend of his in Dutch. He said it wouldn’t +be right for him to know about somebody robbin’ +a commissary, or a bank, or killin’ somebody, because +if somebody like a sheriff or detective got onto it, they +might blame him, or somethin’.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I like that Terabon!” Jet declared. “Y’see how he is. +He says he’s satisfied, makin’ a fair living, gettin’ +notes so’s he can write them magazine stories, an’ if +he was to try to rob the banks, he’d have to learn +how, same’s writin’ for newspapers. An’ probably he +wouldn’t have the nerve to do it really, ’count of his +maw and paw bein’ the kind they was. He told me +hisself that they made him go to Sunday school when +he was a kid, an’ things like that spoil a man for graftin’. +Stands to reason, all right, the way he talks. I like +him; he knows enough to mind his own business.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’s comin’ up to-night to go after geese on the +bar. We’ll talk to him. He’ll look that business over, +level-headed. That motorboat any good?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Nothin’ extra. He’s got ready money, though, +I forgot that,” Despard grinned, walking over to the +hapless victim of his black-jack skill.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The three divided nearly thirteen hundred dollars +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span> +among them. The money made them good humoured +and they had some compassion for their prisoner. +One of them noticed that a skiff was coming up from +Fort Pillow Landing, and fifteen minutes later Terabon +was talking to Despard on the snag to one prong of +which was fastened the line of Carline’s motorboat.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I was wondering where I’d see you again,” Terabon +said. “Didn’t have a chance at New Madrid, saw +you was in business, so I didn’t follow up none.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I was wondering if you had a line on that,” Despard +said, doubtfully. “Y’know that woman you was +staying with up on Island Ten Bar? Well, we got +her man in here full’s a fish. Lookin’ for his woman, +an’ he’s no good. Fell off the cabin, hit a spark in the +back of the head when the water sucked when that +steamboat went by this morning. He’d ought to go +down to Memphis hospital, but—Well, we can’t +take ’im. You know how that is.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Be glad to help you boys out any way I can,” +Terabon said. “I’ll run him down.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Say, would you? We don’t want him on our +hands,” the pirate explained. “We’d get to see you +down b’low some’rs.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sure, I would,” Terabon exclaimed. “Fact is, +the woman said it’d be a favour to her, too, if I’d get +him home. She’ll be dropping down likely. Darn +nice girl, but quick tempered.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s right; quick ain’t no name for it. She +plugged a friend of mine up by Buffalo Island––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Prebol? I heard about him. She was scairt.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“She needn’t be, never again!” Despard grinned. +“When a lady can handle a river Law like she does, +us bad uns are real nice!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon laughed, and the two went into the cabin-boat +where Carline lay on the bunk. Terabon ran his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span> +hand around the man’s head and neck, found the lump +near the base of the skull, found that the neck wasn’t +broken, and made sure that the heart was beating—things +a reporter naturally learns to do in police-station +and hospital experience.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Jet brought the motorboat down to the stern of the +cabin-boat, and the four carried Carline on board. +They put him in his bunk, and Terabon, his skiff towing +astern, steered out into the main current and soon +faded down by Craighead Point Bar.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I knowed he’d be all right,” Despard declared. +“He’ll take him down to Memphis, and out of our way. +I’d ’a’ hated to kill him; it ain’t no use killin’ a man +less’n it’s necessary. We got what we was after. +Course, if we’d rewarded him, likely we’d got a lot, +but it ain’t safe, holdin’ a man for rewards ain’t.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That boat’d been a good one to travel in,” Jet +suggested.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Everybody’d knowed it was Carline’s, an’ it wa’n’t +worth fixing over. Hull not much good, and the +motor’s been abused some. We’ll do better’n that.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They had rid themselves of an incumbrance. They +had made an acquaintance who was making himself +useful. They were considerably richer than they had +been for some time.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’d like to drap into Mendova,” Jet mused. “We +ain’t had what you’d call a time––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Let’s kill some birds first,” Gaspard suggested. +“I got a hunch that Yankee Bar’s a good bet for us +for a little while. We dassn’t look into Memphis, +’count of last trip down. Mendova’s all right, but +wait’ll we’ve hunted Yankee Bar.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The money burned in their pockets, but as they stood +looking out at the long, beautiful Yankee Bar its appeal +went home. For more than a hundred years +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span> +generations of pirates had used there, and no one knows +how many tragedies have left their stain in the great +band around from Gold Dust Landing to Chickasaw +Bluffs No. 1.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After dark they rowed over to the point and put out +their decoys, dug their pits, screened them, and brushed +over their tracks in the sand. Then they played cards +till midnight, turned in for a little sleep, and turned out +again in the black morning to go to their places with +repeating shotguns and cripple-killer rifles in their +hands.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When they were in their places, and the river silence +prevailed, they saw the stars overhead, the reflections +on sand and water around them, and the quivering +change as air currents moved in the dark—the things +that walk in the night. They heard, at intervals, +many voices. Some they knew as the fluent music +of migrant geese flying over on long laps of their fall +flight, but some they did not know, except that they +were river voices.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Ducks flew by no higher than the tops of the willow +trees up the bar, their wings whistling and their voices +eager in the dark. The lurkers saw these birds darting +by like black streaks, tempting vain shots, but they +were old hunters, and knew they wanted at least a little +light. Over on the mainland they heard the noises of +wilderness animals, and away off yonder a mule’s +“he-haw” reverberated through the bottoms and over +bars and river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For these things, if the pirates had only known it, +they found the world endurable. Each in his own pit, +given over to his own thoughts, they thrilled to the joy +of living. All they wanted, really, was this kind of +thing; hunting in fall and winter, fishing in the summer, +and occasional visits to town for another kind of thrill, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span> +another sort of excitement. But their boyhood had +been passed in privation, their youth amid temptations +of appetite and vice, and now they were hopelessly +mixed as to what they liked, what they didn’t like, what +the world would do for them, and what they would do +to the world. Weaklings, uneducated, without balance; +habit-ridden, yet with all that miserable inheritance +from the world, they waited there rigid, motionless, +their hearts thrilling to the increasing music of the +march of dawn across the bottoms of the Mississippi.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>False dawn flushed and faded almost like a deliberate +lightning flash. Then dawn appeared, marking down +the gray lines of the wilderness trees with one stroke, +sweeping out all the stars with another brush, revealing +the flocks of birds glistening against the sky while yet +the earth was in shade. The watchers spied a score of +birds, great geese far to the northward, coming right +in line with them. They waited for a few seconds—ages +long. Then one of the men cried:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They’re stoopin’, boys! They’re comin’!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The wild geese, coming down a magnificent slant +from a mile height, headed straight for Yankee Bar. +Will birds never learn? They ploughed down with their +wings folding, and poised. Their voices grew louder +and louder as they approached.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>With a hissing roar of their wings they pounded down +out of the great, safe heights and circled around and inward. +With a shout the three men started up through +their masks and with levelled guns opened fire.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Too late the old gander at the point of the “V” began +to climb; too late the older birds in the point screamed +and gathered their strength. The river men turned +their black muzzles against the necks of the young +tail birds of the feathered procession and brought +them tumbling down out of the line to the ground, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span> +where on the hard sand two of them split their breasts +and exposed thick layers of fat dripping with oil.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The cries of the fleeing birds, the echoes of the barking +guns, died away. The men shouted their joy in +their success, gathered up their victims, scurried pack +to cover, brushing over their tracks, and crouched down +again, to await another flock.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Hunger drove them to their cabin-boat within an +hour. They had thought they wanted to get some +more birds, but in fact they knew they had enough. +They went over to their boat, cooked up a big breakfast, +and sat around the fire smoking and talking it over. +They chattered like boys. They were gleeful, innocent, +harmless! But only for a time. Then the +hunted feeling returned to them. Once more they had a +back track to watch and ambushes to be wary of. They +wanted to go to Mendova, but again they didn’t want +to go there. They didn’t know but what Mendova +might be watching for them, the same as Memphis +was. Certainly, they determined, they must go to +Mendova after dark, and see a friend who would put +them wise to actual conditions around town.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They took catnaps, having had too little sleep, and +yet they could not sleep deeply. They watched the +shanty-boats which dropped down the river at intervals, +most of them in the main current close to the far +bank, and often hardly visible against the mottled +background of caving earth, fallen trees, and flickering +mirage. Their restlessness was silent, morose, and +one of them was always on the lookout.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Despard himself was on watch in the afternoon. +He sat just inside the kitchen door, out of the sunshine, +in a comfortable rocking chair. Two windows and the +stern door gave him a wide view of the river, sandbars +and eddy. It seemed but a minute, but he had fallen +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span> +into a doze, when the splash of a shanty-boat sweeps +awakened all the crew with a sudden, frightened start. +Whispers, hardly audible, hailed in alarm. The three, +crouching in involuntary doubt and dismay, glared at +the newcomer.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was a woman drifting in. Apparently she intended +to land there, and the three men stared at her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“His wife!” Despard said with soundless lips. The +others nodded their recognition.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Mrs. Carline had run into the great dead eddy at +the foot of Yankee Lower Bar, turned up in the slow +reverse eddy of the chute, and was coming by their boat +at the slowest possible speed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Despard pulled his soft shirt collar, straightened his +tie, hitched his suspenders, put on his coat, walked out +on the stern deck, and, after a glance around, seemed +suddenly to discover the stranger.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Howdy!” he nodded, touching his cap respectfully, +and gazing with flickering eyes at the woman whose +marksmanship entitled her to the greatest respect.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Howdy!” she nodded, scrutinizing him with level +eyes. “Where am I?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yankee Bar. Them’s Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Do you know Jest Prebol?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yessum.” Despard’s head bobbed in alarmed, unwilling +assent.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I thought perhaps you’d like to know that he’s getting +along all right.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I bet he learnt his lesson,” Despard grimaced.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What? I don’t just understand.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“About bein’ impudent to a lady that can shoot—straight!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A flicker moved the woman’s countenance, and she +smiled, oddly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, any one is likely to make mistakes!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Darn fools is, Miss Crele. And you Old Crele’s +girl! He might of knowed!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The other two stepped out to help enjoy the conversation +and the scenery.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You know me?” she demanded.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yessum, we shore do. My name’s Despard—Jet +here and Cope.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She acknowledged the introductions.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ve friends down here,” she said, with a little +catch of her breath. “I was wondering if you—any +of you gentlemen had seen them?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Your man, Gus Carline an’ that writin’ feller, Terabon?” +Jet asked, without delicacy. Her cheeks +flamed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes!” she whispered.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Terabon took him down to Mendova or Memphis,” +Despard said. “Carline was—was on the cabin and +the boat lurched when the steamboat passing drawed. +He drapped over and hit a spark plug on the head!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Was he badly hurt?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Not much—kind of a lump, that’s all.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She looked down at Fort Pillow Bluff. The pirates +awaited her pleasure, staring at her to their heart’s +content. They envied her husband and Terabon; they +felt the strangeness of the situation. She was following +those two men down. She was part of the river tide, +drifting by; she had shot Prebol, their pal, and had +cleverly ascertained their knowledge of him while insuring +that they had fair warning.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Her boat drifted down till it was opposite them, and +then, with quick decision, she caught up a handy +line, and said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m going to tie in a little while. I’ve been alone +clear down from Caruthersville; I want to talk to somebody!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She threw the rope, and they caught and made it +fast. They swung her boat in, ran a plank from stern +to bow, and Despard gave her his hand. She came on +board, and they sat on the stern deck to talk. Only +one kind of woman could have done that with safety, +but she was that kind. She had shot a man down for a +look.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The three pirates took one of the fat young geese, +plucked and dressed it, and baked it in a hot oven, with +dressing, sweet potatoes, hot-bread, and a pudding +which she mixed up herself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For three hours they gossiped, and before she knew it, +she had told them about Prebol, about Parson Rasba +introducing them. The pirates shouted when she told +of Jest’s apology. With river frankness, they said they +thought a heap of Terabon, who minded his own business +so cleverly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I like him, too,” she admitted. “I was afraid you +boys might make trouble for Carline, though. He +don’t know much about people, treating them right.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He’s one of those ignorant Up-the-Bankers,” Despard +said.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, I know him.” She shrugged her shoulders a +little bitterly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As they ate the goose in camaraderie, the pirates took +to warning and advising her about the Lower River; +they told her who would treat her right, and who +wouldn’t. They especially warned her against stopping +anywhere near Island 37.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They’re bad there—and mean.” Despard shook +his head, gravely.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I won’t stop in there,” Nelia promised. “River folks +anybody can get along with, but those Up-the-Bankers!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s seo,” Jet cried. “They don’t have no feelings +for nobody.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ll be dropping on down?” Nelia asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“D’rectly!” Cope admitted. “We ’lowed we’d stop +into Mendova. You stop in there an’ see Palura; +he’ll treat you right. He was in the riveh hisse’f once. +You talk to him––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What did Terabon and Mr. Carline go on in? +What kind of a boat?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A gasolene cruiser.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Did he say where he’d be?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Terabon? No. Ask into Mendova or into Memphis. +They can likely tell.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Thank you, boys! I’m awful glad you’ve no hard +feelings on account of my shooting your partner; +I couldn’t know what good fellows you are. We’ll see +you later.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Her smile bewitched them; she went aboard her boat, +pulled over into the main current, and floated away in +the sunset—her favourite river hour.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After hours of argument, debate, doubts, they, too, +pulled out and floated past Fort Pillow.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVI' id='CHAPTER_XXVI'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Parson Rasba piled the books on the crap +table in his cabin and stood them in rows with +their lettered backs up. He read their titles, +which were fascinating: “Arabian Nights,” “Representative +Men,” “Plutarch’s Lives,” “Modern Painters,” +“Romany Rye”—a name that made him shudder, +for it meant some terrible kind of whiskey to his mind—“Lavengro,” +a foreign thing, “Thesaurus of English +Words and Phrases,” “The Stem Dictionary,” “Working +Principles of Rhetoric”—he wondered what rhetoric +meant—“The Fur Buyers’ Guide,” “Stones of +Venice,” “The French Revolution,” “Sartor Resartus,” +“Poe’s Works,” “Balzac’s Tales,” and scores of other +titles.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>All at once the Mississippi had brought down to +him these treasures and a fair woman with blue eyes and +a smile of understanding and sympathy, who had handed +them to him, saying:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I want to do something for your mission boat; +will you let me?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>No fairyland, no enchantment, no translation from +poverty and sorrow to a realm of wealth and happiness +could have caught the soul of the Prophet Rasba as +this revelation of unimagined, undreamed-of riches as he +plucked the fruits of learning and enjoyed their luxuries. +He had descended in his humility to the last, +least task for which he felt himself worthy. He had +humbly been grateful for even that one thing left for +him to do: find Jock Drones for his mother.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had found Jock, and there had been no wrestling +with an obdurate spirit to send him back home, like +a man, to face the law and accept the penalty. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span> +There had been nothing to it. Jock had seen the light +instantly, and with relief. His partner had also turned +back after a decade of doubt and misery, to live a man’s +part “back home.” The two of them had handed him +a floating Bethel, turning their gambling hell over to +him as though it were a night’s lodging, or a snack, or a +handful of hickory nuts. The temple of his fathers +had been no better for its purpose than this beautiful, +floating boat.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then a woman had come floating down, a beautiful +strange woman whose voice had clutched at his heart, +whose smile had deprived him of reason, whose eyes had +searched his soul. With tears on her lashes she had +flung to him that treasure-store of learning, and gone +on her way, leaving him strength and consolation.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He left his treasure and went out to look at the river. +Everybody leaves everything to look at the river! +There is nothing in the world that will prevent it. He +saw, in the bright morning, that Prebol had raised his +curtain, and was looking at the river, too, though the +effort must have caused excruciating pain in his wounded +shoulder. Day was growing; from end to end of that +vast, flowing sheet of water thousands upon thousands +of old river people were taking a look at the Mississippi.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba carried a good broth over to Prebol for breakfast, +and then returned to his cabin, having made +Prebol comfortable and put a dozen of the wonderful +books within his reach. Then the River Prophet sat +down to read his treasures, any and all of them, his lap +piled up, three or four books in one hand and trying to +turn the pages of another in his other hand by unskilful +manipulation of his thumb. He was literally +starving for the contents of those books.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He was afraid that his treasure would escape from him; +he kept glancing from his printed page to the serried +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span> +ranks on the crap table, and his hands unconsciously +felt around to make sure that the weight on his lap and +in his grasp was substantial and real, and not a dream +or vision of delight.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He forgot to eat; he forgot that he had not slept; he +sat oblivious of time and river, the past or the future; +he grappled with pages of print, with broadsides of +pictures, with new and thrilling words, with sentences +like hammer blows, with paragraphs that marched like +music, with thoughts that had the gay abandon of a +bird in song. And the things he learned!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When night fell he was dismayed by his weariness, +and could not understand it. For a little while he ransacked +his dulled wits to find the explanation, and when +he had fixed Prebol for the night, with medicine, water, +and a lamp handy to matches, he told the patient:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Seems like the gimp’s kind of took out of me. My +eyes are sore, an’ I doubt am I quite well.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Likely yo’ didn’t sleep well,” Prebol suggested. +“A man cayn’t sleep days if he ain’t used to hit.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sleep days?” Rasba looked wildly about him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho! When did I git to sleep, why, I ain’t slept—I––Lawse!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Prebol laughed aloud.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ see, Parson, yo’ all cayn’t set up all night with a +pretty gal an’ not sleep hit off. Yo’ shore’ll git tired, +sportin’ aroun’.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Rasba snapped, and then a smile broke across +his countenance. He cried out with laughter, and admitted: +“Hit’s seo, Prebol! I neveh set up with a gal +befo’ I come down the riveh. Lawse! I plumb forgot.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t wonder,” Prebol replied, gravely. “She’d +make any man forget. She sung me to sleep, an’ I +slept like I neveh slept befo’.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba went on board his boat and, after a light supper, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span> +turned in. For a minute he saw in retrospect the +most wonderful day in his life, a day which a kindly +Providence had drawn through thirty or forty hours of +unforgettable exaltation. Then he settled into the blank, +deep sleep of a soul at peace and at rest.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When in the full tide of the sunshine he awakened, he +went about his menial tasks, attending Prebol, cleaning +out the boats, shaking up the beds, hanging the bedclothes +to air in the sun, and getting breakfast. On +Prebol’s suggestion he moved the fleet of boats out into +the eddy, for the river was falling and they might +ground. He went over to Caruthersville and bought +some supplies, brought Doctor Grell over to examine +the patient to make sure all was well, killed several +squirrels and three ducks back in the brakes, and, all +the while, thought what duties he should enter upon.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Doctor Grell advised that Prebol go down to Memphis, +to the hospital, so as to have an X-ray examination, +and any special treatment which might be necessary. +The wound was healing nicely, but it would be +better to make sure.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba took counsel of Prebol. The river man knew +the needs of the occasion, and he agreed that he had +better drop down to Memphis or Mendova, preferring +the latter place, for he knew people there. He told +Rasba to line the two small shanty-boats beside the big +mission boat, and fend them off with wood chunks. +The skiffs could float on lines alongside or at the stern. +The power boat could tow the fleet out into the current, +and hold it off sandbars or flank the bends.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba did as he was bid, and lashed the boats together +with mooring lines, pin-head to towing bits, and +side to side. Then he floated the boats all on one +anchor line, and ran the launch up to the bow. He +hoisted in the anchor, rowed in a skiff out to the motorboat, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span> +and swung wide in the eddy to run out to the river +current. There was a good deal of work to the task, +and it was afternoon before the fleet reached the main +stream.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then Rasba cast off his tow lines, ran the launch +back to the fleet, and made it fast to the port bow of the +big boat, so that it was part of the fleet, with its +power available to shove ahead or astern. A big oar +on the mission boat’s bow and another one out from +Prebol’s boat insured a short turn if it should be necessary +to swing the boats around either way.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba carried Prebol on his cot up to the bow of the +big boat, and put him down where he could help watch +the river, and they cast off. Prebol knew the bends and +reaches, and named most of the landings; they gossiped +about the people and the places. Prebol told how river +rats sometimes stole hogs or cattle for food, and Rasba +learned for the first time of organized piracy, of river +men who were banded together for stealing what they +could, raiding river towns, attacking “sports,” tripping +the river, and even more desperate enterprises.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>While he talked, Prebol slyly watched his listener and +thought for a long time that Rasba was merely dumbfounded +by the atrocities, but at last the Prophet +grinned:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“An’ yo’s a riveh rat. Ho law!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, I didn’t say––” Prebol began, but his words +faltered.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ know right smart about such things,” Rasba +reminded him. “I ’low hit were about time somebody +shot yo’ easy, so’s to give yo’ repentance a chance to +catch up with yo’ wickedness. Don’t yo’?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Prebol glared at the accusation, but Rasba pretended +not to notice.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yo’ see, Prebol, this world is jes’ the hounds +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span> +a-chasin’ the rabbits, er the rabbits a-gittin’ out the way. +The good that’s into a man keeps a-runnin’, to git shut +of the sin that’s in him, an’ theh’s a heap of wrestlin’ +when one an’ tother catches holt an’ fights.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s seo!” Prebol admitted, reluctantly. He +didn’t have much use for religious arguments. “I +wisht yo’d read them books to me, Parson. I ain’t +neveh had much eddycation. I’ll watch the riveh, an’ +warn ye, ’gin we make the crossin’s.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nothing suited them better. Rasba read aloud, +stabbing each word with his finger while he sought the +range and rhythm of the sentences, and, as they happened +to strike a book of fables, their minds could grasp +the stories and the morals at least sufficiently to entertain +and hold their attention.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Prebol said, warningly, after a time:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Betteh hit that sweep a lick, Parson, she’s a-swingin’ +in onto that bar p’int.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A few leisurely strokes, the boats drifted away into +deep water, and Rasba expressed his admiration.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho, Prebol! Yo’ seen that bar a mile up. We’d +run down onto hit.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh,” the wounded man grinned. “Three-four +licks on the oars up theh, and down yeah yo’ save +pullin’ yo’ livin’ daylights out, to keep from goin’ onto +a sandbar or into a dryin’-up chute.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How’s that?” Rasba cocked his ear. “Say hit +oveh—slow!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, if yo’s into the set of the current up theh, hit +ain’t strong; yo’ jes’ give two-three licks an’ yo’ +send out clear. Down theh on the bar she draws yo’ +right into shallow water, an’ yo’ hang up.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba looked up the river; he looked down at the +nearing sandbar, and as they passed the rippling head +in safety he turned a grave face toward the pilot. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Up theh, theh wasn’t much suck to hit, but down +yeah, afteh yo’ve drawed into the current, theh’s a +strong drag an’ bad shoals?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Jes’ so!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s easy to git shut of sin, away long in the beginnin’,” +Rasba bit his words out, “but when yo’ git a +long ways down into hit—Ho law!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Prebol started, caught by surprise. Then both +laughed together. They could understand each other +better and if Prebol felt himself being drawn in spite of +his own reluctance by a new current in his life, Rasba +did not fail to gratify the river man’s pride by turning +always to him for advice about the river, its currents +and its jeopardies.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’ve tripped down with all kinds,” Prebol grinned +as he spoke, “but this yeah’s the firstest time I eveh +did get to pilot a mission boat.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If you take it through in safety, do yo’ reckon God +will forget?” Rasba asked, and Prebol’s jaw dropped. +He didn’t want to be reformed; he had no use for religion. +He was very well satisfied with his own way of living. +He objected to being prayed over and the good of his +soul inquired into—but this Parson Rasba was making +the idea interesting.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They anchored for the night in the eddy at the head +of Needham’s Cut-Off Bar, and Prebol was soon asleep, +but Rasba sat under the big lamp and read. He could +read with continuity now; dread that the dream would +vanish no longer afflicted him. He could read a book +without having more than two or three other books in +his lap.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Sometimes it was almost as though Nelia were speaking +the very words he read; sometimes he seemed to +catch her frown of disapproval. The books, more +precious than any other treasure could have been, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span> +seemed living things because she had owned them, +because her pencil had marked them, and because she +had given them all to his service, to fill the barren and +hungry places in the long-empty halls of his mind.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He would stop his reading to think, and thinking, he +would take up a book to discover better how to think. +He found that his reading and thinking worked together +for his own information.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He was musing, his mind enjoying the novelty of so +many different images and ideas and facts, when +something trickled among his senses and stirred his +consciousness into alert expectancy. For a little he +was curious, and then touched by dismay, for it was +music which had roused him—music out of the black +river night. People about to die sometimes hear music, +and Parson Rasba unconsciously braced himself for the +shock.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It grew louder, however, more distinct, and the sound +was too gay and lively to fit in with his dreams of a heavenly +choir. He caught the shout of a human voice +and he knew that dancers were somewhere, perhaps +dancers damned to eternal mirth. He went out on +the deck and closed the door on the light behind him; +at first he could see nothing but black night. A little +later he discovered boats coming down the river, eight +or nine gleaming windows, and a swinging light hung +on a flag staff or shanty-boat mast.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As they drew nearer, someone shouted across the +night:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Goo-o-o-d wa-a-a-ter thar?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Ya-s-su-uh!” Rasba called back.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Where’ll we come in?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Anywhere’s b’low me fo’ a hundred yards!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Thank-e-e!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Three or four sweeps began to beat the water, and a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span> +whole fleet of shanty-boats drifted in slowly. They +began to turn like a wheel as part of them ran into the +eddy while the current carried the others down, but +old river men were at the sweeps, and one of them called +the orders:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Raunch ’er, boys! Raunch ’er! Raunchin’s what +she needs!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They floated out of the current into the slow reverse +eddy, and coming up close to Rasba’s fleet, talked back +and forth with him till a gleam of light through a window +struck him clearly out of the dark.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hue-e-e!” a shrill woman’s voice laughed. “Hit’s +Rasba, the Riveh Prophet Rasba! Did yo’ all git +to catch Nelia Crele, Parson?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Did I git to catch Missy Crele!” he repeated, +dazed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“When yo’ drapped out’n Wolf Island Chute, Parson, +that night she pulled out alone?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No’m; I lost her down by the Sucks, but she drapped +in by Caruthersville an’ give me books an’ books—all +fo’ my mission boat!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That big boat yourn?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yeh.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Where all was hit built?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’ remembeh, but Buck done give hit to me, +him an’ Jock Drones.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hi-i-i! Yo’ all found the man yo’ come a-lookin’ +fo’. Ho law!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s the Riveh Prophet,” someone replied to a +hail from within, the dance ending.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A crowd came tumbling out onto the deck of the big +boat of the dance hall, everyone talking, laughing, +catching their breaths.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hi-i! Likely he’ll preach to-morrow,” a woman +cried. “To-morrow’s Sunday.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sunday?” Rasba gasped. “Sunday—I plumb lost +track of the days.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’ll preach, won’t yo’, Parson? I yain’t hearn a +sermon in a hell of a while,” a man jeered, facetiously.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Suttingly. An’ when hit’s through, yo’ll think of +hell jes’ as long,” Rasba retorted, with asperity, and +his wit turned the laugh into a cheer.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The fleet anchored a hundred yards up the eddy, and +Rasba heard a woman say it was after midnight and +she’d be blanked if she ever did or would dance on +Sunday. The dance broke up, the noise of voices +lessened, one by one the lights went out, and the eddy +was still again. But the feeling of loneliness was +changed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Lord God, what’ll I preach to them about?” Rasba +whispered. “I neveh ’lowed I’d be called to preach +ag’in. Lawse! Lawse! What’ll I say?”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVII' id='CHAPTER_XXVII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline ascended into the world again. It +was a painful ascent, and when he looked +around him, he recognized the interior of his +motorboat cabin, heard and felt the throbbing of his +motor, and discovered aches and pains that made his +extremities tingle. He sat up, but the blackness that +seemed to rise around him caused him to fall hastily +back upon the stateroom bunk.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He remembered his discovery of his own firearms +on the shanty-boat, and fear assailed him. He remembered +his folly in crying out that those were his +guns. He might have known he had fallen among +thieves. He cursed himself, and dread of what might +yet follow his indiscretion made him whimper with +terror. A most disgusting odour of whiskey was in his +nostrils, and his throat was like a corrugated iron +pipe partly filled with soot.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The door of the tiny stateroom was closed, but the +two ports were open to let the air in. It occurred to +him that he might be a captive, and would be held for +ransom. Perhaps the pirates would bleed him for +$50,000; perhaps they would take all his fortune! He +began to cry and sob. They might cut his throat, and +not give him any chance of escape. He had heard of +men having had their throats cut down the river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He tried to sit up again, and succeeded without undue +faintness. He could not wait, but must know his +fate immediately. He found the door was unlocked, +and when he slipped out into the cabin, he found that +there was only one man on board, the steersman, who +was sitting in the engine pit, and steering with the rail +wheel instead of the bow-cabin one. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He peered out, and found that it was Terabon, who +discovered him and hailed him, cheerily:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“How are you feeling?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Tough—my head!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’re lucky to be alive!” Terabon said. “You +got in with a crew of river pirates, but they let me have +you. Did they leave you anything?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Leave me anything!” Carline repeated, feeling in his +pockets. “I’ve got my watch, and here’s––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He opened up his change pocketbook. There were +six or seven dollars in change and two or three wadded +bills. When he looked for his main supply, however, +there was a difference. The money was all gone. +He was stripped to the last dollar in his money belt +and of his hidden resources.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They did me!” he choked. “They got all I had!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They didn’t kill you,” Terabon said. “You’re +lucky. How did they bang you and knock you out?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, I found they had my guns on board––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And you accused them?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No! I just said they were mine, I was surprised!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Then?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“My light went out.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“When did they get your guns?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I woke up, up there, and you were gone. My guns +and pocket money were gone, too. I thought––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You thought I’d robbed you?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Ye––Well, I didn’t know!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“This is a devil of a river, old man!” said Terabon. +“I guess you travelled with the real thing out of New +Madrid––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Doss, Renald Doss. He said he was a sportsman––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Oh, he is, all right, he’s a familiar type here on the +river. He’s the kind of a sport who hunts men, Up-the-Bankers +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span> +and game of that kind. He’s a very successful +hunter, too––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“He said we’d hunt wild geese. We went up Obion +River, and had lots of fun, and he said he’d help—he’d +help––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Find your wife?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline was abject. Terabon, however, was caught +wordless. This man was the husband of the woman +for whose sake he had ventured among the desperate +river rats, and now he realized that he had succeeded +in the task she had set him. Looking back, he was surprised +at the ease of its accomplishment, but he was +under no illusions regarding the jeopardy he had run. +He had trusted to his aloofness, his place as a newspaper +man, and his frankness, to rescue Carline, and +he had brought him away.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You’re all righ now,” Terabon suggested. “I guess +you’ve had your lesson.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“A whole book full of them!” Carline cried. “I +owe you something—an apology, and my thanks! +Where are we going?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I was taking you down to a Memphis hospital, or +to Mendova––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t need any hospital. I’m broke; I must get +some money. We’ll go to Mendova. I know some +people there. I’ve heard it was a great old town, too! +I always wanted to see it.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon looked at him; Carline had learned nothing. +For a minute remorse and comprehension had flickered +in his mind, now he looked ahead to a good time in +Mendova, to sight-seeing, sporting around, genial +friends, and all the rest. Argument would do no good, +and Terabon retreated from his position as friend and +helper to that of an observer and a recorder of facts. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span> +Whatever pity he might feel, he could not help but +perceive that there was no use trying to help fools.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was just dusk when they ran into Mendova. +The city lights sparkled as they turned in the eddy and +ran up to the shanty-boat town. They dropped an +anchor into the deep water and held the boat off the +bank by the stern while they ran a line up to a six-inch +willow to keep the bow to the bank. The springy, ten-foot +gangplank bridged the gap to the shore.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>More than thirty shanty-boats and gasolene cruisers +were moored along that bank, and from nearly every +one peered sharp eyes, taking a look at the newcomers.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hello, Terabon!” someone hailed, and the newspaper +man turned, surprised. One never does get over +that feeling of astonishment when, fifteen hundred +miles or so from home, a familiar voice calls one’s name +in greeting.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hello!” Terabon replied, heartily, and then shook +hands with a market hunter he had met for an hour’s +gossip in the eddy at St. Louis. “Any luck, Bill? +How’s Frank?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Averaging fine,” was the answer. “Frank’s up +town. Going clear down after all, eh?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Probably.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Any birds on Yankee Bar?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I saw some geese there—hunters stopped in, too. +How is the flight?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We’re near the tail of it; mostly they’ve all gone +down. We’re going to drive for it, and put out our +decoys down around Big Island and below.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Then I’ll likely see you down there.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sure thing; here’s Frank.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon shook hands with the two, introduced Carline, +and then the hunters cast off and steered away +down the stream. They had come more than a thousand +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span> +miles with the migrating ducks and geese, intercepting +them at resting or feeding places. That touch +and go impressed Terabon as much as anything he had +ever experienced.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He went up town with Carline, who found a cotton +broker, a timber merchant, and others who knew him. +It was easy to draw a check, have it cashed, and Carline +once more had ready money. Nothing would do but +they must go around to Palura’s to see Mendova’s +great attraction for travellers.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Palura supplied entertainment and excitement for +the whole community, and this happened to be one +of his nights of special effort. Personally, Palura was +in a temper. Captain Dalkard, of the Mendova Police, +had been caught between the Citizens’ Committee and +Palura’s frequenters. There were 100 citizens in the +committee, and Palura’s frequenters were unnamed, +but familiar enough in local affairs.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The cotton broker thought it was a good joke, and +he explained the whole situation to Terabon and Carline +for their entertainment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Dalkard called in Policeman Laddam and told him +to stand in front of Palura’s, and tell people to watch +out. You see, there’s been a lot of complaints about +people being short changed, having their pockets +picked, and getting doped there, and some people think +it doesn’t do the town any good. Some think we got +to have Palura’s for the sake of the town’s business. +I’m neutral, but I like to watch the fun. We’ll go +down there and look in to-night.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They had dinner, and about 9 o’clock they went +around to Palura’s. It was an old market building +made over into a pleasure resort, and it filled 300 feet +front on Jimpson Street and 160 feet on the flanking +side streets. A bright electric sign covered the front +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span> +with a flare of yellow lights and there was one entrance, +under the sign.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As Terabon, Carline, and the cotton broker came +along, they saw a tall, broad-shouldered, smooth-shaven +policeman in uniform standing where the lights +showed him up.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Watch your pocketbooks!” the policeman called softly +to the patrons. “Watch your change; pickpockets, +short-changers, and card-stackers work the unwary +here! Keep sober—look out for knock-out drops!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He said it over and over again, in a purring, jeering +tone, and Terabon noticed that he was poised and +tense. In the shadows on both sides of the policeman +Terabon detected figures lurking and he was thrilled +by the evident fact that one brave policeman had been +sent alone into that deadly peril to confront a desperate +gang of crooks, and that the lone policeman gloried +to be there.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The cotton broker, neutral that he was, whispered +as they disregarded the warnings: “Laddam cleaned +up Front Street in six months; the mob has all come up +here, and this is their last stand. It’ll hurt business +if they close this joint up, because the town’ll be dead, +but I wish Palura’d kind of ease down a bit. He’s getting +rough.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Little hallways and corridors led into dark recesses +on either side of the building, and faint lights of different +colours showed the way to certain things. Terabon +saw a wonderfully beautiful woman, in furs, with sparkling +diamonds, and of inimitable grace waiting in a little +half-curtained cubby hole; he heard a man ask for +“Pete,” and caught the word “game” twice. The +sounds were muffled, and a sense of repression and expectancy +permeated the whole establishment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They entered a reception room, with little tables +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span> +around the sides, music blaring and blatant, a wide +dancing floor, and a scurrying throng. All kinds were +there: spectators who were sight-seeing; participants +who were sporting around; men, women, and scoundrels; +thugs and their prospective victims; people of supposed +allurement; and sports of insipid, silly pose and tricked-up +conspicuousness.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon’s gaze swept the throng. Noise and merriment +were increasing. Liquor was working on the +patrons. The life of Mendova was stirring to blaring +music. The big hall was bare, rough, and gaunt. +Dusty flags and cobwebs dangled from the rafters and +hog-chain braces. A few hard, white lights cast a +blinding glare straight down on the heads of the dancers +and drinkers and onlookers.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Business was brisk, and shouts of “Want the waiter!” +indicated the insistence with which trade was encouraged +and even insisted upon. No sooner had Terabon and +his companions seated themselves than a burly flat-face +with a stained white apron came and inflicted his +determined gaze upon them. He sniffed when Terabon +ordered plain soda.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We got a man’s drink.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m on the water wagon for awhile,” Terabon +smiled, and the waiter nodded, sympathetically. A +tip of a quarter mollified his air of surly expectancy +completely, and as he put the glasses down he said:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“The Boss is sick the way he’s bein’ treated. They +ain’t goin’ to git away wit’ stickin’ a bull in front of his +door like he was a crook.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon heard a woman at a near-by table making +her protest against the policeman out in front. No +other topic was more than mentioned, and the buzz and +burr of voices vied with the sound of the band till it +ended. Then there was a hush. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Palura!” a whisper rippled in all directions.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon saw a man about 5 feet 10 inches tall, compactly +built, square shouldered, and just a trifle pursy +at the waist line, approaching along the dancing floor. +He was light on his small feet, his shoulders worked with +feline grace, but his face was a face as hard as limestone +and of about the same colour—bluish gray. His eyes +were the colour of ice, with a greenish tinge. Smooth-shaven +cheeks, close-cropped hair, wing-like ears, and a +little round head were details of a figure that might +have been heroic—for his jaw was square, his nose +large, and his forehead straight and broad.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Everyone knew he was going out to throw the policeman, +Laddam, into the street. The policeman had +not hurt business a pennyworth as yet, but Palura +felt the insult. Palura knew the consequences of +failing to meet the challenge.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Give ’im hell!” someone called.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Palura turned and nodded, and a little yelping cheer +went up, which ceased instantly. Terabon, observing +details, saw that Palura’s coat sagged on the near side—in +the shape of an automatic pistol. He saw, too, that +the man’s left sleeve sagged round and hard—a slingshot +or black-jack.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>There was no delay; Palura went straight through to +his purpose. He disappeared in the dark and narrow +entrance way and not a sound was audible except the +scuffling of feet.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Palura’s killed four men,” the cotton broker whispered +to Terabon, under his breath.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>What seemed an age passed. The lights flickered. +Terabon looked about in alarm lest that gang––</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A crash outside brought all to their feet, and the +whole crowd fell back against the walls. Out of the +corridor surged a mass of men, and among them stalked +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span> +a stalwart giant of a man draped with the remnants of +a policeman’s uniform. He had in his right hand a +club which he was swinging about him, and every six +feet a man dropped upon the floor.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon saw Palura writhing, twisting, and working +his way among the fighting mass. He heard a sharp +bark:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Back, boys!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Four or five men stumbled back and two rolled out +of the way of the feet of the policeman. It flashed to +Terabon what had been done. They had succeeded +in getting the policeman into the huge den of vice, +where he could not legally be without a warrant, where +Palura could kill him and escape once more on the +specious plea of self-defence. Terabon saw the grin of +perfect hate on Palura’s face as both his hands came +up with automatics in them—a two-handed gunman +with his prey.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>This would teach the policemen of Mendova to mind +their own business! Suddenly Policeman Laddam +threw his night stick backhanded at the infamous +scoundrel, and Palura dodged, but not quite quickly +nor quite far enough. The club whacked noisily +against his right elbow and Palura uttered a cry of +pain as one pistol fell to the floor.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then Laddam snatched out his own automatic, a +45-calibre gun, three pounds or more in weight, and +began to shoot, calmly, deliberately, and with the +artistic appreciation of doing a good job thoroughly.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His first bullet drove Palura straight up, erect; his +next carried the bully back three steps; his next whirled +him around in a sagging spiral, and the fourth dropped +the dive keeper like a bag of loose potatoes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Laddam looked around curiously. He had never +been there before. Lined up on all sides of him were +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span> +the waiters, bouncers, men of prey, their faces ghastly, +and three or four of them sick. The silent throng +around the walls stared at the scene from the partial +shadows; no one seemed even to be breathing. Then +Palura made a horrible gulping sound, and writhed as +he gave up his last gasp of life.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Now then!” Laddam looked about him, and his +voice was the low roar of a man at his kill. “You +men pick them up, pack them outside there, and up +to headquarters. March!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As one man, the men who had been Palura’s marched. +They gathered up the remains of Palura and the men +with broken skulls, and carried them out into the street. +The crowd followed, men and women both. But outside, +the hundreds scurried away in all directions, men +afraid and women choking with horror. Terabon’s +friend the cotton broker fled with the rest, Carline +disappeared, but Terabon went to headquarters, writing +in his pocket notebook the details of this rare and wonderful +tragedy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Policeman Laddam had single-handed charged and +captured the last citadel of Mendova vice, and the +other policemen, when they looked at him, wore expressions +of wonder and bewilderment. They knew the +Committee of 100 would make him their next chief +and a man under whom it would be a credit to be a +cop.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon, just before dawn, returned toward Mousa +Slough. As he did so, from a dull corner a whisper +greeted him:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Say, Terabon, is it straight, Palura killed up?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sure thing!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Then Mendova’s sure gone to hell!” Hilt Despard +the river pirate cried. “Say, Terabon, there’s a lady +down by the slough wants to get to talk to you.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Who––?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“She just dropped in to-night, Nelia Crele! She’s +into her boat down at the head of the sandbar, facing the +switch willows. There’s a little gasolene sternwheeler +next below her boat.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“She’s dropped in? All right, boys, much obliged!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They separated.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>But when Terabon searched along the slough for +Nelia’s boat he did not find it, and to his amazed anger +he found that the gasolene boat in which he had arrived +was also gone, as well as his own skiff and all his outfit.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Darn this river!” he choked. “But that’s a great +story I sent of the killing of Palura!”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' name='page_204'></a>204</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVIII' id='CHAPTER_XXVIII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia Crele had laughed in her heart at +Elijah Rasba as he sat there listening to her +reading. She knew what she was doing to +the mountain parson! She played with his feelings, +touched strings of his heart that had never been touched +before, teased his eyes with a picture of feminine grace, +stirred his mind with the sense of a woman who was +bright and who knew so much that he had never known. +At the same time, there was no malice in it—just the +delight in making a strong man discover a strength +beyond his own, and in humbling a masculine pride by +the sheer superiority of a woman who had neglected no +opportunity to satisfy a hunger to know.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She knew the power of a single impression and a clear, +quick getaway. She left him dazed by the fortune +which heaped upon him literary classics in a dozen +forms—fiction, essays, history, poetry, short stories, +criticism, fable, and the like; she laughed at her own +quick liking for the serious-minded, self-deprecatory, +old-young man whose big innocent eyes displayed a soul +enamoured by the spirited intelligence of an experienced +and rather disillusioned young woman who had fled +from him partly because she did know what a sting it +would give him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So with light heart and singing tongue she floated +away on the river, not without a qualm at leaving those +books with Rasba; she loved them too much, but the +sacrifice was so necessary—for his work! The river +needed him as a missionary. He could help ease the +way of the old sinners, and perhaps by and by he +would reform her, and paint her again with goodness +where she was weather-beaten. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' name='page_205'></a>205</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It is easy to go wrong on the Mississippi—just as +easy, or easier, than elsewhere in the world. The student +of astronomy, gazing into the vast spaces of the +skies, feels his own insignificance increasing, while +the magnitude of the constellations grows upon him. +What can it matter what such a trifling thing, such a +mere atom, as himself does when he is to the worlds of +less size than the smallest of living organisms in a drop +of water?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia Crele looked around as she left the eddy and +saw that her houseboat was but a trifle upon a surface +containing hundreds of square miles. A human being +opposite her on the bank was less in proportion than +a fly on the cabin window pane. Then what could it +matter what she did? Why shouldn’t she be reckless, +abandoned, and live in the gaiety of ages?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She had read thousands of pages of all kinds with no +guide posts or moral landmarks. A picture of dangerous +delights had come into her imagination. Having +read and understood so much, she had not failed to +discover the inevitable Nemesis on the trail of wrongdoing, +as well as the inevitableness of reward for steadfastness +in virtues—but she wondered doubtfully what +virtue really was, whether she was not absolved from +many rigid commandments by the failure of the world +to keep faith with her and reward her for her own +patience and atone for her own sufferings.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel +that if she wanted to be gay and wanton, living for +the hour, it was no one’s affair but her own. She +fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her +determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced +newspaper man whose ambitions pleased +her fancy and whose innocence delighted her own mood.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He was down the river somewhere, and when she +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' name='page_206'></a>206</span> +landed in at Mendova in the late twilight she saw his +skiff swinging from the stern of a motorboat. Having +made fast near it, she quickly learned that he had gone +up town, and that someone had heard him say that he +was going to Palura’s.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Palura’s! Nelia had heard the fascination of that +den’s ill-fame. She laughed to herself when she thought +that Terabon would excuse his going there on the +ground of its being right in his line of work, that he +must see that place because otherwise he would not +know how to describe it.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“If I can catch him there!” she thought to herself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She went to Palura’s, and Old Mississippi seemed +to favour her. She found another woman who knew +the ropes there and who was glad to help her play the +game. From a distance Nelia Crele discovered that +Terabon was with Carline, her own husband. She +dismissed him with a shrug of her shoulders, and told +her companion to take care of him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia, having plagued the soul of the River Prophet, +Rasba, now with equal zest turned to seize Terabon, +careless of where the game ended if only she could begin +it and carry it on to her own music and in her own +measure.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They had it all determined: Carline was to be wedged +away with his friend, a cotton broker that Daisy—Nelia’s +newfound accomplice—knew, and Terabon +was to be tempted to “do the Palace,” and he was to be +caught unaware, by Nelia, who wanted to dance with +him, dine with him under bright lights, and drink dangerous +drinks with him. She knew him sober and industrious, +good and faithful, a decent, reputable working +man—she wanted to see him waked up and boisterous, +careless for her sake and because of her desires.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She just felt wicked, wanted to be wicked, and didn’t +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' name='page_207'></a>207</span> +care how wicked she might be. She counted, however, +without the bonds which the Mississippi River seems at +times to cast around its favourites—the Spirit of the +river which looks after his own.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She had not even seen Policeman Laddam standing +at the main entrance of the notorious resort, for Daisy +had taken her through another door. She went to +the exclusive “Third,” and from there emerged onto +the dancing floor just as Palura ostentatiously went +forth to drive Laddam away, or to kill him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Daisy checked her, for the minute or two of suspense, +and then the whole scene, the tragedy, was enacted +before her gaze. She was not frightened; she was not +even excited; the thing was so astonishing that she did +not quite grasp its full import till she saw Palura +stumbling back, shot again and again. Daisy caught +her arm and clutched it in dumb panic, and when the +policeman calmly bent the cohorts of the dead man +to his will and carried away his victims, Daisy dragged +Nelia away.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then Daisy disappeared and Nelia was left to her +own devices.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She was vexed and disappointed. She knew nothing +of the war in Mendova. Politics had never engaged her +attention, and the significance of the artistic killing +of Palura did not appear to her mind. She was simply +possessed by an indignant feminine impatience to think +that Terabon had escaped, and she was angry when she +had only that glimpse of him, as with his notebook in +hand he raced his pencil across the blank pages, jotting +down the details and the hasty, essential impressions +as he caught them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She heard the exodus. She heard women sobbing +and men gasping as they swore and fled. She gathered +up her own cloak and left with reluctant footsteps. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' name='page_208'></a>208</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She realized that she had arrived there just one day +too late to “do” Palura’s. The fugitives, as they scurried +by, reminded her of some description which she +had read of the Sack of Rome; or was it the Fall of +Babylon? Their sins were being visited upon the +wicked, and Nelia Crele, since she had not sinned, could +not thrill with quite the same terror and despair of the +wretches who had sinned in spite of their consciences, +instead of through ignorance or wantonness. She took +her departure not quite able to understand why there +had been so much furore because one man had been +killed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She was among the last to leave the accursed place, +and she saw the flight of the ones who had delayed, +perhaps to loot, perhaps having just awakened to the +fact of the tragedy. She turned toward Mousa Slough, +and her little shanty-boat seemed very cool and bare +that late evening. The bookshelves were all empty, +and she was just a little too tired to sleep, just a little +too stung by reaction to be happy, and rather too +much out of temper to be able to think straight and +clearly on the disappointment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Mendova had been familiar in her ears since childhood; +she had heard stories of its wildness, its gayeties, +its recklessness. Impression had been made upon impression, +so that when she had found herself nearing +the place of her dreams, she was in the mood to enter +into its wildest and gayest activities; she had expected +to, and she had known in her own mind that when she +met Terabon she would be irresistible.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>At last she shuddered. She seemed to hear a voice, +the river’s voice, declare that this thing had happened +to prevent her seeking to betray herself and Terabon, +not to mention that other matter which did not affect +her thought in the least, her husband’s honour. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' name='page_209'></a>209</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The idea of her husband’s honour made the thing +absurd to her. There was no such thing as that honour. +She had plotted to get Carline out of the way +now that she heard he was clear of the pirates. On second +thought, she was sorry that she had been so hasty +in returning to the boat, wishing that she had followed +up Terabon.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She walked out onto the bow deck, and standing in +the dark, with her door closed, looked up and down the +slough. A dozen boats were in sight. She heard a +number of men and women talking in near-by boats, +and the few words she heard indicated that the river +people had a pretty morsel of gossip in the killing of +Palura.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She heard men rustling through the weeds and switch +willows of the boatmen’s pathway, and she hailed; she +was now a true river woman, though she did not know it.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Say, boys, do you know if Terabon and Carline +landed here to-night?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We just landed in,” one answered. “I don’t +know.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Going up town?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I want to know about them––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s Nelia Crele!” one exclaimed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That’s right. Hello, boys—Despard—Jet—Cope!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sure! When’d you land?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Late this evening; I was up to Palura’s when––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That ain’t no place fo’ a lady.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She laughed aloud, as she added, “I was there when +Palura was killed by the policeman.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Palura killed a policeman!” Despard said. “He’s +killed––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“No, Palura was killed by a policeman. Shot him +dead right on the dance-hall floor.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' name='page_210'></a>210</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The pirates choked. The thing was unbelievable. +They came down to the boat and she described the +affair briefly, and they demanded details.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They felt that it would vitally affect Mendova. +They whispered among themselves as to what it meant. +They learned that a policeman had been stationed in +front of the notorious resort and that that policeman +had done the shooting during a fight with waiters and +bouncers and with Palura himself.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“We hadn’t better get to go up town,” Jet whimpered. +“Hit don’t sound right!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They argued and debated, and finally went on their +way, having promised Nelia that they would see and +tell Terabon, on the quiet, that she had come into the +slough, and that she wanted to see him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She waited for some time, hoping that Terabon +would come, but finally went to sleep. She was tired, +and excitement had deserted her. She slept more +soundly than in some time.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Once she partly awakened, and thought that some +drift log had bumped into her boat; then she felt a +gentle undulation, as of the waves of a passing steamer, +but she was too sleepy to contemplate that phenomenon +in a rather narrow water channel around a bend from +the main current.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was not till she had slept long and well that she +began to dream vividly. She was impatient with +dreams; they were always full of disappointment.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Daylight came, and sunshine penetrated the window +under which she slept. The bright rays fell upon her +closed eyes and stung her cheeks. She awakened with +difficulty, and looked around wonderingly. She saw +the sunlight move along the wall and then drift back +again. She felt the boat teetering and swaggering. +She looked out of the window and saw a distant wood +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' name='page_211'></a>211</span> +across the familiar, glassy yellow surface of the Mississippi. +With a low whisper of dismay she started out to +look around, and found that she was really adrift in +mid-river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>On the opposite side of the boat she saw the blank +side of a boat against her cabin window. As she stood +there, she heard or felt a motion on the boat alongside. +Someone stepped, or rather jumped heavily, onto the +bow deck of her boat and flung the cabin door open.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She sprang to get her pistol, and stood ready, as the +figure of a man stumbled drunkenly into her presence.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' name='page_212'></a>212</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIX' id='CHAPTER_XXIX'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Parson Elijah Rasba, the River Prophet, +could not think what he would say to these +river people who had determined to have a +sermon for their Sabbath entertainment. Neither his +Bible nor his hurried glances from book to book which +Nelia Crele had given him brought any suggestion +which seemed feasible. His father had always declared +that a sermon, to be effective, “must have one bullet +fired straight.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>What bullet would reach the souls of these river people +who sang ribald songs, danced to lively music, and +lived clear of all laws except the one they called “The +Law,” a deadly, large-calibre revolver or automatic +pistol?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low I just got to talk to them like folks,” he decided +at last, and with that comforting decision went +to sleep.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The first thing, after dawn, when he looked out upon +the river in all the glory of sunshine and soft atmosphere +and young birds, he heard a hail:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Eh, Prophet! What time yo’ all goin’ to hold the +meeting?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Round 10 or 11 o’clock,” he replied.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba went to one of the boats for breakfast, and +he was surprised when Mamie Caope asked him to invoke +a blessing on their humble meal of hot-bread, +sorghum, fried pork chops, oatmeal, fried spuds, percolator +coffee, condensed cream, nine-inch perch caught +that morning, and some odds and ends of what she called +“leavings.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then the women all went over on his big mission boat +and cleaned things up, declaring that men folks didn’t +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' name='page_213'></a>213</span> +know how to keep their own faces clean, let alone houseboats. +They scrubbed and mopped and re-arranged, +and every time Rasba appeared they splashed so much +that he was obliged to escape.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When at last he was allowed to return he found the +boat all cleaned up like a honey-comb. He found that +the gambling apparatus had been taken away, except +the heavy crap table, which was made over into a pulpit, +and that chairs and benches had been arranged +into seats for a congregation. A store-boat man +climbed to the boat’s roof at 10:30, with a Texas steer’s +horn nearly three feet long, and began to blow.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The blast reverberated across the river, and echoed +back from the shore opposite; it rolled through the +woods and along the sandbars; and the Prophet, listening, +recalled the tales of trumpets which he had read +in the Bible. At intervals of ten minutes old Jodun +filled his great lungs, pursed his lips, and swelled his +cheeks to wind his great horn, and the summons carried +for miles. People appeared up the bank, swamp angels +from the timber brakes who strolled over to see what +the river people were up to, and skiffs sculled over to +bring them to the river meeting. The long bend opposite, +and up and down stream, where no sign of life +had been, suddenly disgorged skiffs and little motorboats +of people whose floating homes were hidden in +tiny bays, or covered by neutral colours against their +backgrounds.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The women hid Rasba away, like a bridegroom, to +wait the moment of his appearance, and when at last +he was permitted to walk out into the pulpit he nearly +broke down with emotion. There were more than a +hundred men and women, with a few children, waiting +eagerly for him. He was a good old fellow; he meant +all right; he’d taken care of Jest Prebol, who had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' name='page_214'></a>214</span> +deserved to be shot; he was pretty ignorant of river ways, +but he wanted to learn about them; he hadn’t hurt their +feelings, for he minded his own business, saying not +a word about their good times, even if he wouldn’t +dance himself. They could do no better than let him +know that they hadn’t any hard feelings against him, +even if he was a parson, for he didn’t let on that they +were sinners. Anyway, they wanted to hear him hit +it up!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I came down here to find a son whose mother was +worrited about him,” Rasba began at the beginning. +“I ’lowed likely if I could find Jock it’d please his +mammy, an’ perhaps make her a little happier. And +Jock ’lowed he’d better go back, and stand trial, even +if it was a hanging matter.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You see, I didn’t expect you’d get to learn very +much from me, and I haven’t been disappointed. I’m +the one that’s learning, and when I think what you’ve +done for me, and when I see what Old Mississip’ does, +friendlying for all of us, tripping us along––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They understood. He looked at the boat, at them, +and through the wide-open windows at the sun-rippled +water.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Now for religion. Seems like I’m impudent, telling +you kindly souls about being good to one another, +having no hard, mean feelings against anybody, and +living like you ought to live. We’re all sinners! Time +and again hit’s ag’in the grain to do what’s right, and if +we taste a taste of white liquor, or if hit’s stained with +burnt sugar to make hit red, why––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” someone grinned. “Parson Rasba knows!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The preacher joined the laughter.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh!” he admitted, more gravely, “I know. +I ’lowed, one time, that I’d git to know this yeah happiness +that comes of liquor, an’ I shore took one awful +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' name='page_215'></a>215</span> +gulp. Three nights an’ three days I neveh slept a +wink, an’ me settin’ theh by the fireplace, waitin’ +to be lit up an’ jubulutin’, but hit didn’t come. I’ve +be’n happier, jes’ a-settin’ an’ lookin’ at that old riveh, +hearin’ the wild geese flocking by!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“That old riveh—Lawse! If the Mississippi brings +you fish and game; if it gives you sheltered eddies to +anchor in, and good banks or sandbars to tie against; +if this great river out here does all that for you, what +do you reckon the Father of that river, of all the world, +of all the skies would do, He being so much friendlier +and powerfuller?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit’s easy to forget the good that’s done to you. +Lots an’ lots of times, I bet you’ve not even thought of +the good you’ve had from the river, from the sunshine, +from the winds, plenty to eat and warm of nights on +your boats and in your cabins. It’s easy to remember +the little evil things, the punishments that are visited +upon us for our sins or because we’re ignorant and don’t +know; but reckon up the happiness you have, the +times you are blessed with riches of comfort and pleasure, +and you’ll find yourself so much happier than +you are sad that you’ll know how well you are cared +for.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I cayn’t preach no reg’lar sermon, with text-tes +and singing and all that. Seems like I jes’ want to talk +along rambling like, and tell you how happy you are all, +for I don’t reckon you’re much wickeder than you are +friendly on the average. I keep a-hearing about murdering +and stealing and whiskey boating and such +things. They’re signs of the world’s sinfulness. We +talk a heap about such things; they’re real, of course, +and we cayn’t escape them. At the same time, look +at me!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I came down here, sorry with myse’f, and you make +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' name='page_216'></a>216</span> +me glad, not asking if I’d done meanness or if I’d betrayed +my friends. You ’lowed I was jes’ a man, +same’s you. I couldn’t tell you how to be good, because +I wasn’t no great shakes myse’f, and the worse I was +the better you got. Buck an’ Jock gives me this boat +for a mission boat; I’m ignorant, an’ a woman gives +me––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He choked up. What the woman had given him was +too immeasurable and too wonderful for mere words +to express his gratitude.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m just one of those shoutin’, ignorant mountain +parsons. I could out-whoop most of them up yonder. +But down yeah, Old Mississip’ don’t let a man shout +out. When yo’ play dance music, hit’s softer and +sweeter than some of those awful mountain hymns in +which we condemn lost souls to the fire. Course, the +wicked goes to hell, but somehow I cayn’t git up much +enthusiasm about that down yeah. What makes my +heart rejoice is that there’s so much goodness around +that I bet ’most anybody’s got a right smart chanct to +get shut of slippin’ down the claybanks into hell.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Jest Prebol?” someone asked, seeing Prebol’s face +in the window of the little red shanty-boat moored +close by, where he, too, could listen.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Jest Prebol’s been my guide down the riveh,” +the Prophet retorted. “I can say that I only wish I +could be as good a pilot for poor souls and sinners +toward heaven as Jest is a river pilot for a wandering +old mountain parson on the Mississippi––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hi-i-i!” a score of voices laughed, and someone +shouted, “So row me down the Jordan!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They all knew the old religious song which fitted so +nicely into the conditions on the Mississippi. Somebody +called to someone else, and the musicians in the +congregation slipped away to return with their violins, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' name='page_217'></a>217</span> +banjos, accordions, guitars, and other familiar instruments. +Before the preacher knew it, he had more +music in the church than he had ever heard in a church +before—and they knew what to play and what to sing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The sermon became a jubilee, and he would talk along +awhile till something he said struck a tuneful suggestion, +and the singing would begin again; and when at +last he brought the service to an end, he was astonished +to find that he had preached and they had sung for +more than two hours.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then there was scurrying about, and from all sides +the calm airs of the sunny Sabbath were permeated +with the odours of roasts and fried things, coffee and +sauces. A score wanted Rasba to dine out, but Mrs. +Caope claimed first and personal acquaintance, and +her claim was acknowledged. The people from far +boats and tents returned to their own homes. Two or +three boats of the fleet, in a hurry to make some place +down stream, dropped out in mid-afternoon, and the +little shanty-boat town was already breaking up, having +lasted but a day, but one which would long be remembered +and talked about. It was more interesting +than murder, for murders were common, and the circumstances +and place were so remarkable that even a +burning steamboat would have had less attention and +discussion.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The following morning Mrs. Caope offered Rasba +$55 for his old poplar boat, and he accepted it gladly. +She said she had a speculation in mind, and before +nightfall she had sold it for $75 to two men who were +going pearling up the St. Francis, and who thought that +a boat a parson had tripped down in would bring them +good luck.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The dancers of Saturday night, the congregation of +Sunday, on Monday afternoon were scattered. Mrs. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' name='page_218'></a>218</span> +Caope’s and another boat dropped off the river to visit +friends, and mid-afternoon found Parson Rasba and +Prebol alone again, drawing down toward Mendova.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Prebol knew that town, and he told Rasba about it. +He promised that they would see something of it, but +they could not make it that evening, so they landed in +Sandbar Reach for the night. Just after dawn, while +the rising sun was flashing through the tree tops from +east to west, a motorboat driving up stream hailed as it +passed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Ai-i-i, Prebol! Palura’s killed up!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Prebol shouted out for details, and the passer-by, +slowing down, gave a few more:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Had trouble with the police, an’ they shot him daid +into his own dance floor—and Mendova’s no good no +more!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Now what the boys goin’ to do when they make a +haul?” Prebol demanded in great disgust of Parson +Rasba. “Fust the planters shot up whiskey boats; +then the towns went dry, an’ now they closed up Palura’s +an’ shot him daid. Wouldn’t hit make yo’ sick, +Parson! They ain’t no fun left nowheres for good +sports.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba could not make any comment. He was far +from sure of his understanding. He felt as though his +own life had been sheltered, remote from these wild +doings of murders and shanty-boat-fleet dances and a +congregation assembling in a gambling boat handed to +him for a mission! He could not quite get his bearings, +but the books blessed him with their viewpoints, as +numerous as the points of the compass. He could not +turn a page or a chapter without finding something +that gave him a different outlook or a novel idea.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They landed in late on Monday at Mendova bar, +just above the wharf. Up the slough were many shanty-boats, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' name='page_219'></a>219</span> +and gaunt dogs and floppy buzzards fed along the +bar and down the wharf.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Groups of men and women were scattered along both +the slough and the river banks, talking earnestly and +seriously. Rasba, bound up town to buy supplies, +heard the name of Palura on many lips; the policemen +on their beats waltzed their heavy sticks about in debonair +skilfulness; and stooped, rat-like men passing by, +touched their hats nervously to the august bluecoats.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When Rasba returned to the boat, he found a man +waiting for him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“My name is Lester Terabon,” the man said. “I +landed in Saturday, and went up town. When I +returned, my skiff and outfit were all gone—somebody +stole them.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Rasba exclaimed. “I’ve heard of you. +You write for newspapers?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir, and I’m some chump, being caught that +way.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“They meant to rob you?” Rasba asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, of––I don’t know!” Terabon saw a new outlook +on the question.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Did they go down?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, sir, I heard so. I don’t care about my boat, +typewriter, and duffle; what bothers me is my notebooks. +Months of work are in them. If I could get them +back!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What can I do for you?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I don’t know—I’m going down stream; it’s down +below, somewhere.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I need someone to help me,” Rasba said. “I’ve +a wounded man here who has a doctor with him. If he +goes up to the hospital or stays with us, I’ll be glad to +have you for your help and company.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I’m in luck.” Terabon laughed with relief. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' name='page_220'></a>220</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Just that way the Mississippi River’s narrow channel +brought the River Prophet and the river reporter together. +Terabon went up town and bought some +clothes, some writing paper, a big blank notebook, and +a bottle of fountain-pen ink. With that outfit he returned +on board, and a delivery car brought down his +share of things to eat.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The doctor said Prebol ought to go into the hospital +for at least a week, and Terabon found Prebol’s pirate +friends, hidden up the slough on their boat, not venturing +to go out except at night. They took the little +red shanty-boat up the slough, and Prebol went to the +hospital.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba, frankly curious about the man who wrote for +newspapers for a living, listened to accounts of an odd +and entertaining occupation. He asked about the +Palura shooting which everyone was talking about, +and when Terabon described it as he had witnessed it, +Rasba shook his head.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Now they’ll close up that big market of sin?” he +asked. “They’ve all scattered around.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yes, and they scattered with my skiff, too, and +probably robbed Carline of his boat––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Carline! You know him?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I came down with him from Yankee Bar, and we +went up to Palura’s together. I lost him in the shuffle, +when the big cop killed Palura.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“And Mrs. Carline, Nelia Crele?” Rasba demanded.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why—I—they said she’d landed in. She’s gone, +too––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“You know her?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, yes—I––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“So do I. Those books,” he waved his hand toward +the loaded shelves, “she gave them all to me for my +mission boat!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' name='page_221'></a>221</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon stared. He went to the shelves and looked +at the volumes. In each one he found the little bookmark +which she had used in cataloguing them:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; text-align:center'>Nelia Carline,<br /> +A Loved Book.<br /> +No. 87<br /></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A jealous pang seized him, in spite of his reportorial +knowledge that jealousy is vanity for a literary person.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’low we mout ’s well drop out,” Rasba suggested. +“Missy Crele’s down below some’rs. Her boat +floated out to’d mornin’, one of the boys said.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' name='page_222'></a>222</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXX' id='CHAPTER_XXX'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline had discovered his wife in the excitement +at Palura’s, and with the cunning of a +drunken man had shadowed her. He followed +her down to Mousa Bayou, and saw her go on board her +cabin-boat. He watched, with more cunning, to see +for whom she was waiting. He had in his pocket a +heavy automatic pistol with which to do murder.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had seen killing done, and the thing was fascinating; +some consciousness that the policeman had done +the right thing seemed now to justify his own intention +of killing a man, or somebody.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Disappointment lingered in his mind when the lights +went out on board Nelia’s boat, and for a long time he +meditated as to what he should do. He saw skiffs, +motorboats, shanty-boats pulling hastily down the +slough into the Mississippi. It was the Exodus of Sin. +Mendova’s rectitude had asserted its strength and +power, and now the exits of the city were flickering +with the shadows of departing hordes of the night and +of the dark, all of whom had two fears: one of daylight, +the other of sudden death.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Their departure before his eyes, with darkened boats, +gave Carline an idea at last. He wanted to get away +off somewhere, where he could be alone, without any +interruption. Bitter anger surged in his breast because +his wife had shamed him, left him, led him this any-thing-but-merry +chase down the Mississippi. A proud +Carline had no call to be treated thataway by any woman, +especially by the daughter of an old ne’er-do-well +whom he had condescended to marry.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had always been a hunter and outdoor man, and +it was no particular trick for him to cast off the lines of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' name='page_223'></a>223</span> +Nelia’s boat and push it out into the sluggish current, +and it was as easy for him to take his own boat and drop +down into the river. He brought the two boats quietly +together and lashed them fast with rope fenders to +prevent rubbing and bumping—did it with surprising +skill.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The Mississippi carried them down the reach into +the crossing, and around a bend out of sight of even the +glow of the Mendova lights. Here was one of those +lonesome stretches of the winding Mississippi, with +wooded bank, sandbar, sky-high and river-deep loneliness.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Carline, with alcoholic persistency, held to his +scheme. He drank the liquor which he had salvaged +in the riotous night. He thought he knew how to +bring people to time, especially women. He had seen +a big policeman set the pace, and the sound of the club +breaking skull bones was still a shock in his brain, oft +repeated.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The sudden dawn caught him by surprise, and he +stared rather nonplussed by the sunrise, but when he +looked around and saw that he was in mid-stream and +miles from anywhere and from any one, he knew that +there was no better place in the world for taming one’s +wife, and extorting from her the apologies which seemed +to Carline appropriate, all things considered, for the +occasion.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The time had arrived for action. He rose with dignity +and buttoned up his waistcoat; he pulled down +his coat and gave his cravat a hitch; he rubbed a tentative +hand on the lump where the pirates had bumped +him; he scrambled over the side onto the cabin-boat +deck, and entered upon the scene of his conquest.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He found himself confronted by Nelia in a white-faced, +low-voiced fury instead of in the mood he had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' name='page_224'></a>224</span> +expected. She wasn’t sorry; she wasn’t apologetic; she +wasn’t even amiable or conciliatory.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Gus Carline! Drunk, as usual. What do you +mean by this?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“S’all right!” he assured her, flapping his hands. +“Y’re m’wife; I’m your husban’! S’all right!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She drew her pistol and fired a bullet past him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Go!” she cried.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Before he knew what had happened he had backed +out upon the bow deck, and she bundled him up onto +his own craft. She cast off the bow line and ran to the +stern to cast off the line there. As she did so, she discovered +Terabon’s skiff around at the far side where +Carline could not see it.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Her husband was still shaking his fist in her direction, +but the two boats were well apart as she rowed +away with her sweeps. He stood there, undecided. +He had not expected the sudden and effective resistance. +Before he knew it, she was lost in a whole fleet of little +houseboats which were, to his eyes, both in the sky, +underwater, and scattered all over the tip-tilting surfaces.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The current, under the impulse of her rowing, carried +Nelia into an eddy and she saw the cruiser rocking +down a crossing into the mirage of the distance. She +sat on the bow deck while her boat made a long swing +in the eddy. Things did not happen down the river +as she planned or expected. She regarded the previous +night’s entertainment with less indifference now; something +about the calm of that broad river affected her. +She realized that watching the killing of Palura had +given her a shock so deep that now she was trembling +with the weakness of horror.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She had seen Gus Carline stumble into her cabin, +and with angry defiance she had acted with the intention +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' name='page_225'></a>225</span> +of doing to him what she had done to Prebol—but +she had missed deliberately when she shot. When she +recalled the matter, she saw that for weeks she had +been living in a false frame of mind; that she was +desperate, and not contented; that she was afraid—and +that she hated fear.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Her pistol was sign of her bravado, and her shots +were the indication of her desperation. The memory +of the wan face of Prebol brought down by her bullet +was now an accusation, not a pride.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Old Mississip’ had received her gently in her most +furious mood, but now that immense, active calm of +vast power was working on the untamed soul which she +owned. The river swept along, and its majesty no +longer gave her the feeling that nothing mattered. Far +from it! Though she rebelled against the idea, her +mind knew that she was in rebellion, that she was going +against the current. And the river’s mood was dangerous, +now, to the wanton feelings to which she had +desperately yielded but unsuccessfully.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The old, familiar, sharp division between right +and wrong was presented to her gaze as if the river itself +were calling her attention to it. She could not +escape the necessity of a choice, with evil so persuasive +and delightful and virtue so depressing and necessary.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She investigated Terabon’s outfit with curiosity and +questioning. His typewriter, his maps, his few books, +his stack of notes neatly compiled in loose-leaf files, +were the materials which caught and held her fancy. +She took them on board her shanty-boat and read the +record which he had made, from day to day, from his +inspection of Commission records at St. Louis to the +purchase of his boat in shanty-boat town, and his departure +down the river.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His words were intimate and revealing: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' name='page_226'></a>226</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>Oct. 5; In mid-stream among a lot of islands; rafts of ducks; a +dull, blue day, still those great limestone hills, with hollows through +which the wind comes when opposite—coolies?––; in the far distance +a rowboat. On the Missouri side, the hills; on the other the +flats, with landing sheds. Ducks in great flocks—look like sea serpents +when flying close to the water; like islands on it—wary birds.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>That was above the part of the river which she +knew; she turned to Kaskaskia, and read facts familiar +to her:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>I met Crele, an old hunter-trapper, in a slough below St. Genevieve. +He was talkative, and said he had the prettiest girl on a +hundred miles of river. She had married a man of the name of Carline, +real rich and a big bug. “But my gal’s got the looks, yes, +indeed!” If I find her, I must be sure and tell her to write to her +folks—river romance!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia’s face warmed as she read those phrases as +well it might. She wondered what other things he +had written in his book of notes, and her eye caught +a page:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>House boatmen are a bad lot. Once a young man came to work +for a farmer back on the hills. He’d been there a month, when one +night he disappeared; a set of double harness went with him. Another +man hung around a week, and raided a grocery store, filling +washtubs with groceries, cloth, and shoes—went away in a skiff.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She turned to where he travelled down the Mississippi +with her husband and read the description of Gus Carline’s +whiskey skiff man, his purchase of a gallon of +whiskey; the result, which her imagination needed but +few words to visualize; then Terabon’s drifting away +down stream, leaving the sot to his own insensibilities.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Breathlessly she read his snatching sentences from +bend to shoal, from reach to reach, until he described +her red-hull, white cabin-boat, described the “young +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' name='page_227'></a>227</span> +river woman” who occupied it; and then, page after +page of memoranda, telling almost her own words, and +his own words, as he had remembered them. What he +wrote here had not been intended for her eyes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>She’s dropping down this river all alone; pirates nor scoundrels +nor river storms nor jeopardies seem to disturb her in the least. +She even welcomes me, as an interesting sort of intellectual specimen, +who can talk about books and birds and a multitude of things. +She may well rest assured that none of us river rats have any designs, +whatever, on a lady who shoots quick, shoots straight, and dropped +Prebol at thirty yards off-hand with an automatic!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She read the paragraph with interest and then with +care; she did not know whether to be pleased or not +by that brutally frank statement that he was afraid of +her—suppose he hadn’t been afraid? Then, of what +was he really afraid—not of her pistol! She read on +through the pages of notes. The description of the +walk with her up the sandbar and back, there at Island +No. 10, thrilled her, for it told the apparently trifling +details—the different kinds of sands, the sounds, the +night gloom, the quick sense of the river presence, the +glow of distant New Madrid. He had lived it, and he +wrote it in terms that she realized were the words she +might have used to describe her own observations and +sensations.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She searched through his notes in vain for any suggestion +of the emotions which she had felt. She +shrugged her shoulders, because he had not written +anything to indicate that he had discovered her allurement. +He had written in bald words the fact of her +sending him on the errand of rescue, to save her husband—and +she was obliged to digest in her mind the +bare but significant phrase:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>And, because she has sent me, I am glad to go!</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228' name='page_228'></a>228</span></div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>His notes made her understand him better, but they +did not reveal all his own feelings. He wrote her down +as an object of curiosity, as he spoke of the sour face +and similitude of good humour in the whiskey boater’s +expression. In the same painstaking way he described +her own friendliness for a passing skiff boater. The +impersonality of his remarks about himself surprised +while it perplexed her.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The mass of material which he had gathered for +making articles and stories amazed her. The stack +of pages, closely typewritten, was more than two inches +thick. A few pages disclosed consecutive paragraphs +with subjects, predicates, and complete sense, but +other pages showed only disjointed phrases, words, and +flashes of ideas.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The changing notes, the questioning, the observations, +the minute recording were fascinating to her. +It revealed a phase of writers’ lives of which she had +known nothing—the gathering of myriads of details, +in order to free the mind for accurate rendering of +pictures and conditions. She wished she could see +some of the finished product of Terabon’s use of these +notes, and the wish revealed a chasm, an abyss that +confronted her. She felt deserted, as though she had +need of Terabon to give her a view of his own life, that +she might be diverted into something not sordid, and decidedly +not according to Augustus Carline’s ideals!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After a time, seeing that Carline’s boat had disappeared +down river, she threw over her anchor, and rested +in the eddy. It was on the west side, with a chute +entrance through a sandbar and willow-grown island +points opposite. She brought out her map book to see +if she could learn where she was anchored, but the +printed map, with the bright red lines of recent surveys, +helped her not at all. She turned from sheet to sheet +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' name='page_229'></a>229</span> +down to Memphis, without finding what she wanted to +know.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She saw some shanty-boats down the river; she saw +some up the river; but there was none near her till +just before dark a motor skiff came down in the day’s +gray gloom, and passed within a few yards of her. +When she looked at the two men in the boats she learned +to know what fear is—river terror—horror of mankind +in its last extremities of depravity and heartlessness.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She saw men stooped and slinking, whose glance +was sidelong and whose expression was venomous, +casting covert looks toward her as they passed by into +the gray mist of falling night. They entered a narrow +waterway among the sandbars, and left behind the +feeling that along that waterway was the abiding place +of lost souls. She wanted to take up the anchor and +flee out onto the river, but when she looked into the +darkening breadths, she felt the menace of the miles, +of the mists, of the wooded shores. Foreboding was +in her tired soul.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She examined her pistol, to make sure that it was +ready to use; she locked the stern door, and drew the +curtains; she went to the bow and looked carefully +at the anchor-line fastenings. With no light on board +to blind her gaze, she scrutinized all the surroundings, +to make sure of her locality. In that blank gloom she +was dubious but brave. Not a thing visible, not a +sound audible, nothing but her remote and little understood +sensation of premonitory dread explained her +perturbation. She entered the cabin, locked the door, +set the window catches and sticks, lighted the lamp, +and sat down to—think. Her bookshelves were +empty, and she was glad that she had emptied them +in a good cause. It occurred to her that she ought to +make up another list for her own service, and with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230' name='page_230'></a>230</span> +pencil and paper she began that most fascinating work, +the compilation of one’s own library. As she made her +selections, she forgot the menace which she had observed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In the stillness she thought her own ears were ringing +and paid no attention to the humming that increased in +volume moment by moment. It was a flash of lightning +without thunder that stirred her senses. She +looked up from her absorption.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She heard a distant rumble, a near-by stirring. The +wavelets along the side of the boat were noisy; they +rattled like paper. Something fell clattering on the +roof of the cabin, and a tearing, ripping, crashing struck +the boat and fairly tossed it skipping along the surface +of the water. The lamp blew out as a window pane +broke, and the woman was thrown to the floor in a +confusion of chairs, table, and other loose objects. +Happily, the stove was screwed fast to the floor. The +anchor line broke with a loud twang, and the black +confusion was lighted with flares and flashes of gray-blue +glaring.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The river had made Nelia Crele believe that she was +in jeopardy from man; but it was a little hurricane, or, +as the river people call them, cyclones, that menaced. +Dire as was the confusion and imminent as was the +peril, Nelia felt a sense of relief from what would have +been harder to bear—an attack by men. She had +searched the map for information, but it was the river +which inspired her to understand that the hurricane +was her deliverance rather than her assailant.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She did not know whether she would live or die +during those seconds when the gale crashed like maul +blows and wind and rain poured and whistled in at the +broken window pane. She laughed at her predicament, +tumbling in dishevelment around the bouncing +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' name='page_231'></a>231</span> +cabin floor, and when the suck and send of the storm +crater passed by, leaving a driving wind, she stepped +out on the bows, and caught up her sweeps to ride the +waves and face the gale that set steadily in from the +north.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was gray, impenetrable black—that night. She +could see nothing, neither the waves nor the sky nor the +river banks; but singing aloud, she steadied the boat, +bow to the wind, holding it to the gale by dipping the +sweeps deep and strong.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Beaten steadily back, unable to know how far or +in what direction, she found her soul, serenely above the +mere physical danger, loving that vast torrent more +than ever.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The Mississippi trains its own to be brave.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' name='page_232'></a>232</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXXI' id='CHAPTER_XXXI'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> +</div> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Parson Rasba and Terabon floated out into +the main river current and ran with the stream. +They were passing through the famous, changeable +channels among the great sandbars from Island +No. 34 down to Hopefield Bend. They rounded Dean +Island Bend in the darkness, for they had floated all +day and far into the night, driven by an anxiety which +was inexplicable.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They wanted to be going; they felt an urge which +they commented upon; it was a voice in their hearts, +and not audible in their ears. Yet when they stood +nervously at the great sweeps of the mission boat, to +pull the occasional strokes necessary to clear a bar or +flank a bend, they could almost declare that the river +was talking.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They strained their ears in vain, trying to distinguish +the meanings of the distant murmurings. Terabon, +now well familiar with the river, could easily believe +that he was listening to the River Spirit, and his feelings +were melancholy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For months he had strained every power of his mind +to record the exact facts about the Mississippi, and he +put down tens of thousands of words describing and +stating what he saw, heard, and knew. With one +stroke he had been separated from his work, and he +feared that he had lost his precious notes for all time.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Either Carline or river pirates had carried them +away. He hoped, he believed, that he would find them, +but there was an uncertainty. He shivered apprehensively +when he recalled with what frankness he +had put down details, names, acts, rumours, reports—all +the countless things which go to make up the “histories” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' name='page_233'></a>233</span> +of a voyage down from St. Louis in skiff, shanty-boat, +and launch. What would they say if they read +his notes?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He had notepaper, blank books, and ink, and he set +about the weary task of keeping up his records, and +putting down all that he could recall of the contents of +his lost loose-leaf system. It was a staggering task.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In one record he wrote the habitual hour-to-hour +description, comment, talk, and fact; in his “memory +journal” he put down all the things he could recall +about the contents of his lost record. He had written +the things down to save him the difficulty of trying to +remember, but now he discovered that he had remembered. +A thousand times faster than he could write +the countless scenes and things he had witnessed flocked +back into the consciousness of his mind, pressing for +recognition and another chance to go down in black and +white.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>As he wrote, Parson Rasba, in the intervals of navigating +the big mission boat, would stand by gazing at +the furious energy of his companion. Rasba had seized +upon a few great facts of life, and dwelt in silent contemplation +of them, until a young woman with a library +disturbed the echoing halls of his mind, and +brought into them the bric-à-brac of the thought of the +ages. Now, from that brief experience, he could gaze +with nearer understanding at this young man who regarded +the pathway of the moon reflecting in a narrow +line across a sandbar and in a wide dancing of cold +blue flames upon the waters, as an important thing +to remember; who recorded the wavering flight of the +nigger geese, or cormorants, as compared to the magnificent +V-figure, straight drive of the Canadians and +the other huge water fowl; who paused to seize such +simple terms as “jump line,” “dough-bait,” “snag +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' name='page_234'></a>234</span> +line,” “reef line,” as though his life might depend on his +verbal accuracy.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The Prophet pondered. The Mississippi had taught +him many lessons. He was beginning to look for the +lesson in casual phenomena, and when he said so to +Terabon, the writer stared at him with open mouth.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why—that explains!” Terabon gasped.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Explains what?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“The heathen who was awed by the myriad impressions +of Nature, and who learned, by hard experience, +that he must not neglect even the apparently trivial +things lest he suffer disaster.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then Terabon fell to writing even more furiously +in his day-by-day journal, for that was something of +this moment, although he has just jotted down the renewed +impression of coming into the bottoms at Cape +Girardeau. Rasba took up the pages of the notes +which Terabon was rewriting. Happily, Terabon’s +writing was like copper-plate script, however fast he +wrote, and the mountain man read:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>Big hickory tree grove—Columbus Hickories—Largest cane in +some bend down below Helena—Spanish Moss bend—famous river +bend—Fisherman at Brickey’s Mill told of hoop nets, trammels, +seines (stillwater bayous), jump, hand, snag, reef, lines––Jugging +for catfish down the crossings, half pound pork, or meat, for bait, +also called “blocking” for catfish.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What will you do with all this?” Rasba asked.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Why, I’ll––” Terabon hesitated, and then continued: +“It’s like building a house. I gather all this +material: lumber, stone, logs, cement, shingles, lathes, +quick-lime, bricks, and everything. I store it all up +in this notebook; that’s my lumber yard. Then when +I dig the foundation, I’ll come in here and I’ll find the +things I need to build my house, or mansion. Of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' name='page_235'></a>235</span> +course, to start with, I’ll just build little shacks and +cabins. See what I mean? I am going to write +articles first and they’re kind of like barns and shacks, +and even mere fences. But by and by I’ll write +fiction stories, and they will be like the mansions, and +the material will all fit in: all about a fisherman, all +about a market hunter, all about a drifter, all about a +river––”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“All about a river woman?” Rasba asked, as he hesitated.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I wasn’t thinking that.” Terabon shook his head, +his colour coming a little. “I had in mind, all about a +River Prophet!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Rasba exclaimed. “What could you all find +to write about a Riveh Prophet?”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon looked at the stern, kindly, friendly, picturesque +mountaineer who had come so far to find one +man, for that man’s mother, and he rejoiced in his heart +to think that the parson did not know, could never +know, because of the honest simplicity of his heart, how +extraordinarily interesting he was.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>So they drifted with the current, absorbed in their +immediate present. It seemed as though they found +their comprehension expanding and widening till it +encompassed the answers to a thousand questions. +Rasba, dazed by his own accretion of new interests, +discovery of undreamed-of powers, seizure of opportunities +never known before, could but gaze with awe +and thankfulness at the evidences of his great good fortune, +the blessings that were his in spite of his wondering +why one of so little desert had received such bountiful +favour. Terabon, remembering what he feared was +irrevocably lost, knew that he had escaped disaster, +and that the pile of notes which he had made only to +be deprived of them were after all of less importance +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' name='page_236'></a>236</span> +than that he should have suffered the deep emotion of +seeing so much of his toil and time vanish.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Here it was again—Rasba might well wonder at +that gathering and hoarding of trifles. They were not +the important things, those minute words and facts and +points; no, indeed.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>At last Terabon knew that most important fact of +all that it was the emotions that counted. As a mere +spectator, he could never hope to know the Mississippi, +to describe and write it truly; the river had forced +him into the activities of the river life, and had done +him by that act its finest service.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He was in the fervour of his most recent discovery +when Rasba went out on the bow deck and looked into +the night. He called Terabon a minute later, and the +two looked at a phenomenon. The west was aglow, +like a sunset, but with flarings and flashings instead of +slowly changing lights and hues. The light under the +clouds at the horizon extended through 90 degrees of +the compass, and in the centre of the bright greenish +flare there was a compact, black, apparently solid mass +from which streaks of lightning constantly exuded on +all sides.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>For a minute Terabon stared, cold chills goose-pimpling +his flesh. Then he cried:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Cyclone, Parson! Get ready!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They were opposite the head of a long bend near the +end of a big sandbar, and skirting the edge of an eddy, +near its foot. Terabon sprang into the gasolene +launch, started the motor, and steered for the shelter +of the west bank. In the quiet he and Rasba told each +other what to do.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba ran out two big anchors with big mooring +lines tied to them. He closed the bow door but opened +all the windows and other doors. Then, as they heard +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' name='page_237'></a>237</span> +the storm coming, they covered the launch with the +heavy canvas, heaved over the anchors into a fathom of +water, let out long lines, and played the launch out over +the stern on a heavy line fast to towing bits.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>A sweep of hail and rain was followed by a moment +of calm. Then a blast of wind, which scraped over the +cabin roof, was succeeded by the suck of the tornado, +which swept, a waterspout, across the river a quarter +of a mile down stream, struck a sandbar, and carried +up a golden yellow cloud of dust, which disappeared in +the gray blackness of a terrific downpour of rain.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They stretched out on their anchor lines till the +whole fabric of the cabin hummed and crackled with +the strain, but the lines held, and the windows being +open, prevented the semi-vacuum created by the storm’s +passing from “exploding” the boat, and tearing off +the cabin, or the roof.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>After the varying gusts and blasts the wind settled +down, colder by forty degrees, and with the steady white +of a norther. It meant days and nights of waiting +while the storm blew itself out. And when the danger +had passed and the boats were safe against the lines, +the two men turned in to sleep, more tired after their +adventures than they remembered ever being before.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In the morning rain was falling intermittently +with some sleet, but toward afternoon there was just a +cold wind. They built hot fires in their heater, burning +coal with which the gamblers had filled bow and stern +bins from coal barges somewhere up the river. Having +plenty to eat on board, there was nothing to worry +them.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon, his fountain pen racing, wrote for his own +distant Sunday Editor a narrative which excited the +compiler of the Magazine Supplement to deep oaths of +admiration for the fertile, prolific imagination of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' name='page_238'></a>238</span> +wandering writer—for who would believe in a romance +ready made?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The night of the big wind was followed by a day and +a night of gusts of wind and sleety rain; then followed +a day and a night of rising clouds, then a day when the +clouds were scattered and the sun was cold. That +day the sunset was grim, white, and freezing cold.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>In the morning there was a bright, warm sunrise, +a breath of sweet, soft air, and unimaginable brightness +and buoyancy, birds singing, squirrels barking, +and all the dismal pangs banished.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Shanty-boats shot out into the gay river and dotted +the wide surface up and down the current for miles. +The ears of the parson and the writer, keener with the +acuteness of distant sounds, could hear music from a +boat so far away that they could not see it, a wonderfully +enchanting experience.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They, too, ran out into the flood of sunshine to float +down with the rest.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>At the foot of Brandywine Bar a little cabin-boat +suddenly rowed out into the current and signalled them; +somebody recognized and wanted to speak to the +mission boat. They were rapidly sucking down the +swift chute current, but Terabon turned over the motor, +and flanked the big houseboat across the current so +that the hail could be answered.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The little cabin-boat, almost lost to view astern, +rapidly gained, and as they ran down Beef Island +chute, where the current is slow, they were overtaken.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” Parson Rasba cried aloud, “hit’s Missy +Carline, Missy Nelia, shore as I’m borned!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon had known it for half an hour. He had been +noticing river details, and he could not fail to recognize +that little boat. His hands trembled as he steered +the launch to take advantage of slack current and dead +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' name='page_239'></a>239</span> +water, and his throat choked with an emotion which +he controlled with difficulty. He looked fearfully at +the gaunt River Prophet whose own cheeks were staining +with warm blood, and whose eyes gazed so keenly +at the young woman who was coming, leaning to her +sweeps with Viking grace and abandon.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She was coming to <i>them</i>, with the fatalistic certainty +that is so astonishing to the student observer. Carried +away by her sottish husband; threatened by the tornado; +rescued, perhaps, by the storm from worse +jeopardy, caught in safety under an island sandbar; +her eyes, sweeping the lonesome breadths of the +flowing river-sea, had seen and recognized her friend’s +boat, the floating mission, and pulled to join safe +company.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She rowed up, with her eyes on the Prophet. He +stood there in his majesty while Terabon stooped unnoticed +in the engine pit of the motorboat. Not till +she had run down near enough to throw a line did she +take her eyes off the mountain parson, and then she +turned and looked into the eyes, dumb with misery, of +the other man, Terabon.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Her cheeks, red with her exertions, turned white. +Three days she had read that heap of notes in loose-leaf +file which Terabon had written. She had read the lines +and between the lines, facts and ideas, descriptions +and reminiscence, dialogue and history, statistics and +appreciation of a thousand river things, all viewpoints, +including her own.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She knew, now, how wicked she was. She knew, +now, the wilfulness of her sins, and the merciful interposition +of the river’s inviolable strength. Her sight +of the mission boat had awakened in her soul the +knowledge that she must go out and talk to the good +man on board, confess her naughtiness, and beg the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' name='page_240'></a>240</span> +Prophet for instruction. Woman-like, she knew what +the outcome would be.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He would take her, protect her, and there would be +some way out of the predicament in which they both +found themselves. But again she reckoned without the +river. How could she know that Terabon and he had +come down the Mississippi together?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>But there he was, chauffeuring for the Prophet!</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She threw the line, Rasba caught it, drew the two +boats together and made them fast. He welcomed +her as a father might have welcomed a favourite child. +He threw over the anchor, and Terabon dropped the +launch back to the stern, and hung it there on a light +line.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When he entered the big cabin Nelia was sitting beside +a table, and Rasba was leaning against the shelves +which he had put up for the books. Nelia, dumbfounded, +had said little or nothing. When she glanced +up at Terabon, she looked away again, quickly, flushing.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She was lost now. That was her feeling. Her defiance +and her courage seemed to have utterly left her, +and in those bitter days of cold wind and clammy rain, +sleet and discomfort had changed the outlook of everything.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Married, without a husband; capable of great love, +and yet sure that she must never love; two lovers and +an unhappy marriage between her and happiness; a +mind made up to sin, wantonly, and a soul that taunted +her with a life-time of struggle against sordidness. +The two men saw her burst into tears and cry out in an +agony of spirit.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Dumbly they stood there, man-like, not knowing +what to do, or what thought was in the woman’s mind. +The Prophet Rasba, his face full of compassion, turned +from her and went aft through the alley into the kitchen, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' name='page_241'></a>241</span> +closing the doors behind him. He knew, and with +knowledge he accepted the river fate.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Terabon went to her, and gave her comfort. He +talked to her as a lover should when his sweetheart is +in misery, her heart breaking. And she accepted his +gentleness, and sobbed out the impossibility of everything, +while she clung to him.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Within the hour they had plighted troth, regardless. +She confessed to her lover, instead of to the Prophet. +He said he didn’t care, and she said she didn’t care, +either—which was mutually satisfactory.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>When they went out to Parson Rasba, they found him +calmly reading one of the books which she had given +him. He looked up at their red faces and smiled with +indulgence. They would never know what went on +inside his heart, what was in his mind behind that kindly +smile. That he knew and understood everything was +clear to them, but they did not and would not have +believed that he had, for a minute, hated Terabon as +standing between him and happiness.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“What are we going to do?” Terabon cried, when he +had told the Parson that they loved each other, that +they would complete the voyage down the river together, +that her husband still lived, and that they could +get a $17.50 divorce at Memphis.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Hit wouldn’t be no ’count, that divorce.” The +Prophet shrugged his shoulders, and the two hung their +heads. They knew it, and yet they had been willing +to plead ignorance as an excuse for sin.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>He seemed to close the incident by suggesting that +it was time to eat something, and the three turned to +getting a square meal. They cooked a bountiful +dinner, and sat down to it, the Prophet asking a blessing +that seared the hearts of the two because of its fervour.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Rasba asked her to read to them after they had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' name='page_242'></a>242</span> +cleared up the dishes, and she took down the familiar +volumes and read. Rasba sat with his eyes closed, +listening. Terabon watched her face. She seemed +to choose the pages at random, and read haphazardly, +but it was all delight and all poetry.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She was reading, which was strange, the Humphrey-Abbott +book about the Mississippi River levees, the +classic report on river facts, all fascinating to the mind +that grasps with pleasure any river fact. When Rasba +looked up and smiled, the two were absorbed in their +occupations, one reading, the other watching her read. +She stopped in conscious confusion.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Yas, suh!” he smiled aloud. “I ’low we uns can +leave hit to Old Mississip’, these yeah things that +trouble us: I, my triflin’ doubts, and you children yo’ +own don’t-know-yets.”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>What made him say that, if he wasn’t a River +Prophet? Who told him, what voice informed him, at +that moment? Who can say?</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The following morning the big mission boat and +Missy Nelia’s boat landed in at Memphis wharf, and +the three went up town to buy groceries, newspapers +and magazines to read, and to help Nelia choose another +set of books from the shelves of local book stores. +Old Rasba had never been in a book store before, and +he stared at the hundreds of feet of shelves, with books +of all sizes, kinds, and makes.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“Sho!” he cried aloud, and then, again, “Sho! +Sho!”</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was fairyland for him, a land of enchantment, +of impossible satisfaction and glory-be! Terabon and +Nelia saw that they had given him another pleasure, +and Rasba was happy to know that he would always +be able to visit such places, and add to his own store of +literature, when he had read the books which he had, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' name='page_243'></a>243</span> +as he would do, page by page, and word by word, his +dictionary at hand.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Magazines and newspapers had little interest for him. +Nelia and Terabon could not help but wish to keep +closer in touch with the world. They picked up a +copy of the <i>Trade-Appealer</i>, and then a copy of the +<i>Evening Battle Ax</i>, just out.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They read one headline:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; text-align:center'>UNKNOWN DROWNS IN CRUISER<br /></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>It was a brutally frank description of a motorboat +cruiser which had floated down Hopefield Bend, awash +and waterlogged, but held afloat by air-tight tanks:</p> +<p style='margin-left:1.0em; margin-right:0.0em; '>In the cabin was the body of a man, apparently about 30 years of +age, with a whiskey jug clasped in one hand by the handle. He +was face downward, and had been dead two or three days. It is +supposed he was caught in the heavy wind-storm of Wednesday +night and drowned.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>The river had planned again. The river had acted +again. They went to look at the boat, which was +pumped out and in Ash Slough. It was Carline’s +cruiser. Then they went to the morgue, and it was +Carline’s body.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Nelia broke down and cried. After all, one’s husband +is one’s husband. She did the right thing. She +owned him, now, and she carried his remains back home +to Gage, and there she buried him, and wept on his +grave.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>She put on widow’s weeds for him, and though she +might have claimed his property, she ignored the will +which left her all of it, and gave to his relatives and to +her own poor people what was theirs. She gave Parson +Rasba, whom she had brought home with her to +bury her husband, $5,000 for his services. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' name='page_244'></a>244</span></p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>Then, after the estate was all settled up, she returned +to Memphis, and Terabon met her at the Union +Station, dutifully, as she had told him to do. Together +they went to the City Clerk’s and obtained a marriage +license, and the River Prophet, Rasba, with firm voice +and unflinching gaze, united them in wedlock.</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>They went aboard their own little shanty-boat, and +while the rice and old shoes of a host of river people +rattled and clattered on their cabin, they drifted out +into the current and rapidly slipped away toward +President’s Island. Parson Rasba, as they drifted +clear, said to them:</p> +<p style='margin-left:0.0em; margin-right:-1.0em; '>“I ’lowed we uns could leave hit to Old Mississip’!”</p> +<p style='text-align:center;margin-top:2em;'>THE END</p> +<hr class='pb' /> +<div style='margin:10px auto; text-align:center;'> +<img alt='THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS' src='images/illus-clp.png' /> +</div> +<p style='text-align:center;font-size:smaller;'>THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS<br />GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</p> + +<!-- generated by ppg.rb version: ppg0513a --> +<!-- timestamp: Fri May 15 13:31:58 -0600 2009 --> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The River Prophet, by Raymond S. 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Spears + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The River Prophet + +Author: Raymond S. Spears + +Illustrator: Ralph Pallen Coleman + +Release Date: May 16, 2009 [EBook #28848] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVER PROPHET *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "_She snatched the automatic pistol from her bosom +and ... fired. The man stumbled back with a cry._"] + + + + +THE RIVER PROPHET + +By + +Raymond S. Spears + +Frontispiece by + +Ralph Pallen Coleman + +Garden City New York + +Doubleday, Page & Company + +1920 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1918, 1920, BY +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF +TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, +INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + + + + +THE RIVER PROPHET + + + + +THE RIVER PROPHET + +CHAPTER I + + +Elijah Rasba lived alone in a log cabin on Temple Run. He was a long, +lank, blue-eyed young man, with curly brown hair and a pale, almost +livid complexion. His eye-brows were heavy and dark brown, and the blue +steel of his gaze was fixed unwaveringly upon any object that it +distinguished. + +Two generations before, Old Abe Rasba had built a church on a little +brook, a tributary of Jackson River, away up in the mountains. The +church was laid up of flat stones, gathered in fields, from ledges of +rock and up the wooded mountain side. It was large enough to hold all +the people for miles around, and the roof was supported by massive hewn +timbers, and some few attempts had been made to decorate the structure. + +Old Abe had called his church "The Temple," had preached from a big +hollow oak stump, and laid down the Law of the Bible, which he had +memorized by heart, and expounded from experience. Elijah Rasba, +grandson of Old Abe, thus came honestly by reverence and religion, but +the strange glory which had surrounded the old Temple had departed from +the ruin, and of all the congregation, only Elijah remained. + +Land-slips had ruined a score of farms cleared on too-steep hills; +lightning had destroyed the overshot grist mill, and the two big stones +had been cracked in the hot flames; a feud had opened graves before the +allotted time of the victims. It seemed to Elijah, sitting there in his +cabin, as though damnation had visited the faithful, and that death was +the reward of belief. + +The ruins of the old Temple stood melancholy where the heavy stone wall, +built by a man who believed in broad, firm foundations, had split an +avalanche, but without avail, for the walls had given way and let the +roof beams drop in. No less certain had been the fate of the +congregation; they, too, were scattered or dead. There remained but one +dwelling in the little valley, with a lone occupant, who was wrestling +with his soul, trying to understand, for he knew in his heart that he +must read the truth and discover the meaning of all this trouble, +privation, disaster, and death. + +He was quite practical about it. He had a field of corn, and a little +garden full of truck; over his fireplace hung a 32-20 repeating rifle, +and in one corner were a number of steel traps, copper and brass wire +for snares, and a home-made mattock with which a rabbit could be +extricated from a burrow, or a skunk-skin from its den. + +An Almanac, a Bible, and a "Resources of Tennessee" comprised the +library on the shelf. The Almanac had come by mail from away off yonder, +about a hundred miles, perhaps--anyhow, from New York. The "Resources of +Tennessee" had come down with a spring freshet in Jackson River, and was +rather stained with mountain clays. The Bible was, of course, an +inheritance. + +It was a very small article, apparently, to create all the disturbances +that seemed to have followed its interpretations there on Temple Run. +Elijah would hold it out at arms length and stare at it with those sharp +eyes of his, wondering in his soul how it could be that the fate of +nations, the future of humanity, the very salvation of every soul rested +within the compass of that leather-covered, gilt-edged parcel of thin +paper which weighed rather less than half as much as a box of +cartridges. + +Elijah did not spare himself in the least. He toiled at whatever task +appeared for him to do. As he required for his own wants fifty bushels +of corn for a year, he planted enough to shuck a hundred bushels. Once, +in the fervour of the hope that he was called upon to raise corn for +humanity, he raised five hundred bushels, only to give it all away to +poor white trash who had not raised enough for themselves. + +Again he felt the call to preach, and he went forth with all the +eagerness of a man who had at last discovered his life's calling. He +went on foot, through storms, over mountains, and into a hundred +schoolhouses and churches, showing his little leather-skinned Bible and +warning sinners to repent, Christians to keep faith, and Baal to lower +his loathly head. + +He had returned from his five months' pilgrimage with the feeling that +his utmost efforts had been futile, and that for all his good will, it +had not been vouchsafed him to leave behind one thought in fertile soil. +The matter had been brought home to him by an incident of the last +meeting he had addressed, over on Clinch. + +In the Painted Church he had volunteered a sermon, and no sermons had +been preached there in years. Feuds, inextricably tangled, had involved +five different families, and members of all those families were in the +church, answering to his challenge. + +They sat there with rifles or shotguns between their knees, with their +pistols on their hips, and eternal vigilance in their eyes. While +listening to his sermon they kept their gaze fastened upon one another, +lest an unwary moment bring upon them the alert shot of an enemy. + +As he had stood there, gaunt in frame, famished of soul, driven by the +torments of an ambition to see the right, to do it, it seemed to him as +though the final burden had been heaped upon him, and that he must +break under the weight on his mind. + +"What can I say to you all?" he burst out with sudden passion. "Theh yo' +set with guns in yo' hands an' murder in yo' souls--to listen to the +word of God! How do yo' expect the Prince of Peace to come to yo' if yo' +set there thataway?" + +His indignation rose as he saw them, and his scorn unbridled his tongue, +so that in a few minutes the congregation watched one another less, the +preacher more, and all settled back, to listen and blink under his +accusations and his declarations. It really seemed, for the time, as +though he had caught and engaged their attention. But when the sermon +ended and he had taken his departure, before he was a hundred yards down +the road he heard loud words, angry shouts, and then the scream of a +woman. + +The next instant there came a salvo of gun and pistol shots and in all +directions up and down the cross-roads people fled on horseback. Three +men had been killed, five wounded and a dozen become fugitives from +justice at the end of the church service. + +Elijah Rasba fled homeward, his will and hopes broken, and sank +dejectedly into a slough of despondency. All his good intentions, all +the inspiration of his endeavour, his very spiritual exaltation had +terminated in a tragedy, as inexplicable as it was depressing. + +His conscience would neither let him rest nor work. He looked at his +Bible, inside and out, the very fibres of his brain struggling by +reason, by effort, by main strength, to discover what his duty was. No +answer soothed his waking hours or gave him rest from his dreams. On him +rested a kind of superstitious scorn and fear, and he began to believe +the whisperings of his neighbours which reached his ears. They said: + +"He's possessed!" + +To his own freighted mind the statement seemed to be true. He did not +know what new sin he had committed, nor could he look back on long years +of his youth and young manhood and discover any sin which he had not +already expiated, over and over again. He had obeyed the scriptural +injunctions to the best of his knowledge, and the reward was this daily +and nightly torment, the scorn of his fellows, and the questioning of +his own soul. + +Worst of all, constructively, he had given feud fighters the chance to +do murder upon one another. Under the guise of preaching for them for +the good of their souls, he had enabled them to meet in antagonism, +watch in wrath, and kill without mercy. Too late he realized that he +should have foreseen the tragedy, and that he should have provided +against it by going first to each faction, preaching to each family, and +then, when he had brought them to their knees, united them in the common +cause of religion. + +"On me is Thy wrath!" he cried out in the anguish of his soul. "Give thy +tortured slave something good to do, ere I go down!" + +There was no reply, immediate or audible; he was near the limits of his +endurance; he drew his arm back to throw the Bible into the flames of +his fireplace, but that he could not do. He tossed it upon the shelf, +drew his hat down upon his ears and at the approach of night started +over the ridges to the Kalbean stillhouse. + +He stalked down a ridge into that split-board shack of infamy. He found +five or six men in the hot, sour-smelling place. They started to their +feet when they saw the mountain preacher among them. + +"Gimme some!" he told Old Kalbean. "I'm a fool! I'm damned. I'll go with +the rest of ye to Hell! Gimme some!" + +"Wha--What?" Old Kalbean choked with horror. "Yo' gwine to drink, +Parson?" + +"Suttinly!" Rasba cried. "Hit ain' no ust for me to preach! I preach, +an' the congregation murders one anotheh! Ef I don't preach, I cayn't +live peaceable! They say hit makes a man happy--I ain' be'n happy, not +in ten, not in twenty yeahs!" + +He caught up the jug that rested on the floor, threw the tin cup to one +side, up-ended the receptacle, and the moonshiner and his customers +stared. + +"Theh!" Rasba grunted, when he had to take the jug down for breath. He +reached into his pocket, drew out a silver dollar, and handed it to the +amazed mountain man. + +"Theh!" he repeated, defiantly. "I've shore gone to Hell, now, an' I +don't give a damn, nuther. S'long, boys! D'rectly, yo'l heah me jes' a +whoopin', yas suh! Jes' a whoopin'!" + +He left them abruptly and he went up into the darkness of the laurels. +They heard him crashing away into the night. When he was gone the men +looked at one another: + +"Yo' 'low he'll bring the revenuers?" one asked, nervously. + +"Bring nothin'!" another grinned. "No man eveh lived could drink fifteen +big gulps, like he done, an' git furder'n a stuck hog, no, suh!" + +They listened for the promised whoops; they strained their ears for the +cries of jubilation; but none came. + +"Co'rse," the stiller explained, as though an explanation were needed, +"Parson Rasba ain' used to hit; he could carry more, an' hit'll take him +longer to get lit up. But, law me, when hit begins to act! That's three +yeah old, boys, mild, but no mewl yo' eveh saw has the kick that's got, +apple an' berry cider, stilled down from the ferment!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Virtue had not been rewarded. This much was clear and plain to the +consciousness of Nelia Carline. Looking at herself in the glass +disclosed no special reason why she should be unhappy and suffering. She +was a pretty girl; everybody said that, and envy said she was too +pretty. It seemed that poor folks had no right to be good-looking, +anyhow. + +If poor folks weren't good-looking, then wealthy young men, with nothing +better to do, wouldn't go around looking among poor folks for pretty +girls. Augustus Carline had, apparently, done that. Carline had a +fortune that had been increased during three generations, and now he +didn't have to work. That was bad in Gage, Illinois. It had never done +any one any good, that kind of living. One of the fruits of the matter +was when Nelia Crele's pretty face attracted his attention. She lived in +a shack up the Bottoms near St. Genevieve, and he tried to flirt with +her, but she wouldn't flirt. + +In some surprise, startled by his rebuff, he withdrew from the scene +with a memory that would not forget. The scene was a wheat field near +the Turkey bayou, where he was hunting wild ducks with a shotgun. She +had been gathering forty pounds of hickory nuts to eke out a meagre food +supply. + +Poor she might be; ill clad was her strong young figure; her face showed +the strain of years of effort; her eyes had the fire of experience in +suffering; and she stood, a supple girl of heightened beauty while the +hunter, sure of his welcome, walked up to her, and, as both her hands +held the awkward bushel basket, ventured to tickle her under the chin. + +She dropped the basket and before it reached the ground she caught the +rash youth broad-handed from cheek to back of the ear, and he stumbled +over a pile of wheat sheaves and fell headlong. As he had dropped his +shotgun, she picked it up and with her thumb on the safety, her finger +on the trigger, and her left hand on the breech, showed him how a $125 +shotgun looks in the hands of one who could and would use it on any +further provocation. + +He took his departure, and she carried the gun and hickory nuts home +with her. Thus began the inauspicious acquaintance of Nelia Crele and +Augustus Carline. The shotgun was very useful to the young woman. She +killed gray and fox squirrels, wild turkeys, geese and ducks, several +saleable fur-bearers, and other game in her neighbourhood. She told no +one how she obtained the weapon, merely saying she had found it; and +Augustus Carline did not pass any remarks on the subject. + +By and by, however, when the tang of the slap and the passion of the +moment had left him, he knew that he had been foolish and cowardly. He +had some good parts, and he was sorry that he had been precipitate in +his attentions. After that encounter, he found the girls he met at +dances lacked a certain appearance, a kindling of the eye, a complexion, +and, a figure. + +He ventured again into the river bottoms across from St. Genevieve and +fortune favoured him while tricking her. He apologized and gave his +name. + +Nelia was poor, abjectly poor. Her father was no 'count, and her mother +was abject in suffering. One brother had gone West, a whisky criminal; a +sister had gone wrong, with the inheritance of moral obliquity. Nelia +had, somehow, become possessed with a hate and horror of wrong. She had +pictured to herself a home, happiness, and a life of plenty, but she +held herself at the highest price a woman demands. + +That price Augustus Carline was only too willing to pay. He had found a +girl of high spirits, of great good looks, of a most amusing quickness +of wit and vigour of mentality. He married her, to the scandal of +everybody, and carried her from her poverty to the fine old French-days +mansion in Gage. + +There he installed her with everything he thought she needed, +and--pursued his usual futile life. Too late she learned that he was +weak, insignificant, and, like her own father, no 'count. Augustus +Carline was a brute, a creature of appetites and desires, who by no +chance rose to the heights of his wife's mental demands. + +Nelia Carline regarded the tragedy of her life with impatience. She +studied the looking glass to see wherein she had failed to measure up to +her duty; she ransacked her mind, and compared it with all the women she +met by virtue of her place as Gus Carline's wife. Those women had not +proved to be what she had expected grand dames of society to be. + +"I want to talk learning," she told herself, "and they talk hairpins and +dirty dishes and Bill-don't-behave!" + +Now one of those women, a kind of a grass widow, Mrs. Plosell, had +attracted Gus Carline, and when he came home from her house, he was +always drunk. When Nelia remonstrated, he was ugly. He had thrown her +down and gone back to the grass widow's the night before. Nelia +considered that grim fact, and, having made up her mind, acted. + +In her years of poverty she had learned many things, and now she put +into service certain practical ideas. She had certain rights, under the +law, since she had taken the name of Augustus Carline. There were, too, +moral rights, and she preferred to exercise her moral rights. + +Part of the Carline fortune was in unregistered stocks and bonds, and +when Gus Carline returned from the widow's one day he found that Nelia +was in great good humour, more attractive than he had ever known her, +and so very pleasant during the two days of his headache that he was +willing to do anything she asked. + +She asked him to have a good time with her, and put down on the table +before him a filled punch bowl and two glasses. He had never known the +refinements of intoxicating liquors. Now he found them in his own home, +and for a while forgot all else. + +He sang, danced, laughed and, in due course, signed a number of papers, +receipts, bills and checks to settle up some accounts. These were sort +of hit-or-miss, between-the-acts affairs, to which he paid little +attention. + +To Nelia, however, they represented a rite as valid as any solemn court +procedure could be, for to her river-trained instinct there was no moral +question as to the justice of her claim upon a part of Carline's +fortune. Her later experience, her reading, had taught her that society +and the law also held with the principle, if not the manner of her +primitive method, for obtaining her rights to separate support. + +When Carline awakened, Nelia was gone. Nelia had departed that morning, +one of the servants said. The girl did not know where she had gone. She +had taken a box of books, two trunks, two suitcases and was dressed up, +departing in the automobile, which she drove herself. + +He had a feeling of alarm, which he banished as unworthy. Finally toward +night he went down to the post office where he found several letters. +One seared his consciousness; + + Gus: + + Don't bother to look for me. I'm gone, and I'm going to stay gone. + You have shown yourself to be a mere soak, a creature of appetite + and vice, and with no redeeming mental traits whatever. I hate you, + and worse yet, I despise you. Get a divorce get another woman--the + widow is about your calibre. But, I give you fair warning, leave me + alone. I'm sick of men. + + Nelia. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Elijah Rasba stalked homeward from the still in the dark, grimly and +expectantly erect. Now he was going to have that period of happiness +which he knew was the chief reason for people drinking moonshine +whiskey. He looked forward to the sensation of exuberant joy very much +as a man would look forward to five hours of happiness, to be followed +by hanging by the neck, till dead. + +The stars were shining, and the over-ridge trail which he followed was +familiar enough under his feet, once he had struck into it from the +immediate vicinity of the lawbreakers. He saw the bare-limbed oak trees +against the sky, and he heard rabbits and other night runners scurrying +away in the dead leaves. The stars fluttering in the sky were stern eyes +whose gaze he avoided with determined wickedness and unrepentance. + +Arriving at his own cabin, he stirred up the big pine-root log, and drew +his most comfortable rocking chair up before the leaping flames. He sat +there, and waited for the happiness of mind which was the characteristic +of his idea of intoxication. + +He waited for it, all ready to welcome it. If it had come into his +cabin, all dressed up like some image of temptation or allurement, he +would not have been in the least surprised. He rather expected a real +and tangible manifestation, a vision of delight, clothed in some fair +figure. He sat there, rigidly, watching for the least symptom of unholy +pleasure. He had no clock by which to tell the time, and his watch was +thoroughly unreliable. + +Again and again he poked up the fire. He was surprised, at last, to +hear a far-away gobble, the welcome of a wild turkey for the first false +dawn. By and by he became conscious of the light which was crowding the +fire flare into a subordinate place. + +Day had arrived, and as yet, the delight which everybody said was in +moonshine whiskey had failed to touch him. However, he knew that he was +not properly in a receptive mood for happiness. His soul was still +stubborn against the allurements of sin. He stirred from his chair, +fried a rabbit in a pan, and baked a batch of hot-bread in a dutch oven, +brewing strong coffee and bringing out the jug of sorghum molasses. + +He ate breakfast. He was conscious of a certain rigidity of action, a +certain precision of motion, ascribing them to the stern determination +which he had that when he should at last discover the whiskey-happiness +in his soul, he would let go with a whoop. + +"Some hit makes happy, and some hit makes fightin' mad!" Rasba suddenly +thought, with much concern, "S'posen hit'd make me fightin' mad?" + +A fluttering trepidation clutched his heart. The bells ringing in his +ears fairly clanged the alarm. He hadn't looked for anything else but +joy from being drunk, and now suppose he should be stricken with a mad +desire to fight--to kill someone! + +No deadlier fear ever clutched a man's heart than the one that seized +Elijah Rasba. Suppose that when the deferred hilarity arrived, he was +made fighting drunk instead of joyous? The thought seized his soul and +he looked about himself wondering how he could chain his hands and save +his soul from murder, violence, fighting, and similar crimes! No +feasible way appeared to his frightened mind. + +He dropped on his knees and began to pray for happiness, instead of for +violence, when the drink that he had had should seize him in its +embrace. He prayed with a voice that roared like thunder and which made +the charcoal fall from the log in the fireplace, and which alarmed the +jays and inquisitive mockingbirds about the little clearing. + +He prayed while his voice grew huskier and huskier, and his head bowed +lower and lower as he wrestled with this peril which he had not +foreseen. All he asked was that when the moonshine began to operate, it +make him laugh instead of mad, but terrible doubts smote him. A glance +at his rifle on the wall made him fairly grovel on the floor, and he +knew that in his hands the andirons, the axe, the very hot-bread rolling +pin would be deadly weapons. + +He hoped that he would not be able to shoot straight, but this hope was +instantly blasted, for a flock of wild turkeys came down into the +cornfield about ninety yards from his cabin, and although he seldom shot +anything in his own clearing, he now tried a shot at the turkey gobbler +and shot it dead where it strutted. If he should be stricken with anger +instead of with joy, no worse man could possibly live! There was no +telling what he would do if the liquor would work "wrong" on him. He +could kill men at two hundred yards! + +He determined that he would see no human beings that day. Few people +ever visited him in his cabin, but he took no chances. He crept up the +mountain and skulking through the woods found an immense patch of +laurels. He crawled into it, and sat down there for hours and hours, so +that no one should have an opportunity to speak to him and stir the +latent devil of violence. + +He returned to his cabin long after dark, and raking some hot coals out +of the ashes, whittled splinters and started a blaze. He was assailed +by hunger, and he baked corn pones and dry-salted pork, then added a +great flapjack of delicious sage sausage to the meal. He brought out +cans of fruit, whose juice assuaged his increasing thirst. Having eaten +heartily he resumed his vigil before the fireplace, and then he noticed +that some one had tied something on the stock of his rifle. + +It was a letter which a passer-by had brought up from the Ford Post +Office, and when he opened it and looked at the writing, remorse +assailed him: + + Dear Parsun: + + Ever senct you preched here I ben sufrin count of my boy JocK. You + know Him for he set right thar, frade of no man, not the Tobblys, + nor the Crents. When tha drawed DOWN to shoot, he stud right thar an + shot back shoot fer shoot, an now he has goned awa down the Rivehs + an I am worited abot his soul because he is a gud boy an neveh was + no whars in all his borned days an an i hear now he is gettin bad + down thataway on Misipy riveh where thas all Bad Peple an i wisht + yud prey fer him so's he wont get bad. Mrs. drones panted church on + Clinch. + +Rasba read the letter for the words at first. Then he went back after +the meaning, and the meaning struck him like a blow in the heart. + +"Me pray fo' any man again," he gasped. "Lawse! Lawse!" + +He didn't feel fit to pray for himself, let alone for any other sinner, +but there came to his memory a picture of Mrs. Drones, a motherly little +woman who had taken him home to a dinner at which seven kinds of +preserved fruit were on the table, and where the family laughed around +the fireplace--only to see Jock a fugitive the next night, and the +terrors of a feud war upon them. + +"And Jock's getting bad down the Mississippi River!" Rasba repeated to +himself, striving to grapple with that fact. He could not think clearly +or coherently. The widow's voice, however, was as clearly speaking in +his thoughts as though she stood there, instead of merely having written +to him. He took to walking up and down the floor, back and forth, on one +plank. + +He had forgotten that there was such a thing for humans as sleep. The +incongruity of his having been wide awake for two days and two nights +did not occur to him till suddenly his eyes turned to the bed in the +corner of the room and its purpose was recalled to his mind. He blinked +at it. His eyes opened with difficulty. He threw chunks on the fire and +went toward the bed, but as he stood by it the world grew black before +his eyes and clutching about him, he sank to the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Nelia Carline would not return to that miserable little river-bottom +cabin where she had grown up in unhappy privation. She had other plans. +She drove the little automobile down to Chester, put it in the Star +Garage, then walked to the river bank and gave the eddy a critical +inspection. + +For years she had lived between the floods of the river and the poverty +of the uplands. Her life had often crossed that of river people, and +although she had never been on the river, she had frequently gone +visiting shanty-boaters who had landed in for a night or a week at the +bank opposite her own shack home. She knew river men, and she had no +illusions about river women. Best of all now, in her great emergency, +she knew shanty-boats, and as she gazed at the eddy and saw the fleet of +houseboats there her heart leaped exultantly. + +No less than a score of boats were landed along the eddy bank, and +instantly her eyes fell upon first one and then another that would serve +her purpose. She walked down to the uppermost of the boats, and hailed +from the bank: + +"U-whoo!" + +A lank, stoop-shouldered woman emerged from the craft and fixed the +well-favoured young woman with keen, bright eyes. + +"You-all know if there's a shanty-boat here for sale--cheap?" Nelia +asked, without eagerness. + +The woman looked at the bank, reflectively. + +"I expect," she admitted at last. "This un yaint, but theh's two spo'ts +down b'low, that's quittin' the riveh, that blue boat theh, but theh's +spo'ts." + +"I 'lowed they mout be," Nelia dropped into her childhood vernacular as +she looked down the bank, "Likely yo' mout he'p me bargain, er +somebody?" + +"I 'low I could!" the river woman replied. "Me an' my ole man he'ped a +feller up to St. Louis, awhile back, who was green on the river, but he +let us kind of p'int out what he'd need fo' a skift trip down this away. +Real friendly feller, kind of city-like, an' sort of out'n the country, +too. 'Lowed he was a writin' feller, fer magazines an' books an' +histries an' them kind of things. Lawsy! He could ask questions, four +hundred kinds of questions, an' writin' hit all down into a writin' +machine onto paper. We shore told him a heap an' a passel, an' he writes +mornin' an' nights. Lots of curius fellers on Ole Mississip'. We'll sort +of look aroun'. Co'se, yo' got a man to go 'long?" + +"No." + +"Wha-a-t! Yo' ain' goin' to trip down alone?" + +"I might's well." + +"But, goodness, gracious sake, you're pretty, pretty as a picture! I +'lowed yo' had a man scoutin' aroun'. Why somethin' mout happen to a +lady, if she didn't have a man or know how to take cyar of herse'f." + +Nelia shrugged her shoulders. Mrs. Tons, the river woman, gazed for a +minute at the pretty, partly averted face. It was almost desperate, +quite reckless, and by the expression, the river woman understood. She +thought in silence, for a minute, and then looked down the eddy at a +boat some distance away. + +"Theh's a boat. Like the looks of it?" + +"It's a fine boat, I 'low," Nelia said. "Fresh painted." + +"Hit's new," the woman said. + +"Is it for sale?" + +"We'll jes walk down thataway," the river woman suggested. "Two ladies +is mostly safe down thisaway." + +"My name's Nelia Crele. We used to live up by Gage, on the Bottoms----" + +"Sho! Co'se I know Ole Jim Crele, an' his woman. My name's Mrs. Tons. We +stopped in thah 'bout six weeks ago. I hearn say yo'd--yo'd married +right well!" + +"Umph!" Nelia shrugged her shoulders, "Liquor spoils many a home!" + +"Yo' maw said he was a drinkin' man, an' I said to myse'f, from my own +'sperience.... Yo' set inside yeah, Nelia. I'll go down theh an' talk +myse'f. We come near buyin' that bo't yistehd'y. Leave hit to me!" + +Nelia sat down in the shanty-boat, and waited. She had not long to wait. +A tall, rather burly man returned with the woman, who introduced the +two; + +"Mis' Crele, this is Frank Commer. His bo't's fo' sale, an' he'll take +$75 cash, for everything, ropes, anchor, stoves, a brass bedstead, an' +everything and I said hit's reasonable. Hit's a pine boat, built last +fall, and the hull's sound, with oak framing. Co'se, hit's small, 22 +foot long an' 7 foot wide, but hit's cheap." + +"I'll take it, then," Nelia nodded. + +"You can come look it over," the man declared. "Tight hull and tight +roof. We built it ourselves. But we're sick of the river, and we'll sell +cheap, right here." + +The three went down to the boat, and Nelia handed him seventy-five +dollars in bills. He and his partner, who came down from the town a few +minutes later, packed up their personal property in two trunks. They +left the dishes and other outfit, including several blankets. + +The four talked as the two packed up. One of them suddenly looked +sharply at Nelia: + +"You dropping down alone?" + +She hesitated, and then laughed: + +"Yes." + +"It's none of my business," the man said, doubtfully, "but it's a mean +old river, some ways. A lady alone might get into trouble. River +pirates, you know." + +It was a challenge. He was a clear-eyed, honest man, hardly twenty-five +years of age, and not an evil type at all. What he had to suggest he did +boldly, sure of his right at such a time, under such circumstances, to +do. He was entirely likeable. In spite of herself, Nelia wavered for a +moment. She knew river people; the woman by her side would have said she +would be safer with him than without his protection. There was only one +reason why Nelia could not accept that protection. + +"I'll have to take care of myself," she shook her head, without rebuke +to the youth. "You see, I'm running away from a mean scoundrel." + +"Hit's so," the river woman approved, and the men took their departure +without further comment. + +The two women, disapproving the men's housekeeping, scrubbed the boat +and washed all the bedding. Nelia brought down her automobile and the +two carried her own outfit on board. Then Nelia took the car back to the +garage, and said that she would call for it in the morning. + +"All right, Mrs. Carline," the garage man replied, without suspicion. + +Back at the landing, Nelia bade the river woman good-bye. + +"I got to be going," she said, "likely there'll be a whole pack after me +directly----" + +"Got a gun?" the woman asked. + +"Two," Nelia smiled. "Bill gave me a goose rifle and Frank let me have +this--he said it's the Law down Old Mississip'!" + +"The Law" was a 32-calibre automatic pistol in perfect condition. + +"Them boys thought a heap of yo', gal!" The river woman shook her head. +"Frank'd sure made you a good man!" + +"Oh, I know it," replied Nelia, "but I'm sick of men--I hate men! I'm +going to go droppin' along, same's the rest." + +"Don't let go of that pistol. Theh's mean, bad men down thisaway, +Nelia!" + +Nelia laughed, but harshly. "I don't give a damn for anything now; I +tell you that!" + +"Don't forget it. Shoot any man that comes." + +Nelia, who could row a skiff with any one, set her shanty-boat sweeps on +their pins, coiled up the two bow lines by which the boat was moored to +the bank, and which the river woman untied, then rowed out of the eddy +and into the main current. + +"It's good floating right down," Mrs. Tons called after her, "till yo' +git to Grand Tower Rock--thirty mile!" + +The river rapidly widened below Chester, and the little houseboat swung +out into mid-stream. Nelia knew the river a little from having been down +on a steamer, and the misery she left behind was in contrast to the +sense of freedom and independence which she now had. + +Stillness, peace, the sense of vast motion in the river torrent +comforted her. The moment of embarking alone on the river had been full +of nervous tenseness and anxiety, but now those feelings were left +behind and she could breathe deeply and confront the future with a calm +spirit. The veil that the blue mist of distance left behind her was +penetrable by memory, but the future was hidden from her gaze, as it was +hidden from her imagination. + +The determination to dwell in the immediate present caught up her soul +with its grim, cold bonds, and as the sun was setting against the sky +beyond the long, sky-line of limestone ledges, she entered the cabin, +and looked about her with a feeling of home such as she had never had +before. + +"I'll stand at the breech of my rifle, to defend it," she whispered to +herself. "Men are mean! I hate men!" + +She found a flat book on a shelf which held a half hundred magazines. +The book was bound in blue boards, and backed with yellow leather. When +she opened it, out of curiosity, she discovered that it was full of +maps. + +"Those dear boys!" she whispered, almost regretfully. "They left this +map book for me, because they knew I'd need it; knew everybody down +thisaway needs a map!" + +They had done more than that; they had left the equally indispensable +"List of Post Lights," and when dusk fell and she saw a pale yellow +light revealed against a bank the little book named it "Wilkinson +Island." She pulled toward the east bank into the deadwater below +Lacours Island, cast over her anchor, and came to rest in the dark of a +starless night. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +In mid-afternoon, the man who had so desperately and as a last resource +tested the efficiency of moonshine whiskey as a palliative for mental +misery awaked gradually, in confusion of mind and aching of body. Noises +filled his ears, and streaking lights blurred the keenness of his eyes. +Reason had but little to do with his first thoughts, and feelings had +nearly everything. There did not seem to be any possible atonement for +him to make. Too late, as it seemed, he realized the enormity of his +offence and the bitterness of inevitable punishment. + +There remained but one thing for him to do, and that was go away down +the rivers and find the fugitive Jock Drones, whose mother feared for +him. No other usefulness of purpose remained in his reach. If he stood +up, now, before any congregation, the imps of Satan, the patrons of +moonshiners, would leer up at him in his pulpit, reminding him that he, +too, was one of them. + +He went over to the corner of his cabin, raised some planks there and +dug down into the earth till he found a jug. He dragged the jug into the +cabin and out of it poured the Rasba patrimony, a hidden treasure of +gold, which he put into a leather money belt and strapped on. There was +not much in the cabin worth taking away, but he packed that little up +and made ready for his departure. + +It was but a few miles over to Tug River, and he readily engaged a wagon +to carry him that far. On the wooded river bank he built a flatboat with +his own hands, and covered one end of it with a poplar-wood cabin, +purchased at a near-by sawmill. He floated out of the eddy in his +shack-boat and began his journey down the rivers to the Mississippi, +where he would perform the one task that remained for him to do in the +service of God. He would find Jock, give him his mother's message, and +after that expiate his own sins in the deserved misery of an exiled +penitent. + +Tug River was in flood, a heavy storm having cast nearly two inches of +rainfall upon part of the watershed. On the crest of the flood it was +fast running and there was no delay, no stopping between dawn and dusk. +Standing all day at the sweeps Rasba cleared the shore in sharp bends, +avoided the obstacles in mid stream, and outran the wave crests and the +racing drift, entering the Big Sandy and emerging into the unimaginable +breadths of the Ohio. + +He had no time to waste on the Ohio. The object of his search was on the +Mississippi, hundreds of miles farther down, and he could not go fast +enough to suit him. But at that, pulling nervously at his sweeps and +riding down the channel line, he "gain-speeded," till his eyes were +smarting with the fury of the changing shores, and his arms were aching +with the pulling and pushing of his great oars, and he neither +recognized the miles that he floated nor the repeated days that ensued. + +Long since he had escaped from his own mountain environment. The trees +no longer overhung his course; railroad trains screamed along endless +shores, bridges overhung his path like menacing deadfalls, and the +rolling thunder of summer storms was mingled with the black smoke of ten +thousand undreamed-of industries. The simplicity of the mountain +cornfields of his youth had become a mystery of production, of activity, +of passing phenomena which he neither knew nor understood. In his +thoughts there was but one beacon. + +His purpose was to reach the Mississippi, take the young man in hand, +and redeem him from the evils into which he had fallen. His object was +no more than that, nor any less. From the confusion of his experiences, +efforts, and humiliations, he held fast to one fact: the necessity of +finding Jock Drones. All things else had melted into that. + +The river banks fell apart along his course; the river ridges withdrew +to wide distances, even blue at times; mere V-gullies or U-gorges, +widened into vast corn fields. A post-office store-house at a rippling +ford gave way to smoking cities, rumbling bridges, paved streets, and +hurrying throngs. The lone fisherman in an 18-foot dugout had changed +insensibly to darting motorboats and to huge, red-wheeled, white-castled +monsters, whose passage in the midst of vast waters was attended by the +sighs of toiling engines and the tossing of troubled seas. + +Except for that one sure demand upon him, Elijah Rasba long since would +have been lost in the confusion and doubts of his transition from narrow +wooded ridges and trembling streamlets to this succession of visions. +But his soul retained its composure, his eyes their quickness to seize +the essential detail, and he rode the Tug River freshet into the Ohio +flood tide bent upon his mission of redeeming one mountain youth who had +strayed down into this far land, of which the shores were washed by the +unimaginable sea of a river. + +When at the end of a day he arrived in a way-side eddy and moored his +poplar-bottom craft against a steep bank and the last twilight had faded +from his vision, he would eat some simple thing for supper, and then, by +lamp-light, try to read his exotic life into the Bible which accompanied +him on his travels. He knew the Book by heart, almost; he knew all the +rivers told about in it; he knew the storms of the various biblical +seas; he knew the Jordan, in imagination, and the Nile, the Euphrates, +the Jabbok, and the Brook of Egypt, but they did not conform in his +imagination with this living tide which was carrying him down its +course, over shoal, around bend and from vale to vale of a size and +grandeur beyond expression. + +Elijah was speechless with amazement; the spies who had gone into +Canaan, holding their tongues, and befriended by women whose character +Elijah Rasba could not identify, were less surprised by the riches which +they discovered than Rasba by the panorama which he saw rolled out for +his inspection day by day. + +Other shanty-boaters were dropping down before the approach of winter. +Sometimes one or another would drift near to Rasba's boat and there +would be an exchange of commonplaces. + +"How fur mout hit be, strangeh?" he would ask each man. "'Low hit's a +hundred mile yet to the Mississippi?" + +A hundred miles! They could not understand that this term in the +mountain man's mind meant "a long ways," if need be a thousand or ten +thousand miles. When one answered that the Mississippi was 670 miles, +and another said it was a "month's floating," their replies were equally +without meaning to his mind. Rasba could not understand them when they +talked of reaches, crossings, wing dams, government works, and chutes +and islands, but he would not offend any of them by showing that he did +not in the least understand what they were talking about. He must never +again hurt the feelings of any man or woman, and he must perform the one +service which the Deity had left for him to perform. + +Little by little he began to understand that he was approaching the +Mississippi River. He saw the Cumberland one day, and two hours later, +he was witness to the Tennessee, and that long, wonderful bridge which a +railroad has flung from shore to shore of the great river. The current +carried him down to it, and his face turned up and up till he was swept +beneath that monument to man's inspiration and the industry of countless +hands. + +Rasba had seen cities and railroads and steamboats, but all in a kind of +confusion and tumult. They had meant but incidents down the river; this +bridge, however, a structure of huge proportions, was clearly one piece, +one great idea fixed in steel and stone. + +"How big was the man who built that bridge?" he asked himself. + +While yet the question echoed in his expanding soul he hailed a passing +skiff: + +"Strangeh! How fur now is it to the Mississippi River?" + +"Theh 'tis!" the man cried, pointing down the current. "Down by that air +willer point!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Those first free days on the Mississippi River revealed to Nelia Crele a +woman she had never known before. Daring, fearless, making no reckoning, +she despised the past and tripped eagerly into the future. It was no +business of any one what she did. She had married a man who had turned +out to be a scoundrel, and when fate treated her so, she owed nothing to +any one or to anything. Even the fortune which she had easily seized +through the alcoholic imbecility of her semblance of a man brought no +gratitude to her. The money simply insured her against poverty and her +first concern was to put that money where it would be safe from raiders +and sure to bring her an income. This, watchfulness and alertness of +mind had informed her, was the function of money. + +She dropped into Cape Girardeau, and sought a man whom she had met at +her husband's house. This was Duneau Menard, who had little interest in +the Carlines, but who would be a safe counsellor for Nelia Crele. He +greeted her with astonishment, and smiles, and told her what she needed +to know. + +"I was just thinking of you, Nelia," he said, "Carline's sure raising a +ruction trying to find you. He 'lows you are with some man who needs +slow killing. He telephoned to me, and he's notified a hundred sheriffs, +but, shucks! he's a mean scoundrel, and I'm glad to see yo'." + +"I want to have you help me invest some money," she said. "It's mine, +and he signed every paper, for me. Here's one of them." + +He took the sheet and read: + + I want my wife to share up with me all my fortune, and I hereby + convey to her stocks, bonds, and cash, according to enclosed signed + certificates, etc. + + Augustus Carline. + +"How come hit?" the man asked. + +"He was right friendly, then," she replied, grimly. "For what you-all +said about the daughter of my mother I come here to claim your help. You +know about money, about interest and dividends. I want it so I can have +money, regular, like Gus did----" + +"I shall be glad to fix that," he said, wiping his glasses. "What you +wish is a diversified set of investments. How much is there?" + +She stacked up before him wads, rolls, briquettes, and bundles. He +counted it, slip by slip and when he had completed the tally and +reckoned some figures on the back of an envelope, he nodded his +approval. + +"I expect that this will bring you around twelve or fifteen hundred +dollars a year, safe, and a leetle besides, on speculation." + +"That'll do," she said, approvingly. + +No one in town connected her with the sensation up around Gage. She was +just one of those shanty-boat girls who come down the Mississippi every +once in a while, especially below St. Louis. In a hundred cities and +towns people were looking for Mrs. Augustus Carline, supposed to be +cutting a dashing figure, and probably in company with a certain Dick +Asunder, who had been seen in Chester, with his big black automobile on +the same day that Mrs. Carline abandoned her husband's automobile +there. + +Of course, the shanty-boaters did not tell, if they knew; the River +tells no tales. Certainly, of all the women in the world this casual +visitor at Attorney Menard's need not attract attention. Menard always +did have strange clients, and it was nothing new to see a shanty-boat +land in and some man or woman walk up to his corner office and sit down +to tell him in legal confidences things more interesting to know than +any one not of his curiosity and sympathy would ever dream. + +Attorney Menard kept faith with river wastrels, floating nomads who are +akin to gypsies, but who are of all bloods--tramps of the running +floods. He listened to narratives stranger than any other attorney; in +his safe he had documents of interest to sweethearts and wives, to +husbands and sons, to fugitives and hunters. Letters came to him from +all parts of the great basin, giving him directions, or notifying him of +the termination of lives whose passing had a significance or a meaning. + +Nelia's mother knew him, and Nelia herself recalled his good-humoured +smile, his weathered face, his appeal to a girl for her confidence, and +the certainty that her confidence would be respected. She had gone to +him as naturally as she would have gone to a decent father or a wise +mother. She took from him his neatly written receipt, but with the +feeling that it was superfluous. In a little while she returned to the +shanty-boat and dropped out of the eddy on her way down the river. She +floated under the big Thebes Bridge, and landed against the west bank +before dark, there to have the luck to shoot a wild goose. The maps +showed that she was approaching the Lower Mississippi. + +When she had left Cape Girardeau, she had noticed a little brick-red +shanty-boat which landed in just below her own. Without looking up, she +discovered that a man leaned against the roof of his low cabin whose +eyes did not cease to watch her every motion while she cast off, coiled +her ropes, and leaned to the light sweeps. + +When she was a safe distance down the river, she ventured to look up +stream, and saw that the little red shanty-boat had left its mooring, +and that the man was coming down the current astern of her. It was a +free river; any one could go whither he pleased, but the certainty that +she had attracted the man's attention revealed to her the necessity of +considering her position there alone and dependent on her own +resources. + +She remembered the two market hunters, and their warnings. The man +astern was a patient, lurking, menacing brute, who might suspect her of +having property enough to make a river piracy worth while; or he might +have other designs, since she was unfortunately good-looking and +attractive. Night would surely be his opportunity and the test of her +soul. + +She could have landed at Commerce, where there were several shanty-boats +and temporary safety; she could have floated on down at night and +slipped into the shore in the dark, her lights out; she could have tried +flight down the river hoping to lose the brick-red boat; she decided +against all these. + +Boldly she pulled into an eddy just before sunset, and had made fast to +a snag and a live root when the little boat came dropping down in the +edge of the current hardly forty feet distant, with the man leaning on +his sweeps, watching her every motion, especially fastening his gaze +upon her trim figure. + +As he came opposite she turned and faced him; her jaws set. + +"Hello, girlie!" he called, leaning upon his sweeps to carry his +skiff-like boat into the same eddy. + +On the instant she snatched the automatic pistol from her bosom and, +dropping the muzzle, fired. The man stumbled back with a cry. He stood +grabbing at his shoulder, his florid face turning white, his eyes +starting with terror and pain. She saw him reel and fall through the +open hatch of his cabin and his boat go drifting on into the crossing +below. It occurred to her numbed brain that she was delivered from that +peril, but as dusk fell she hated the misery of her loneliness. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The Ohio had the Mississippi eddied. The rains that had fallen over the +valleys of Kentucky and southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had brought +a tide down the big branch and as there was not much water running out +of the Missouri and Upper Mississippi, the flood had backed up the +Mississippi for a little while, stopping the current almost dead. + +Elijah Rasba, running full tilt in the mid Ohio current, looked ahead +that afternoon, and he had a full view of the thing to which he had +come, seeking the wandering son of Mrs. Drones. + +He arrived at the moment when the Mississippi, having been banked up +long enough, began to feel the restraint of the Ohio and resent it. The +gathered waters moved down against the Ohio flood and pressed them back +against the Kentucky side. Once more the Mississippi River resumed its +sway. On the loosed waters was a little cigar-box of a shanty-boat, and +Rasba rowed toward it across the saucer-like sucks and depressions where +the two currents of different speeds dragged by each other. + +He pulled alongside, hailed, and, for answer, heard a groan, a weak +cry: + +"Help!" + +He carried a line across to the stranger's deck and made it fast. Then +he saw, stretched upon the floor, a stricken man, from whose side a pool +of blood had run. Working rapidly, Elijah discovered the wound and as +gunshot injuries were only too familiar in his mountain experience he +well knew what he should do. Examination showed that it was a painful +and dangerous shoulder shot. He cleared away the stains, washed the +hole, plucked the threads of cloth out of it, turned the man on his face +and, with two quick slashes of a razor, cut out the missile which had +done the injury. + +Healing liniment, the inevitable concoction of a mountaineer's cabin, +soothed while it dressed the wound. Pads of cotton, and a bandage +supplied the final need, and Rasba stretched his patient upon the +cabin-boat bunk, then looked out upon the world to which he had +drifted. + +It was still a vast river, coming from the unknown and departing into +the unknown. He knew it must be the Mississippi, but he acknowledged it +with difficulty. + +He did not ask the man about the bullet. Born and bred in the mountains, +he knew that that would be an unpardonable breach of etiquette. But the +wounded man was uneasy, and when he was eased of his pain, he began to +talk: + +"I wa'nt doin' nothing!" he explained, "I were jes' drappin' down, up +above Buffalo Island, an' b'low Commerce, an' a lady shot me--bang! Ho +law! She jes' shot me thataway. No 'count for hit at all." + +"A lady you knowed?" Rasba asked. + +"No suh! But she's onto the riveh, into a shanty-boat, purty, too, an' +jes' drappin' down, like she wa'nt goin' no wheres, an' like she mout of +be'n jes' moseyin'. I jes 'lowed I'd drap in, an' say howdy like, an' +she drawed down an' shot--bang!" + +"Was she frightened?" + +"Hit were a lonesome reach, along of Powerses Island," the man admitted, +whining and reluctant. "She didn't own that there riveh. Hain't a man no +right to land in anywheres? She shot me jes' like I was a dawg, an' she +hadn't no feelin's nohow. Jes' like a dawg!" + +"Did you know her?" + +"No, suh. We'd be'n drappin' down, an' drappin' down--come down below +Chester, an' sometimes she'd be ahead, an' sometimes me, an' how'd I +know she wouldn't be friendly? Ain't riveh women always friendly? An' +theh she ups an' shoots me like a dawg. She's mean, that woman, mean an' +pretty, too, like some women is!" + +Rasba wondered. He had been long enough on the Ohio to get the feeling +of a great river. He saw the specious pleading of the wounded wretch, +and his quick imagination pictured the woman alone in a vast, wild wood, +at the edge of that running mile-wide flood. + +"Of co'rse!" he said, half aloud, "of co'rse!" + +"Co'rse what?" the man demanded, querulously. + +"Co'rse she shot," Rasba answered, tartly. "Sometimes a lady jes' +naturaly has to shoot, fearin' of men." + +Rasba landed the two boats in at the foot of a sandbar, and made them +fast to old stakes driven into the top of the low reef. He brought his +patient some hot soup, and after they had eaten supper, he sat down to +talk to him, keeping the man company in his pain, and leading him on to +talk about the river, and the river people. + +In that first adventure at the Ohio's forks Rasba had discovered his own +misconceptions, and the truth of the Mississippi had been partly +revealed to him. What the Tug was to the Big Sandy, what the Big Sandy +was to the Ohio, the Ohio was to the Mississippi. What he had looked to +as the end was but the beginning, and Rasba was lost in the immensity of +the river that was a mile wide, thousands of miles long, and unlike +anything the mountain preacher had ever dreamed of. If this was the +Mississippi, what must the Jordan be? + +"My name's Prebol," the man said, "Jest Prebol. I live on Old +Mississip'! I live anywhere, down by N'Orleans, Vicksburg--everywhere! +I'm a grafter, I am--" + +"A grafter?" Rasba repeated the strange word. + +"Yas, suh, cyards, an' tradin' slum, barberin' mebby, an' mebby some +otheh things. I can sell patent medicine to a doctor, I can! I clean +cisterns, an' anything." + +"You gamble?" Rasba demanded, grasping one fact. + +"Sho!" Prebol grinned. "Who all mout _yo'_ be?" + +"Elijah Rasba," was the reply. "I am seeking a soul lost from the +sheepfold of God. I ask but the strength to find him." + +"A parson?" Prebol asked, doubtfully, his eyes resting a little in their +uneasy flickerings. "One of them missionaries?" + +"No, suh." Rasba shook his head, humbly. "Jes' a mountang parson, +lookin' for one po'r man, low enough fo' me to he'p, maybe." + +Prebol made no reply or comment. His mind was grappling with a fact and +a condition. He could not tell what he thought. He remembered with some +worriment, that he had cursed under the pain of the dressing of the +wound. He knew that it never brought any man good luck to swear within +ear-range of any parson. + +He could think of nothing to do, just then, so he pretended weariness, +which was not all pretense, at that. Rasba left him to go to sleep on +his cot, and went over to his own boat, where, after an audible session +on his knees, he went to bed, and fell into a sound and dreamless +sleep. + +In the morning, when the parson awakened, his first thought was of his +patient, and he started out to look after the man. He looked at the face +of the sandbar reef against which the little red shanty-boat had been +moored. The boat was gone! + +Rasba, studying the hard sand, soon found the prints of bare feet, and +he knew that Prebol had taken his departure precipitately, but the +reason why was not so apparent to the man who had read many a wild +turkey track, deer runway, and trails of other game. + +From sun-up till nearly noon, while he made and ate his breakfast, and +while he turned to the Scriptures for some hint as to this river man's +mind, his thoughts turned again and again to the pictures which Prebol's +tales, boastings, whinings, and condition had inspired. + +He felt his own isolation, strangeness, and ignorance. He could not +understand the man who had fled from assistance and succour; at the same +time the liveliness of his fancy reverted again and again to the woman +living alone in such a desolation, shooting whoever menaced. + +That type was not new to him. Up in his own country he had known of +women who had stood at their rifles, returning shot for shot of feud +raiders. The pathetic courage of the woman who had shot Prebol appealed +to him. + +The wounded man, wicked beyond measure, and the woman assailed, he +realized, were like hundreds of other men and women whose shanty-boats +he had seen down the Ohio River, and which lurked in bends and reaches +on both sides of the Mississippi. + +"Give thyself no rest!" he read, and he obeyed. He believed that he had +a black sin to expiate, and he dared not begin what his soul was +hungering to do, because knowing wickedness, he had deliberately +sinned. + +Alternately, he read his Bible and prayed. Late in the day he dropped +out of the eddy and floated on down. + +"I 'low I can keep on huntin' for Jock Drones," he told himself. "I +shore can do that, yes, indeed!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Having rid herself of the leering river rat, Nelia Crele trembled for a +time in weak dismay, the reaction from her tense and fiery determination +to protect herself at all costs. But she quickly gathered her strength +and, having brewed a pot of strong coffee, thrown together a light +supper, and settled back in her small, but ample, rocking chair, she +reviewed the incidents of her adventure; the flight from her worthless +husband and her assumption of the right to protect herself. + +After all, shooting a man was less than running away from her husband. +She could regard the matter with a rather calm spirit and even a +laughing scorn of the man who had thought to impose himself on her, +against her own will. + +"That's it!" she said, half aloud, "I needn't to allow any man to be +mean to me!" + +She had given her future but little thought; now she wondered, and she +pondered. She was free, she was independent, and she was assured of her +living. She had even been more shrewd than old Attorney Menard had +suspected; the money she had left with him was hardly half of her +resources. She had another plan, by which she would escape the remote +possibility of Menard's proving faithless to his trust, as attorneys +with his opportunities sometimes have proved. + +Nelia Crele could not possibly be regarded as an ordinary woman, as a +mere commonplace, shack-bred, pretty girl. Down through the years had +come a strain of effectiveness which she inherited in its full strength; +she was as inexplicable as Abraham Lincoln. Her stress of mind relieved, +she regarded the shooting of the man with increasing satisfaction, +since by such things a woman could be assured of respect. + +Gaiety had never been a part of her childhood or girlhood; she had +withstood the insidious attacks and menaces that threatened her down to +the day when Gus Carline had come to her. Courted by him, married, and +then living in the clammy splendour of the house of a back-country rich +man, she had found no happiness, but merely a kind of animal comfort. +She had had the Carline library to read, and she had brought with her +the handy pocket volumes which had been her own and her delight. She was +glad of the foresight which enabled her to put into a set of book +shelves the companions which had, alone, been her comfort and +inspiration during the few years of her wedded misery. + +Now, on the Mississippi, in the shanty-boat, she need consult only her +own fancy and whim. Mistress of her own affairs, as she supposed, she +could read or she could think. + +"I do what I please!" she thought, a little defiantly. "It's nobody's +business what I do now; what'd Mrs. Plosell care what people said about +her? I'll read, if I want to, and I'll flirt if I want to--and I'll do +anything I want to----" + +She reckoned without the Mississippi. Everybody does, at first. Her +money was but a means to an end. She knew its use, its value, and the +perfect freedom which it gave her; its protection was not +underestimated. + +At the same time, sloth was no sin of hers. Living on the river insured +physical activity; her books insured her mental engagement. + +She had lived so many years in combat with grim necessity that the +lesson of thrift of all her resources had been brought home to her. +Having been waylaid by circumstance so often, she took grim care now to +count the costs, and to insure her getting what she was seeking. The +trouble was she could not disassociate her feelings from her ideas. They +were inextricably interwoven. The brief years of her wedlock had been in +one way a disillusionment, in another a revelation. + +She had found her own hunger for learning, her own strength and +weakness, and while she had lost to the Widow Plosell, she had clearly +seen that it was not her fault but Gus Carline's meagreness of mind and +shallowness of soul. Instead of losing her confidence, she had found her +own ability. + +For hours she debated there by her pretty lamp, with the curtains down, +and the comforting and reassuring weight of the automatic pistol in her +lap. She knew that she must never have that weapon at arm's length from +her, but as she remembered where it had come from she wondered to think +that she had so easily refused the suggestion of Frank, the market +hunter. + +"It's all right, though," she shrugged her shoulders, "I can take care +of myself, and being alone, I can think things out!" + +In mid-morning she cut loose from the bank and floated away down stream. +The river was very wide, and covered with crossing-ripples. She looked +down what the map showed was the chute of Hacker Tow Head, and then the +current carried her almost to the bank at the head of Buffalo Island. + +Here there was a stretch of caving bank; the earth, undercut by the +river current, was lumping off in chunks and slices. Her boat bobbed and +danced in the waves from the cave-ins, and the rocking pleased her +fancy. + +The names along this bit of river awakened her interest; Blackbird +Island was clearly described: Buffalo Island harked back many years into +tradition; Dogtooth Island was a matter of river shape; but Saladin, +Tow Head and Orient Field stirred her imagination, for they might reveal +the scene of steamboat disasters or some surveyor's memory of the +Arabian Nights. Below Dogtooth Island, under Brooks Point, were a number +of golden sandbars and farther down, in the lower curve of the famous +S-bends she read the name "Greenleaf," which was pretty and +picturesque. + +She was living! Every minute called upon some resource of her brain. She +had read in old books things which gave even the name Cairo, at the foot +of the long, last reach of the Upper Mississippi, a significance of far +lands and Egyptian mysteries. Gratefully she understood that the +Mississippi was summoning ideals which ought to have been called upon +long since when in the longings of her girlhood she had been circumspect +and patient, keeping her soul satisfied with dreams of fairies playing +among the petals of hill-side flowers, or gnomes wandering among the +stalks of toll-yielding cornfields. + +Mature, now; fearless--and, as the word romped through her mind in all +its changes, free--free!--she played with her thoughts. But below +Greenleaf Bend, as another day was lost in waning evening, she early +sought a sandbar mooring at the foot of Missouri Sister Island, where +there were two other shanty-boats, one of them with two children on the +sand. She need not dread a boat where children were found. Possibly she +would be able to talk to another woman, which would be a welcome change, +having had so much of her own thoughts! + +This other woman was Mrs. Disbon, out of the Missouri. She and her +husband had been five years coming down from the Yellowstone, and they +had fished, trapped, and enjoyed themselves in their 35-foot cabin-boat +home. Of course, taking care of two children on a shanty-boat was a good +deal of work and some worry, for one or the other was always falling +overboard, but since they had learned to swim it hadn't been so bad, and +they could take care of themselves. + +"You all alone?" Mrs. Disbon asked. + +"I'm alone," Nelia admitted, having told her name as Nelia Crele. + +"Well, I don't know as I blame you," Mrs. Disbon declared, looking at +her husband doubtfully. "Seems to me that on the average, men are more +of a nuisance than they're worth. It's which and t'other about them. I +see you've had experience?" + +Nelia looked down at her wedding ring. + +"Yes, I've had experience," she nodded. + +"Going clear down?" + +"You mean----?" + +"N'Orleans?" + +"Why, I hadn't thought much about it." + +"The Lower River's pretty bad." Disbon looked up from cleaning his +repeating shotgun. "My first trip was out of the Ohio and down to +N'Orleans. I wouldn't recommend to no woman that she go down thataway, +not alone. Theh's junker-pirates use up from N'Orleans, and, course, +there's always more or less meanness below Cairo. Above St. Louis it +ain't so bad, but mean men draps down from Little Klondike." + +"I haven't made up my mind," Nelia said, adding, with a touch of +bitterness, "I don't reckon it makes so much difference!" + +"Lots that comes down feel thataway," Mrs. Disbon nodded, with sympathy, +"Seems like some has more'n their share, and some considerable less!" + +Nelia remained there three days, for there was good company, and a +two-day rain had set in between midnight and dawn on the following +morning. There was no hurry, and she was going nowhere. She had the +whole family over to supper the second night, and she ate two meals or +so with them. + +The other shanty-boat, about a hundred yards down stream, was an old +man's. He had a soldier's pension, and he lived in serene restfulness, +reading General Grant's memoirs, and poring over the documents of the +Rebellion, discovering points of military interest and renewing his own +memories of his part in thirty-odd battles with Grant before Vicksburg +and down the line with the Army of the Potomac. + +Nelia could have remained there indefinitely, but restlessness was in +her mind, as long as she had so much money on board her little +shanty-boat. Disbon knew so many tales of river piracy that she saw the +wisdom of settling her possessions, either at Cairo or Memphis, +whichever should prove best. + +Landing against the bank just above the ferry, she walked over to Cairo +and sought for a man who had hired her father to help him hunt for wild +turkeys. He was a banker, and would certainly be the right kind of a man +to help her, if he would. + +"Mr. Brankeau," she addressed him in his office, "I don't know if you +remember me, but you came hunting to the River Bottoms below St. +Genevieve, one time, and you and Father went over into Missouri, hunting +turkeys." + +"Remember you?" he exclaimed. "Why--you--of course! Mrs. Carline--Nelia +Crele!" + +She met his questioning gaze unflinchingly. + +"I know I can trust you," she said, simply. "If you'd known Gus +Carline!" + +"I knew his father," Brankeau said. "I reckon as faithless a scoundrel +as ever lived. Old man Carline left his first wife and two babies up in +Indiana--I know all about that family! I saw by the newspapers----" + +"I want some railroad stocks, so I can have interest on my money," she +said by way of nature of her presence there. "When we separated, he let +me have this paper, showing he wanted me to share his fortune----" + +"He was white as that?" Brankeau exclaimed, astonished at the paper +Carline had signed. + +"He was that white," she replied, her eyes narrowing. Brankeau from the +wideness of his experience, laughed. She, an instant later, laughed, +too. + +"So you settled the question between you?" he suggested, "I thought from +the newspapers he hadn't suspicioned--this paper--um-m!" + +"It's not a forgery, Mr. Brankeau," she assured him. "He was one of +those gay sports, you know, and, for a change, he sported around with +me, once. I came away between days. You know his failing." + +"Several of them, especially drink," the man nodded "It's in cash?" + +"Every dollar, taken through his own banks, on his own orders." + +"And you want?" + +"Railroads, and some good industrial or two. Here's the amount----" + +She handed him a neatly written note. He took out a little green covered +book, showing lists of stocks, range of prices, condition of companies, +and, together, they made out a list. When they had finished it, he read +it into the telephone. + +Within an hour the stocks had been purchased, and a week later, he +handed her the certificates. She rented a safe deposit box and put them +into it, subject only to her own use and purposes. + +"Thank you, Mr. Brankeau," she said, and turned to leave. + +"Where are you stopping?" he asked. + +"I'm a shanty-boater." + +"You mean it? Not alone?" + +"Yes," she admitted. + +"I wish I were twenty years younger," he mourned. + +"Do you, why?" she looked at him, and, turning, fled. + +He caught up his top-coat and hat, but he went to the Ohio River, +instead of to the Mississippi, where Nelia stood doubtfully staring down +at her boat from the top of the big city levee. + +At last, she cast off her lines and dropped on down into The Forks. + +She sat on the bow deck of her boat, looking at the place where the +pale, greenish Ohio waters mingled with the tawny Missouri flood. + +A gleam of gold drew her attention, as she glanced downward and she was +startled to see her wedding ring, with its guard ring, still on her left +hand; it had never been off since the day her husband placed it there. + +For a minute she looked at it, and then deliberately, with sustained +calmness, removed the thin guard, and slipped the ring from its place. +She put it upon the same finger of her right hand, where it was snug and +the guard was not necessary. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +A whisper, that became a rumour, which became a report, reached Gage and +found the ears of Augustus Carline, whose wife had disappeared sometime +previously. After two wild days of drinking Carline suddenly sobered up +when the fact became assured that Nelia had gone and really meant to +remain away, perhaps forever. + +The thing that startled him into certainty was the paper which he found +signed by himself, at the bank. He had forgotten all about signing the +papers that night when Nelia had shown herself to be the gayest sport of +them all. Now he found that he had signed away his stocks and bonds, and +that he had given over his cash account. + +The amount was startling enough, but it did not include his real estate, +of which about two thirds of his fortune had been composed. If it had +been all stocks and bonds, he thought he would have been left with +nothing. He considered himself at once fortunate and unlucky. + +"I never knew the old girl was as lively as that!" he told himself, and +having tasted a feast, he could not regard the Widow Plosell as more +than a lunch, and a light lunch, at that. + +Nelia had been easily traced to Chester. Beyond Chester the trail seemed +to indicate that Dick Asunder had eloped with her, but ten days later +Asunder returned home with a bride whom he had married in St. Louis. + +Beyond Chester Nelia had left no trace, and there was nothing even to +indicate whether she had taken the river steamer, the railroad train, or +gone into flight with someone who was unknown and unsuspected. When +Carline, sobered and regretful, began to make searching inquiries, he +learned that there were a score, or half a hundred men for whom Old +Crele had acted as a hunter's and fisher's guide. These sportsmen had +come from far and wide during many years, and both Crele and her wistful +mother admitted that many of them had shown signs of interest and even +indications of affection for the girl as a child and as a pretty maid, +daughter of a poor old ne'er-do-well. + +"But she was good," Carline cried. "Didn't she tell you she was +going--or where she'd go?" + +"Never a word!" the two denied. + +"But where would she go?" the frantic husband demanded. "Did she never +talk about going anywhere?" + +"Well-l," Old Crele meditated, "peahs like she used to go down an' watch +Ole Mississip' a heap. What'd she use to say, Old Woman? I disremember, +I 'clar I do." + +"Why, she was always wishing she knowed where all that river come from +an' where all it'd be goin' to," Mrs. Crele at last recollected. + +"But she wouldn't dare--She wouldn't go alone?" Carline choked. + +"Prob'ly not, a gal favoured like her," Old Crele admitted, without +shame. "I 'low if she was a-picking, she'd 'a' had the pick." + +Cold rage alternated with hot fear in the mind of Gus Carline. If she +had gone alone, he might yet overtake her; on the other hand, if she had +gone with some man, he was in honour bound to kill that man. He was +sensitive, now, on points of honour. The Widow Plosell, having succeeded +in creating a favourable condition, from her viewpoint, sought to take +advantage of it. She was, however, obliged to go seeking her recent +admirer, only to discover that he blamed her--as men do--for his +trouble. She consulted a lawyer to see if she could not obtain financial +redress for her unhappy position, only to learn of her own financial +danger should Mrs. Carline determine upon legal revenge. + +Carline, between trying to convince himself that he was the victim of +fate and the innocent sufferer from a domestic tragedy brought upon +himself by events over which he had no control, fell to hating liquor as +the chief cause of his discomfiture. + +Then a whisper that became a rumour, which at last seemed to be a fact, +said that Nelia Carline was somewhere down Old Mississip'. Someone who +knew her by sight was reported to have seen her in Cape Girardeau, and +the husband raced down there in his automobile to see if he could not +learn something about the missing woman, whose absence now proved what a +place she had filled in his heart. + +There was no doubt of it. Nelia had been there, but no one had happened +to think to tell Carline about it. She had landed in a pretty +shanty-boat, the wharf-master said, and had pulled out just before a +river man in a brick-red cabin-boat of small size had left the eddy. The +river man had dropped in just behind her, and, according to the +wharf-master: + +"I shore kept my eyes on that man, for he was a riveh rat!" + +The thought was sickening to Carline. His wife floating down the river +with a river rat close behind presented but two explanations: she was +being followed for crime, or the two were just flirting on the river, +together. + +He bought a pretty 28-foot motorboat, 22-inch draft with a 7-foot beam +and a raised deck cabin. Having stocked up with supplies, he started +down the Ohio to find his woman. + +He could not tell what his intention was, not even to himself; his mind, +long weakened and depraved by liquor, lacked clarity of thought and +distinctiveness of purpose. One hour he raged with anger, and murder +blackened his heart; another minute, his shattered nerves left him in a +panic of fears and remorse, and he hoped for nothing better than to beg +his wife and sweetheart for forgiveness. At all times dread of what he +might find at the end of the trail tormented him from terror to +despair. + +His anguish overcame all his other sensations. It even overcame his lust +for liquor. He grew sturdier under his affliction, so that when he +arrived at Cairo, and swung his craft smartly up to the wharf-boat, his +eyes were clear and his skin was honestly coloured by sunshine and pure +winds. Here fortune favoured him with more news of his wife. The +engineer of the Cairo-Missouri ferryboat had seen a young and pretty +woman moored at the bank some distance from the landing. She had +remained there upward of a week, having no visitors, and making daily +visits over the levee into the little city. + +"One day she stood there, I bet half an hour, looking back, like she was +waiting," the engineer said. "I seen her onto the levee top. Then she +come down, jumped aboard with her lines, an' pulled out to go on +trippin' down. I wondered then wouldn't some man be following of her." + +When Carline passed below the sandbar point, at which the Ohio and +Mississippi mingle their waters, and the human flotsam from ten thousand +towns is caught by swirling eddies, he found himself subdued by a shadow +that fell athwart his course, dulling the fire of his own spirit with a +doubt and an awe which he had never before known. + +His wife had gone past the Jumping Off Place; he had heard a thousand +jests about that fork of the rivers, without comprehending its deeper +meaning, till in his own experience he, too, was flung down the tide by +forces now beyond his control, though he himself had set them in motion. +His suffering was no less acute, his mind was no less active, but it +dawned slowly on him that, after all, the acute pain which was in his +heart was no greater than the sorrow, the suffering, the poisoned +deliriums of the thousands who had given themselves to this mighty +flood, which was so vast and powerful that it dwarfed the senses of +mortals to a feeling of the proper proportion of their affairs in the +workings of the universe. + +Insensibly, but surely, his pride began to fade and his selfishness +began to give way to better understanding and kindlier counsels. That +much the River Spirit had done for him. He would not give up the search, +but rather would he increase its thoroughness, and redouble his efforts. +But he would never again be quite without sympathy, quite without +understanding of sensations and experiences which were not of his own +heart and soul. + +The river was a mile wide; its current surged from the deeps; it +flowed down the bend and along the reach with a noiselessness, a +resistlessness, a magnitude that seemed to carry him out of his whole +previous existence--and so it did carry him. Still human, still finite, +prone to error and lack of comprehension, nevertheless Augustus +Carline entered for the moment upon a new life recklessly and +willingly. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +For a minute Elijah Rasba, as the Mississippi revealed itself to him, +contemplated a greater field for service than he had ever dreamed of. +Then, humbled in his pride at the thought of great success, he felt that +it could not be; for such an opportunity an Apostle was needed, and +Rasba's cheeks warmed with shame at the realization of the vanity in his +momentary thought. + +He was grateful for the privilege of seeing the panorama that unrolled +and unfolded before his eyes with the same slow dignity with which the +great storm clouds boiled up from the long backs of the mountains of his +own homeland. He missed the elevations, the clustered wildernesses, and +ledges of stone against a limited sky, but in their places he saw the +pale heavens in a dome that was uninterrupted from horizon to horizon. +There seemed to be hardly any earth commensurate with the sky, and the +river seemed to be flowing between bounds so low and insignificant that +he felt as though it might break through one side or the other and fall +into the chaos beyond the brim of the world. + +Instinctively he removed his hat in this Cathedral. Familiar from +childhood with mountains and deep valleys, the sense of power and motion +in the river appealed to him as the ocean might have done. He looked +about him with curiosity and inquiry. He felt as though there must be +some special meaning for him in that immediate moment, and it was a long +time before he could quite believe that this thing which he witnessed +had continued far back beyond the memory of men, and would continue into +the unquestionable future. + +He floated down stream from bend to bend, carried along as easily as in +the full run of time. He looked over vast reaches, and hardly recognized +other houseboats, tucked in holes along the banks, as craft like his +own. The clusters of houses on points of low ridges did net strike him +as veritable villages, but places akin to those of fairyland. + +All the rest of the day he dropped on down, not knowing which side he +should land against, and filled with doubts as to where his duty lay. +Once he caught up his big oars and began to row toward a number of +little shanty-boats moored against a sandbar, close down to a wooded +bank, only to find that the river current carried him away despite his +most muscular endeavours, so he accepted it as a sign that he should not +land there. + +For a time Rasba thought that perhaps he had better just let the river +carry him whither it would, but upon reflection he remembered what an +old raftsman, who had run strands of logs down Clinch and Holston, told +him about the nature of rivers: + +"Come a falling tide, an' she drags along the banks and all that's +afloat keeps in the middle; but come a fresh an' a risin' tide, an' the +hoist of the water is in the mid-stream, and what's runnin' rolls off to +one side or the other, an' jams up into the drift piles." + +The philosophy of that was, for this occasion, that if Old Mississip' +was falling, Elijah Rasba might never get ashore, not in all the rest of +his born days, unless he stirred his boots. So catching up his sweep +handles he began to push a long stroke toward the west bank, and his +boat began to move on the river surface. Under the two corners of his +square bow appeared little swirls and tiny ripples as he approached the +bank and drifted down in the edge of the current looking for a place to +land. + +Before he knew it, a big patch of woods grew up behind him, and when he +felt the current under the boat slacken he discovered that he had run +out of the Mississippi River and was in a narrow waterway no larger than +Tug Fork. + +"Where all mout I be?" he gasped, in wonderment. + +He saw three houseboats just below him, moored against a sandbar, with +hoop nets drying near by, blue smoke curling out of tin pipes, and two +or three people standing by to look at the stranger. + +He rowed ashore and carried out a big roped stone, which he used as +anchor; then he walked down the bar toward the man who watched his +approach with interest. + +"I am Elijah Rasba," he greeted him. "I come down out of Tug River; I am +looking for Jock Drones; he's down thisaway, somewheres; can yo' all +tell me whichaway is the Mississippi River?" + +"I don't know him," the fisherman shook his head. "But this yeah is Wolf +Island Chute; the current caught you off of Columbus bluffs, and you +drifted in yeah; jes' keep a-floatin' an' d'rectly you'll see Old +Mississip' down thataway." + +"It's near night," Rasba remarked, looking at the sun through the trees. +"I'm a stranger down thisaway; mout I get to stay theh?" + +"Yo' can land anywhere's," the man said. "No man can stop you all!" + +"But a woman mout!" Rasba exclaimed, with sudden humour. "Yistehd'y +evenin', up yonway, by the Ohio River, I found a man shot through into +his shanty-boat. He said he 'lowed to land along of the same eddy with a +woman, an' she shot him almost daid!" + +"Ho law!" the fisherman cried, and another man and three or four women +drew near to hear the rest of the narrative. "How come hit?" + +Rasba stood there talking to them, a speaker to an audience. He told of +his floating down into the Mississippi, and of his surprise at finding +the river so large, so without end. He said he kind of wanted to ask the +way of a shanty-boat, for a poor sinner must needs inquire of those he +finds in the wilderness, and he heard a groan and a weak cry for help. + +"I cyard for him, and he thanked me kindly; he said a woman had shot him +when he was trying to be friendly; a pretty woman, young and alone. +Co'rse, I washed his wound and I linimented it, and I cut the bullet out +of his back; law me, but that man swore! Come night, an' he heard say I +was a parson, he apologized because he cursed, and this mo'nin' he'd +done lit out, yas, suh! Neveh no good-bye. Scairt, likely, hearin' me +pray theh because I needed he'p, an' 'count of me being glad of the +chanct to he'p any man in trouble." + +"Sho! Who all mout that man be, Parson?" + +"He said his name were Jest Prebol----" + +"Ho law! Somebody done plugged Jest Prebol!" one of the women cried out, +laughing. "That scoundrel's be'n layin' off to git shot this long time, +an' so he's got hit. I bet he won't think he's so winnin' of purty women +no more! He's bad, that man, gamblin' an' shootin' craps an' workin' the +banks. Served him right, yes, indeedy. But he'd shore hate to know a +parson hearn him cussin' an' swearin' around. Hit don't bring a gambler +any luck, bein' heard swearin', no." + +"Nor if any one else hears him; not if he thinks swearin' in hisn's +heart!" Rasba shook his head gravely. "How come hit yo' know that man?" + +"He's used down this riveh ten-fifteen years; besides, he married my +sister what's Mrs. Dollis now. Hit were a long time ago, though, 'fore +anybody knowed he wa'n't no good. I bet we hearn yo' was comin', +Parson. Whiskey Williams said they was a Hallelujah Singer comin' down +the Ohio--said he could hear him a mile. I bet yo' sing out loud +sometimes?" + +"Hit's so," Rasba admitted. "I sung right smart comin' down the Ohio. +Seems like I jest wanted to sing, like birds in the posey time." + +"Prebol shore should git to a doctor, shot up thataway. He didn't say +which lady shot him, Parson?" a woman asked. + +"No; jes' a lady into an eddy into a lonesome bend." Rasba shook his +head. "A purty woman, livin' alone on this riveh. Do many do that?" + +"Riveh ladies all do, sometimes. I tripped from Cairo to Vicksburg into +a skift once," a tall, angular woman said. "My man that use to be had +stoled the shanty-boat what I'd bought an' paid for with my own money. I +went up the bank at Columbus Hickories, gettin' nuts; I come back, an' +my boat was gone. Wa'n't I tearin' an' rearin'! Well, I hoofed hit down +to Columbus, an' I bought me a skift, count of me always havin' some +money saved up." + +"I bet Vicksburg's a hundred mile!" Rasba mused. + +"A hundred mile!" the woman said with a guffaw. "Hit's six hundred an' +sixty-three miles from Cairo to Vicksburg, yes, indeed. A hundred mile! +I made hit in ten days, stoppin' along. I ketched it theh." + +"You found yo' man?" + +"Shucks! Hit wa'n't the man I wanted, hit were my boat--a nice, reg'lar +pine an' oak-frame boat. I bet me I chucked him ovehbo'd, an' towed back +up to Memphis. Hit were a good $300 bo't, sports built, an' hits on the +riveh yet--Dart Mitto's got hit, junkin'. You'll see him down by +Arkansaw Old Mouth if yo's trippin' right down." + +"I expect to," Rasba replied, doubtfully. Never in his life before had +he talked in terms of hundreds of miles, cities, and far rivers, + +"Yo'll know that boat; he's went an' painted hit a sickly yeller, like a +railroad station. I hate yeller! Gimme a nice light blue or a right +bright green." + +"Hyar comes anotheh bo't!" one of the men remarked, and all turned to +look up the chute, where a little cabin-boat had drifted into sight. + +No one was on deck, and it was apparent that the Columbus banks had +shunted the craft clear across the river and down the chute, just as +Rasba himself had been carried. The shadow of the trees on the west side +of the chute fell across the boat and immediately brought the tripper +out of the cabin. + +A shadow is a warning on wide rivers. It tells of the nearness of a +bank, or towhead, or even of a steamboat. In mid-stream there is little +need for apprehension, but when the current carries one down into a +caving bend and close to overhanging trees or along the edges of short, +boiling eddies, it is time to get out and look for snags and +jeopardies. + +Seeing the group of people on the sandbar, the journeyer, who was a +woman, took the sweeps of her boat and began to work over to them. + +"Hit handles nice, that bo't!" one of the fishermen said. "Pulls jes' +like a skift. Wonder who that woman is?" + +"I've seen her some'rs," the powerful, angular woman, Mrs. Cooke, said +after a time. "Them's swell clothes she's got on. She's all alone, too, +an' what a lady travels alone down yeah for I don't know. She's purty +enough to have a husband, I bet, if she wants one." + +"Looks like one of them Pittsburgh er Cincinnati women," Jim Caope +declared. + +"No." Mrs. Caope shook her head. "She's off'n the riveh. Leastwise, she +handles that bo't reg'lar. I cayn't git to see her face, but I seen her +some'rs, I bet. I can tell a man by hisns walk half a mile." + +In surprise she stared at the boat as it came nearer, and then walked +down to the edge of the bar to greet the newcomer. + +"Why, I jes' knowed I'd seen yo' somers! How's yer maw?" she greeted. +"Ho law! An' yo's come tripping down Ole Mississip'! I 'clare, now, I'd +seen yo', an' I knowed hit, an' hyar yo' be, Nelia Crele. Did yo' git +shut of that up-the-bank feller yo' married, Nelia?" + +"I'm alone," the girl laughed, her gaze turning to look at the others, +who stood watching. + +"If yo' git a good man," Mrs. Caope philosophized, "hang on to him. +Don't let him git away. But if yo' git somebody that's shif'less an' no +'count, chuck him ovehbo'd. That's what I b'lieve in. Well, I declare! +Hand me that line an' I'll tie yo' to them stakes. Betteh throw the +stern anchor over, fo' this yeah's a shallows, an' the riveh's eddyin', +an' if hit don't go up hit'll go down, an'----" + +"Theh's a head rise coming out the Ohio," someone said. "Yo' won't need +no anchor over the stern!" + +"Sho! I'm glad to see yo'!" Mrs. Caope cried, wrapping her arms around +the young woman as she stepped down to the sand, and kissing her. "How +is yo' maw?" + +"Very well, indeed!" Nelia laughed, clinging to the big river woman's +hand. "I'm so glad to find someone I know!" + +"You'll know us all d'rectly. Hyar's my man, Mr. Caope--real nice +feller, too, if I do say hit--an' hyar's Mrs. Dobstan an' her two +darters, an' this is Mr. Falteau, who's French and married May, there, +an' this feller--say, mister, what is yo' name?" + +"Rasba, Elijah Rasba." + +"Mr. Rasba, he's a parson, out'n the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy, comin' +down. Miss Nelia Crele, suh. I disremember the name of that feller yo' +married, Nelia." + +"It doesn't matter," Nelia turned to the mountain man, her face +flushing. "A preacher down this river?" + +"I'm looking for a man," Rasba replied, gazing at her, "the son of a +widow woman, and she's afraid for him. She's afraid he'll go wrong." + +"And you came clear down here to look for him--a thousand, two thousand +miles?" she continued, quickly. + +"I had nothing else to do--but that!" he shook his head. "You see, +missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!" + +He turned and walked away with bowed head. They all watched him with +quick comprehension and real sympathy. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Jest Prebol, sore and sick with his bullet wound, but more alarmed on +account of having sworn so much while a parson was dressing his injury, +could not sleep, and as he thought it over he determined at last to cut +loose and drop on down the river and land in somewhere among friends, or +where he could find a doctor. But the practised hand of Rasba had +apparently left little to do, and it was superstitious dread that +worried Prebol. + +So the river rat crept out on the sandbar, cast off the lines, and with +a pole in one hand, succeeded in pushing out into the eddy where the +shanty-boat drifted into the main current. Prebol, faint and weary with +his exertions, fell upon his bunk. There in anguish, delirious at +intervals, and weak with misery, he floated down reach, crossing, and +bend, without light or signal. In olden days that would have been +suicide. Now the river was deserted and no steamers passed him up or +down. His cabin-boat, but a rectangular shade amidst the river shadows, +drifted like a leaf or chip, with no sound except when a coiling jet +from the bottom suckled around the corners or rippled along the sides. + +The current carried him nearly six miles an hour, but two or three times +his boat ran out of the channel and circled around in an eddy, and then +dropped on down again. Morning found him in mid-stream, between two +wooded banks, as wild as primeval wilderness, apparently. The sun, which +rose in a white mist, struck through at last, and the soft light poured +in first on one side then on the other as the boat swirled around. Once +the squirrels barking in near-by trees awakened the man's dim +consciousness, but a few minutes later he was in mid-stream, making a +crossing where the river was miles wide. + +He passed Hickman just before dawn, and toward noon he dropped by New +Madrid, and the slumping of high, caving banks pounded in his ears down +three miles of changing channel. Then the boat crossed to the other side +and he lay there with eyes seared and staring. He discovered a grave +stone poised upon the river bank, but he could not tell whether it was +fancy or fact that the ominous thing bent toward him and fell with a +splash into the river, while a wave tossed his boat on its way. He heard +a quavering whine that grew louder until it became a shriek, and then +fell away into silence, but his senses were slow in connecting it with +one of the Tiptonville cotton gins. He heard a voice, curiously human, +and having forgotten the old hay-burner river ferry, worried to think +that he should imagine someone was driving a mule team on the +Mississippi. For a long time he was in acute terror, because he thought +he was blind, and could not see, but to his amazed relief he saw a river +light and knew that another night had fallen upon him, so he went to +sleep once more. + +Voices awakened him. He opened his eyes, and the surroundings were +familiar. He smelled iodine, and saw a man looking over a doctor's case. +Leaning against the wall of the cabin-boat was a tall, slender young man +with arms folded. + +"How's he comin' Doc'?" the young man was saying. + +"He'll be all right. How long has he been this way?" + +"Don't know, Doc; he come down the riveh an' drifted into this eddy. I +see his lips movin', so I jes' towed 'im in an' sent fo' yo'!" + +"Just as well, for that wound sure needed dressing. I 'low a horse +doctor fixed hit first time," the physician declared. "He'll need some +care now, but he's comin' along." + +"Oh, we'll look afteh him, Doc! Friend of ourn." + +"I'll come in to-morrow. It's written down what to do, and about that +medicine. You can read?" + +"Howdy," Prebol muttered, feebly. + +"He's a comin' back, Doc!" the young man cried, starting up with +interest. + +"Well, old sport, looks like you'd got mussed up some?" the doctor +inquired. + +"Yas, suh," Prebol grinned, feebly, his senses curiously clear. "Hit +don't pay none to mind a lady's business fo' her, no suh!" + +"A lady shot you, eh?" + +"Yas, suh," Prebol grinned. "'Peahs like I be'n floatin' about two mile +high like a flock o' ducks. Where all mout I be?" + +"Little Prairie Bend." + +"Into that bar eddy theh?" + +"Yas, suh--the short eddy." + +"Much obliged, Doc. Co'se I'll pay yo'----" + +"Your friend's paid!" + +"Yas, suh," Prebol whispered, sleepily, tired by the exertion and +excitement. + +"Sleep'll do him good," the doctor said, and returned to his little +motorboat. + +The young man went on board his own boat which was moored just below +Prebol's. As he entered the cabin, a burly, whiskered man looked up and +said: + +"How's he coming, Slip?" + +"Doc says he's all right. Jest said a woman shot him for tryin' to mind +her business, kind-a laughed about hit." + +"Theh! I always knowed a man that'd chase women the way he done'd git +what's comin'. A woman'll make trouble quicker'n anything else on Gawd's +earth, she will." + +"Sho! Buck, yo's soured!" + +"Hit's so 'bout them women!" Buck protested. + +"If a man'd mind his business, an' not try to mind their business, +women'd be plumb amusin'," Slip laughed. + +"Wait'll yo've had experience," Buck retorted. + +"Shucks! Ain't I had experience?" + +"Eveh married?" + +"No-o." + +"Eveh have a lady sic' yo' onto some'n bigger'n yo' is?" + +"No-o; reckon I pick my own people to scrap." + +"Theh! That shows how much yo' don't know about women. Never had no +woman yo' 'lowed to marry?" + +"Huh! Catch me gittin' married--co'se not." + +"Sonny, lemme tell yo'; hit ain't yo'll do the catchin', an' hit won't +be yo' who'll be decidin' will yo' git married. An' hit won't be yo' +who'll decide how long yo'll stay married, no, indeed." + +"Peah's like yo' got an awful grouch ag'in women, Buck." + +"Why shouldn't I have?" Buck started up from shuffling and throwing a +book of cards. "Look't me. If Jest Prebol's shot most daid by a woman, +look't me. Do you know me--where I come from, where the hell I'm goin'? +Yo' bet you don't. I've been shanty-boatin' fifteen years, but I ain't +always been a shanty-boater, no, I haven't. Talk to me about women. When +I think what I've took from one woman--Sho!" + +He stared at the floor, his teeth clenched and his strong face set. +Slip stared. His pal had disclosed a new phase of character. + +Buck turned and glared into Slip's eyes. + +"I'll tell you, Slip, you're helpless when it comes to women. They've +played the game for ten thousand years, practised it every day, wearing +down men's minds and men never knew it. Read history, as I've done. +Study psychology, as I have. Go down into the fundamentals of human +experience and human activities, and learn the lesson. Fifteen years +I've been up and down these rivers, from Fort Benton to the Passes, from +the foothills of the Rockies to the headwaters of Clinch and Holston in +the Appalachians. Why? Because one woman sang her way into my heart, and +because she tied my soul to her little finger, and when she found that I +could not escape--when she had--when she had--What do you know about +women?" + +Slip stared at him. His pal, partner in river enterprises, an old river +man, who talked little and who played the slickest games in the slickest +way, had suddenly emerged like a turtle's head, and spoken in terms of +science, education, breeding--regular quality folks' talk--under stress +of an argument about women. And they had argued the subject before with +jest and humour and without personal feeling. + +Buck turned away, bent and shivering. + +"I 'low I'll roast up them squirrels fo' dinner?" Slip suggested. + +"They'll shore go good!" Buck assented. "I'll mux around some hot-bread, +an' some gravy." + +"I got to make some meat soup for that feller, too." + +"Huh! Jest Prebol's one of them damned fools what tried to forget a +woman among women," Buck sneered. + +At intervals during the day Slip went over and gave Prebol his medicine, +or fed him on squirrel meat broth; toward night they floated their +35-foot shanty-boat out into the eddy, and anchored it a hundred yards +from the bank, where the sheriff of Lake County, Tennessee, no longer +had jurisdiction. In the late evening Slip lighted a big carbide light +and turned it toward the town on the opposite bank. + +Pretty soon they heard the impatient dip of skiff oars, a river +fisherman came aboard, and stood for a minute over the heater stove, +warming his fingers. He soon went to the long, green-topped crap table +in the end of the room, and Slip stood opposite, to throw bones against +him. A tiny motorboat crossed a little later; and three men, two heavy +set and one a slim youth, entered, to sit down at one of the little +round tables and play a game. + +One by one other patrons appeared, and soon there were fourteen or +fifteen. Slip and Buck glided about among them quietly, their eyes +alert, their hats drawn down over their eyes, taking a hand here, +throwing bones there, poking up the coal fire, putting on coffee, making +sandwiches, every moment on the _qui vive_, communicating with each +other by jerks of the hand, lifting of shoulders, or the faintest of +whisperings. + +A jar against the side of the boat sent one or other of the two out to +look, to greet a newcomer or to fend off a drift log. A low whistle from +the stern took Buck through the aisle between the staterooms to the +kitchen where a rat-eyed little man waited him on the stern deck, + +"Lo, Buck! I'm drappin' down in a hurry; I learn yo' was heah. Theh's a +feller drapping down out the Ohio; he's lookin' fo' a feller name of +Jock Drones--didn't hear what for. Yo' know 'im?" + +"Nope, but I'll pass the word around." + +"S'long!" + +"Jock Drones--huh!" Buck repeated, turning into the lamp-lit kitchen +where Slip was sniffing the coffee pot. + +"Friend of mine just stopped," Buck whispered. "There's a detective +coming down out of the Ohio. Told me to pass the word around. He's after +somebody by the name of Drones, Dock or Jock Drones." + +Slip started, turned white, and his jaws parted. Buck's eyes opened a +little wider. + +"S'all right, Slip! Keep your money in your belt, to be ready to run or +swim. It's a long river." + +Slip could not trust himself to speak. Buck, patting him on the +shoulder, went on into the card room and closed the kitchen door behind +him, drawing the aisle curtains shut, too, so that no one would go back +until Slip had recovered his equilibrium. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Augustus Carline instinctively slowed down his motorboat and took to +looking at the wide river, its quivering, palpitating surface; its +vistas at which he had to "look twice to see the end," as the river man +says with whimsical accuracy. + +Negligent and thoughtless, he could now feel some things which had never +occurred to him before: his loneliness, his doubts, his very +helplessness and indecision. His wife had been like an island around +which he sailed and cruised, sure in his consciousness that he could +return at any time to that safe mooring. He had returned to find the +island gone, himself adrift on a boundless ocean, and he did not know +which way to turn. The cays and islets, the interesting rocks and the +questionable coral reefs supplied him with not the slightest semblance +of shelter, support, or safety. + +He did not even know which side of the river to go to, nor where to +begin his search. He was wistful for human companionship, but as he +looked at the distant shanty-boats, and passed a river town or two, he +found himself diffident and shamed. + +He saw a woman in a blue mother-hubbard dress leaning against the cabin +of her low, yellow shanty-boat, a cap a-rake on her head, one elbow +resting on her palm, and in the other a long-stemmed Missouri +meerschaum. Her face was as hard as a man's, her eyes were as blue and +level as a deputy sheriff's in the Bad Lands, and her lips were straight +and thin. How could a man ask her if she had seen his wife going down +that way? + +He stopped his motor and let his boat drift. He wondered what he could +or would say when he overtook Nelia. There struck across his +imagination the figure of a man, the Unknown who had, perhaps, promised +her the care he had never given her, the affection which she had almost +never had from him. Having won her, this Unknown would likely defy him +down there in that awful openness and carelessness of the river. + +He found a feeling of insignificance making its way into his mind. He +had been vain of his looks, but what did looks amount to down there? He +had been proud of his money, but what privilege did money give him on +that flood? He had rejoiced in his popularity and the attention women +paid him, but the indifferent gaze of that smoking Amazon chilled his +self-satisfaction. He cringed as he seemed to see Nelia's pretty eyes +glancing at him, her puzzled face as she apparently tried to remember +where she had seen him. The river wilted the crumpling flower of his +pride. + +As his boat turned like a compass needle in the surface eddies he saw a +speck far up stream. He brought out his binoculars and looked at it, +thinking that it was some toy boat, but to his astonishment it turned +out to be a man in a skiff. + +It occurred to Carline that he wished he could talk to someone, to any +one, about anything. He had no resources of his own to draw on. He had +always been obliged to be with people, talk to people, enjoy people; the +silences of his wife's tongue had been more difficult for him to bear +than her edged words. The skiff traveller, leisurely floating in that +block of river, drew him irresistibly. He kicked over the flywheel and +steered up stream, but only enough partly to overcome the speed of the +current. The sensation of being carried down in spite of the motor +power, complicated with the rapid approach of the stranger in his skiff, +was novel and amusing. When he stopped the motor, the rowboat was +within a hundred feet of him, and the two men regarded each other with +interest and caution. + +The traveller was unusual, in a way. On his lap was a portable +typewriter, in the stern of the boat a bundle of brown canvas; a brass +oil stove was on the bottom at the man's feet; behind him in the bow +were a number of tins, cans, and boxes. + +Neither spoke for some time, and then Carline hailed: + +"Nice, pretty day on the river!" + +"Fine!" the other replied. "Out the Ohio?" + +"No--well, yes--I started at Evansville, where I bought this boat, but I +live up the Mississippi, at Kaskaskia--Gage, they call it now." + +"Yes? I stopped at Menard's on my way down from St Louis." + +"When was that?" + +"About ten days ago--tell you in a minute--Monday a week!" A big quarto +loose-leaf notebook had revealed the day and date. + +"Well, say--I----?" Carline's one question leaped to his lips but +remained unasked. For the minute he could not ask it. The thing that had +been his rage, and then his wonder, suddenly drew back into his heart as +a secret sorrow. + +"Won't you come over?" Carline asked, "it'd be company!" + +"Yes, it'll be company," the other admitted, and with a pull of his oars +brought the skiff alongside. He climbed aboard, painter in hand, and +making the light line fast to one of the cleats, sat down on the locker +across from his host. + +"My name's Carline." + +"Mine's Lester Terabon; a newspaper let me come down the river to write +stories about it; it's the biggest thing I ever saw!" + +"It's an awful size!" Carline admitted, looking around over his +shoulder, and Terabon watched the face. + +"Are you a river man?" the visitor asked. + +"No. My father was a big farmer, and he made some money when they put a +railroad through one of his places." + +"Just tripping down to see the river?" + +"No-o--well----" Carline hesitated, looking overside at the water. + +"That must be Wolf Island over there?" the reporter suggested. + +Carline looked at the island. He looked down the main river and over +toward the chute toward which the Columbus bluffs had shunted them. Then +he started the motor and steered into the main channel to escape the +rippling shoals which flickered in the sunshine ahead of them, past an +island sandbar. + +"I don't know if it's Wolf Island." Carline shook his head. "I'm looking +for somebody--somebody who came down this way." + +The traveller waited. He looked across the current to the bluffs now +passing up stream, Columbus and all. + +"I don't suppose you find very much to write about, coming down?" +Carline changed his mind. + +For answer Terabon drew his skiff alongside and reached for his +typewriter. As he began to write, he said: "I write everything down--big +or little. A man can't remember everything, you know." + +"Make good money writing for the newspapers?" + +"Enough to live on," Terabon replied, "and, of course, it's living, +coming down Old Mississip'!" + +"You like it travelling in that skiff? Where do you sleep?" + +"I stretch that canvas between the gunwales in those staples; I put +those hoops up, and draw a canvas over the whole length of the boat. I +can sleep like a baby in its cradle." + +"Well, that's one way," Carline replied, doubtfully. "If I owned this +old river, you could buy it for two cents." + +Terabon laughed, and after a minute Carline joined in, but he had told +the truth. He hated the river, and he was cowed by it; yet he could not +escape its clutches. + +"I fancy it hasn't always treated you right," Terabon remarked. + +"Treated me right!" Carline doubled his fists and stiffened where he +sat. "It's!--it's----" + +He could not speak for his emotion, but his little pointed chin trembled +a minute later as he relaxed and looked over his shoulder again. The +typewriter clicked along for minutes, Terabon's fingers dancing over the +keys as he put down, word for word, and motion for motion, the man who +was afraid of the river and yet was tripping down it. It seemed as +though the man afraid must have some kind of courage, too, because he +was going in spite of his fears. + +"It's passing noon, and I think I'll get something to eat," Terabon +suggested; "I'll get up my----" + +"I forgot to eat!" Carline said. "I've got everything, and that knob +there is a three-burner oil stove. We'll eat on board. Never mind your +stuff, I've got so much it'll spoil--but I ain't much of a cook!" + +"I'm the original cook the Caesars wanted to buy for gold!" Terabon +boasted. "I got some squirrels, there, I killed up on Buffalo Island, +and we'll fry them." + +Nor did he fail to make his boast good, for he soon had hot-bread, gravy +browned in the pan, boiled sweet potatoes, and canned corn ready for the +table. When they sat down to eat, Carline confessed that he hadn't had +a real meal for a week except one he ate in a Cairo restaurant. + +"I could have got a kind of a meal," he admitted, "but you see I was +worried a good deal. Did you stop at Stillhouse Island?" + +"Where's that?" + +"Just above Gage, kind of across from St. Genevieve." + +"Let's see--oh, yes. There was an old fellow there, what's his name? He +told me if I happened to see his daughter I should tell her to write +him, for her mother wanted to hear." + +"He said that! And you--it was Crele, Darien Crele said that?" + +"That's the name--Nelia, his daughter." + +"Yes, sir. I know. I guess I know! She's my wife--she was--It's +her----" + +"You're looking for?" + +"Yes, sir; she ran away and left me. She came down here." + +"Kind of a careless girl, I imagine?" + +"Careless! God, no! The finest woman you ever saw. It was me--I was to +blame. I never knew, I never knew!" + +For a minute he held up his arms, looking tensely at the sky, struggling +to overcome the emotion that long had been boiling up in his heart, +rending the self-complacency of his mind. Then he broke down--broke down +abjectly, and fell upon the cabin floor, crying aloud in his agony, +while the newspaper man sitting there whispered to himself: + +"Poor devil, here's a story! He's sure getting his. I don't want to +forget this; got to put this down. Poor devil!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +"And he says he's a sinner himself," Nelia repeated, when she returned +on board her cabin-boat in the sheltering safety of Wolf Island chute, +with Mamie Caope, Parson Rasba, and the other shanty-boaters within a +stone's toss of her. + +Till she was among them, among friends she trusted, she had not noticed +the incessant strain which she endured down those long, grim river +miles. Now she could give way, in the privacy of her boat, to feminine +tears and bitterness. Courage she had in plenty, but she had more +sensitiveness than courage. She was not yet tuned to the river +harmonies. + +Something in Rasba's words, or it was in his voice, or in the quick, +full-flood of his glance, touched her senses. + +"You see, missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!" + +What had he meant? If he had meant that she, too, was a sinner, was that +any of his business? Of course, being a parson--she shrugged her +shoulders. Her thoughts ran swiftly back to her home that used-to-be. +She laughed as she recalled the deprecatory little man who had preached +in the church she had occasionally attended. She compared the trim, +bird-like perspicuity and wing-flap gestures of Rev. Mr. Beeve with the +slow, huge turn and stand-fast of Parson Rasba. + +She was glad to escape the Mississippi down this little chute; she was +glad to have a phrase to puzzle over instead of the ever-present problem +of her own future and her own fate; she was glad that she had drifted in +on Mrs. Mame Caope and Jim and Mr. Falteau and Mrs. Dobstan and Parson +Rasba, instead of falling among those other kinds of people. + +Mrs. Caope was an old acquaintance of her mother who had lived all her +life on the rivers. She was a better boatman than most, and could pilot +a stern-wheel whiskey boat or set hoop nets for fish. + +"If I get a man, and he's mean," Mrs. Caope had said often, "I shift +him. I 'low a lady needs protection up the bank er down the riveh, but I +'low if my cookin' don't pay my board, an' if fish I take out'n my nets +ain't my own, and the boat I live in ain't mine--well, I've drapped two +men off'n the stern of my boat to prove hit!" + +Mrs. Caope had not changed at all, not in the years Nelia could recall, +except to change her name. It was the custom, to ask, perfectly +respectfully, what name she might be having now, and Mrs. Mame never +took offence, being good natured, and understanding how hard it was to +keep track of her matrimonial adventures, episodes of sentiment but +without any nonsense. + +"Sho!" Mrs. Caope had said once, "I disremember if I couldn't stand him +er he couldn't stand me!" + +Nelia, adrift in her own life, and sure now that she never had really +cared very much for Gus Carline, admitted to herself that her husband +had been only a step up out of the poverty and misery of her parents' +shack. + +"You see, missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!" + +Her ears had caught the depths of the pathos of his regret and sorrow, +and she pitied him. At the same time her own thoughts were ominous, and +her face, regular, bright, vivacious, showed a hardness which was alien +to it. + +Nelia went over to Mrs. Caope's for supper, and Parson Rasba was there, +having brought in a wild goose which he had shot on Wolf Island while +going about his meditations that afternoon. Mrs. Caope had the goose +sizzling in the big oven of her coal range--coal from Pittsburgh barges +wrecked along the river on bars--and the big supper was sweeter smelling +than Rasba ever remembered having waited for. + +Mrs. Caope told him to "ask one of them blessin's if yo' want, Parson!" +and the four bowed their heads. + +Jim Caope then fell upon the bird, neck, wings, and legs, and while he +carved Mrs. Caope scooped out the dressing, piled up the fluffy +biscuits, and handed around the soup tureen full of gravy. Then she +chased the sauce with glass jars full of quivering jellies, reaching +with one hand to take hot biscuits from the oven while she caught up the +six-quart coffee pot with the other. + +"I ain't got no patience with them women that don't feed their men!" she +declared. "About all men want's a full stomach, anyhow, an' if you could +only git one that wa'n't lazy, an' didn't drink, an' wasn't impedent, +an' knowed anything, besides, you'd have something. Ain't that so, +Nelia?" + +"Oh, indeed yes," Nelia cried, from the fullness of her experience, +which was far less than that of the hostess. + +After they had eaten, they went from the kitchen into the sitting room, +where Rasba turned to Nelia. + +"You came down the river alone?" he asked. + +"Yes," she admitted. + +"I wonder you wouldn't be scairt up of it--nights, and those lonesome +bends?" + +"It's better than some other things." Nelia shook her head. "Besides, +you've come alone down the Ohio yourself." + +He looked at her, and Mrs. Caope chuckled. + +"But--but you're a woman!" Rasba exclaimed. + +"Suppose a mean man came aboard your boat, and--and tried to rob you," +Nelia asked, level voiced, "what would you do?" + +"Why, course, I'd--I'd likely stop him." + +"You'd throw him overboard?" + +"Well--if hit were clost to the bank an' he could swim, I mout." + +Nelia and the Caopes laughed aloud, and Rasba joined in the merriment. +When the laughter had subsided, Rasba said: + +"The reason I was asking, as I came by the River Forks I found a little +red boat there with a man on the cabin floor shot through----" + +"Dead?" Nelia gasped. + +"No, just kind of pricked up a bit, into one shoulder. He said a lady +shot him because he 'lowed to land into the same eddy with her." + +"But--where----?" Nelia half-whispered. "Where did he go?" + +"Hit were Jest Prebol," Mrs. Caope said. "You was tellin' of him, +Parson." + +"Hit were Prebol," Rasba nodded, "an' he shore needed shooting!" + +"Yas, suh. That kind has to be shot some to make 'em behave +theirselves," Mrs Caope exclaimed, sharply. "If it wa'n't fer ladies +shootin' men onct in awhile, down Old Mississip', why, ladies couldn't +git to live here a-tall!" + +"And women, sometimes, don't do men any good," Rasba mused, aloud, "I've +wondered right smart about hit. You see, a parson circuit rides around, +an' he sees a sight more'n he tells. Lawse, he shore do!" + +The two women glared at him, but he was studying his huge hands, first +the backs and then the calloused palms. He was really wondering, so the +two women glanced at each other, laughing. The idea that probably some +men needed protection from women could not help but amuse while it +exasperated them. + +"Prebol said," Rasba continued, "hit were a pretty woman, young an' +alone. 'How'd I know?' he asked. 'How'd I know she were a spit-fire an' +mean, theh all alone into a lonesome bend? How'd I know?'" + +"I 'low he shore found out," Mrs. Caope spoke up, tartly, and Nelia +looked at her gratefully. "Hit takes a bullet to learn fellers like Jest +Prebol--an' him thinkin' he's so smart an' such a lady killer. I bet he +knows theh's some ladies that's men killers, too, now. Next time he +meets a lady he'll wait to be invited 'fore he lands into the same eddy +with her, even if hit's a three-mile eddy." + +"Theh's Mrs. Minah," Jim Caope suggested. + +"Mrs. Minah!" Mrs. Caope exclaimed. "Talk about riveh ladies--theh's +one. She owns Mozart Bend. Seventeen mile of Mississippi River's her'n, +an' nobody but knows hit, if not to start with, then by the end. She +stands theh, at the breech of her rifle, and, ho law, cayn't she shoot! +She's real respectable, too, cyarful an' 'cordin' to law. She's had +seven husbands, four's daid an' two's divorced, an' one she's got yet, +'cordin' to the last I hearn say about it. I tell you, if a lady's got +any self-respect, she'll git a divorce, an' she'll git married ag'in. +That's what I say, with divorces reasonable, like they be, an' costin' +on'y $17.50 to Mendova, or Memphis, er mos' anywheres." + +"How long--how long does it take?" Nelia asked, eagerly. + +"Why, hardly no time at all. You jes' go theh, an' the lawyer he takes +all he wants to know, an' he says come ag'in, an' next day, er the next +trip, why, theh's yo' papers, an' all for $17.50. Seems like they's got +special reg'lations for us shanty-boaters." + +"I'm glad to know about that," Nelia said. "I thought--I never knew much +about--about divorces. I thought there was a lot of--of rigmarole and +testimony and court business." + +"Nope! I tell yo', some of them Mendova lawyers is slick an' +'commodatin'. Why, one time I was in an awful hurry, landin' in 'long of +the upper ferry, an' I went up town, an' seen the lawyer, an' told him +right how I was fixed. Les' see, that wa--um-m----Oh, I 'member now, +Jasper Hill. I'd married him up the line, I disremember--anyhow, 'fore +I'd drapped down to Cairo, I knowed he'd neveh do, nohow, so I left him +up the bank between Columbus an' Hickman--law me, how he squawked! Down +by Tiptonville, where I'd landed, they was a real nice feller, Mr. +Dickman. Well, we kind of co'ted along down, one place an anotheh, an' +he wanted to git married. I told how hit was, that I wasn't 'vorced, an' +so on, but if he meant business, we'd drap into Mendova, which we done. +He wanted to pay for the divorce, but I'm independent thataway. I think +a lady ought to pay for her own 'vorces, so I done hit, an' I was +divorced at 3 o'clock, married right next door into the Justice's, an' +we drapped out an' down the riveh onto our honeymoon. Mr. Dickman was a +real gentleman, but, somehow, he couldn't stand the riveh. It sort of +give him the malary, an' he got to thinking about salmon fishin' so he +went to the Columbia. We parted real good friends, but the Mississippi's +good 'nough for me, yes, indeed. I kind of feel zif I knowed hit, an' +hit's real homelike." + +"It is lovely down here," Nelia remarked. "Everything is so kind +of--kind of free and easy. But wasn't it dreadful--I mean the first +time--the first divorce, Mamie?" + +"Course, yes, course," Mrs. Caope admitted, slowly, with a frown, "I +neveh will forget mine. I'd shifted my man, an' I was right down to +cornmeal an' bacon. Then a real nice feller come along, Mr. Darlet. I +had to take my choice between a divorce an' a new weddin' dress, an' I +tell you hit were real solemocholy fer me decidin' between an' betwixt. +You know how young gals are, settin' a lot by dresses an' how they look, +an' so on. Young gals ain' got much but looks, anyhow. Time a lady gits +experience, she don't set so much store by looks, an' she don't have to, +nohow. Well, theh I was, with a nice man, an' if I didn't divorce that +first scoundrel where'd I be? So I let the dress go, an' mebby you'll +b'lieve hit, an' mebby yo' won't, but I had $18.97, an' I paid my $17.50 +real reg'lar, an' I had jest what was left, $1.47, an' me ready to bust +out crying, feelin' so mean about marryin' into an old walking skirt. + +"I was all alone, an' I had a good notion to run down the back way, an' +trip off down the riveh without no man, I felt so 'shamed. An' theh, +right on the sidewalk, was a wad of bills, $99 to a penny. My lan'! I +wropped my hand around hit, an' yo' should of seen Mr. Darlet when he +seen me come walking down, new hat, new dress, new shoes, new silk +stockings--the whole business new. I wa'n't such a bad-lookin' gal, +afteh all. That taught me a lesson. I've always be'n real savin' sinct +then, an' I ain't be'n ketched sinct with the choice to make of a 'vorce +er a weddin' dress. No, indeed, not me!" + +Parson Rasba looked at her, and Nelia, her eyes twinkling, looked at the +Parson. Nelia could understand the feelings in all their minds. She had +her own viewpoint, too, which was exceedingly different from those of +the others. The strain of weeks of questioning, weeks of mental +suffering, was relieved by the river woman's serious statement and +Parson Rasba's look of bewilderment at the kaleidoscopic matrimonial +adventuring. At the same time, his wonder and Mrs. Caope's unconscious +statement stirred up in her thoughts a new questioning. + +When Nelia returned on board her boat, and sat in its cabin, a freed +woman, she very calmly reckoned up the advantages of Mrs. Caope's +standards. Then seeing that it was after midnight, and that only the +stars shone in that narrow, wooded chute, she felt she wanted to go out +into the wide river again, to go where she was not shut in. She cast off +her lines and noiselessly floated out and down the slow current. + +She saw Parson Rasba's boat move out into the current behind her and +drift along in the soft, autumn night. Her first thought was one of +indignation, but when a little later they emerged into the broad river +current and she felt the solitude of the interminable surface, her mood +changed. + +What the big, quizzical mountain parson had in mind she did not know. It +was possible that he was a very bad man, indeed. She could not help but +laugh under her breath at his bewilderment regarding Mrs. Caope, which +she felt was a genuine expression of his real feelings. At the same +time, whatever his motive in following her, whether it was to protect +her--which she could almost believe--or to court her, which was not at +all unlikely, or whether he had a baser design, she did not know, but +she felt neither worry nor fear. + +"I don't care," she shook her head, defiantly, "I like him!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Carline recovered his equilibrium after a time. His nerves, long on the +ragged edge, had given way, and he was ashamed of his display of +emotion. + +"Seems as though some things are about all a man can stand," he said to +Terabon, the newspaper man. "You know how it is!" + +"Oh, yes! I've had my troubles, too," Terabon admitted. + +"It isn't fair!" Carline exclaimed. "Why can't a man enjoy himself and +have a good time, and not--and not----" + +"Have a headache the next day?" Terabon finished the sentence with a +grave face. + +"That's it. I'm not what you'd call a hard drinker; I like to take a +cocktail, or a whiskey, the same as any man. I like to go out around and +see folks, talk to 'em, dance--you know, have a good time!" + +"Everybody does," Terabon admitted. + +"And my wife, she wouldn't go around and she was--she was----" + +"Jealous because you wanted to use your talents to entertain?" + +"That's it, that's it. You understand! I'm a good fellow; I like to joke +around and have a good time. Take a man that don't go around, and he's a +dead one. It ain't as though she couldn't be a good sport--Lord! Why, +I'd just found out she was the best sport that ever lived. I thought +everything was all right. Next day she was gone--tricky as the devil! +Why, she got me to sign up a lot of papers, got all my spare cash, +stocks, bonds--everything handy. Oh, she's slick! Bright, too--bright's +anybody. Why, she could talk about books, or flowers, or birds--about +anything. I never took much interest in them." + +"And brought up in that shack on Distiller's Island?" + +"Stillhouse Island, yes, sir. What do you know about that?" + +"A remarkable woman!" + +"Yes, sir--I--I've got some photographs," and Carline turned to a +writing desk built into the motorboat. He brought out fifteen or twenty +photographs. Terabon looked at them eagerly. He could not associate the +girl of the pictures with the island shack, with this weakling man, nor +yet with the Mississippi River--at least not at that moment. + +"She's beautiful," he exclaimed, sincerely. + +"Yes, sir." Carline packed the pictures away. + +He started the motor, straightened the boat out and steered into +mid-stream, looking uncertainly from side to side. + +"There's no telling," he said, "not about anything." + +"On the river no one can tell much about anything!" Terabon assented. + +"You're just coming down, I suppose, looking for hist'ries to write?" + +"That's about it. I just sit in the skiff, there, and I write what I +see, on the machine: A big sandbar, a flock of geese, a big oak tree +just on the brink of the bank half the roots exposed and going to fall +in a minute or a day--everything like that!" + +"I bet some of these shanty-boaters could tell you histories," Carline +said. "I tell you, some of them are bad. Why, they'd murder a man for +ten dollars--those river pirates would." + +"No doubt about it!" + +"But they wouldn't talk, 'course. It must be awful hard to make up them +stories in the magazines." + +"Oh, if a man gets an idea, he can work it up into a story. It takes +work, of course, and time." + +"I don't see how anybody can do it." Carline shook his head. "There's a +man up to Gage. He wants to write a book, but he ain't never been able +to find anything to write about. You see, Gage ain't much but a little +landing, you might say." + +"Chester, and the big penitentiary is just below there, isn't it?" + +"Oh, yes!" + +"I'd think there might be at least one story for him to write there." + +"Oh, he don't want to write about crooks; he wants to write about nice +people, society people, and that kind, and big cities. He says it's +awful hard to find anybody to write about." + +"You've got to look to find heroes," Terabon admitted. "I came more than +a thousand miles to see a shanty-boat." + +"You di-i-d? Just to see a shanty-boat!" Carline stared at Terabon in +amazement. + +In spite of Terabon being such a queer duck he made a good companion. He +was a good cook, for one thing, and when they landed in below Hickman +Bend, he went ashore and killed three squirrels and two black ducks in +the woods and marsh beyond the new levee. + +When he returned, he found a skiff landed near by on the sandbar. +Carline was talking to the man, who had just handed over a gallon jug. +The man pulled away swiftly and disappeared down the chute. Carline +explained: + +"He's a whiskey pedlar; a man always needs to have whiskey on board; +malaria is bad down here, and a fellow might catch cold. You see how it +is if a man don't have some whiskey on board." + +"I understand," Terabon admitted. + +After supper Carline decided that there was a lot of night air around, +and that a man couldn't take too many precautions against that deadly +river miasma whose insidious menace so many people have ignored to their +great cost. As for himself, Carline didn't propose to be taken bad when +he had so universal a specific, to take or leave alone, just as he +wanted. + +Terabon, having put up the hoops of his skiff and stretched the canvas +over them, retired to his own boat and spent two hours writing. + +In the morning, when he stirred out, he found Carline lying in the +engine pit, oblivious to the night air that had fallen upon him, +protected as he was by his absorption of the sure preventive of night +air getting him first. The jug was on the floor, and Terabon, after a +little thought, poured out about two and a half quarts which he replaced +with distilled water from the motorboat's drinking bottle. Then he +dropped down the chute into the main river to resume his search for +really interesting "histories." + +The river had never been more glorious than that morning. The sun shone +from a white, misty sky. It was warm, with the slight tang of autumn, +and the yellow leaves were fluttering down; squirrels were barking, and +a flock of geese, so high in the air that they sparkled, in the +sunshine, were gossiping, and the music of their voices rained upon the +river surface as upon a sounding board. + +Terabon was approaching Donaldson's Point, Winchester Chute, Island No. +10, and New Madrid. An asterisk on his map showed that Slough Neck was +interesting, and sure enough, he found a 60-foot boat just above Upper +Slough Landing, anchored off the sandbar. This was a notorious whiskey +boat, and just below it was a flight of steps up the steep bank. No +plantation darky ever used those steps. He would rather scramble in the +loose silt and risk his neck than climb that easy stairway--yes, +indeed! + +Terabon, drifting by, close at hand, gazed at the scene. From that craft +Negroes had gone forth to commit crime; white men had gone out to do +murder, and one of them had rolled down those steps, shot dead. On the +other side of Slough Neck, just outside of Tiptonville, there was a tree +on which seven men had been lynched. + +He pulled across to the foot of Island No. 10 sandbar, to walk up over +that historic ground, and to visit the remnants of Winchester Chute +where General Grant had moored barges carrying huge mortars with which +to drop shells into the Confederate works on Island No. 10. + +He hailed a shanty-boat just below where he landed, and as the window +opened and he saw someone within, he asked: + +"Will you kindly watch my skiff? I'm going up over the island." + +"Yes, glad to!" + +"Thank you." He bowed, and went upon his exploration. + +It was hard to believe that this sandbar, grown to switch willows which +increased to poles six or seven inches in diameter, had once been a big +island covered with stalwart trees, with earthworks, cannon, and +desperate soldiers. Its serene quiet, undulating sands and casual +weed-trees, showing the stain of floods that had filled the bark with +sediment, proved the indifference of the river to fleeting human +affairs--the trifling work of human hands had been washed away in a +spring tide or two, and Island No. 10 was half way to the Gulf by this +time. + +Terabon returned to his skiff three or four hours later, and taking up +his typewriter, began to write down what he had seen, elaborating the +pencil notes which he had made. As he wrote he became conscious of an +observer, and of the approach of someone who was diffident and +curious--a familiar enough sensation of late. + +He looked up, started, and reached for his hat. It was a woman, a young +woman, with bright eyes, grace, dignity--and much curiosity. + +"I didn't mean to disturb you," she apologized. "I was just wondering +what on earth you could be doing!" + +"Oh, I'm writing--making notes----" + +"Yes. But--here!" + +"I'm a newspaper writer," he made his familiar statement. "My name is +Lester Terabon. I'm from New York. I came down here from St. Louis to +see the Mississippi." + +"You write for newspapers?" she repeated. + +She came and sat down on the bow deck of his skiff, frankly curious and +interested. + +"My name's Nelia Crele," she smiled. "I'm a shanty-boater. That's my +boat." + +"I'm sure I'm glad to meet you," he bowed, "Mrs. Crele." + +"You find lots to write about?" + +"I can't write fast enough," he replied, enthusiastically, "I've been +coming six weeks--from St. Louis. I've made more than 60,000 words in +notes already, and the more I make the more I despair of getting it all +down. Why, right here--New Madrid, Island 10, and--and----" + +"And me?" she asked. "Did you stop at Gage?" + +"At Stillhouse Island," he admitted, circumspectly. "Mr. Crele there +said I should be sure and tell his daughter, if I happened to meet her, +that her mother wanted her to be sure and write and let her know how she +is getting along." + +"Oh, I'll do that," she assured him. "I was just writing home when you +landed in. Isn't it strange how everybody knows everybody down here, and +how you keep meeting people you know--that you've heard about? You knew +me when you saw me!" + +"Yes--I'd seen your pictures." + +"Mammy hadn't but one picture of me!" She stared at him. + +"That's so," he thought, unused to such quick thought. + +"Isn't it beautiful?" she asked him, looking around her. "Do you try to +write all that, too--I mean this sandbar, and those willows, and that +woods down there, and--the caving bank?" + +"Everything," he admitted. "See?" + +He handed her the page which he had just written. Holding it in one +hand--there was hardly a breath of air stirring--she read it word for +word. + +"Yes, that's it!" She nodded her head. "How do you do it? I've just been +reading--let me see, '... the best romance becomes dangerous if by its +excitement it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, +and--and----' I've forgotten the rest of it. Could anything make this +life down here--anything written, I mean--seem uninteresting?" + +He looked at her without answering. What was this she was saying? What +was this shanty-boat woman, this runaway wife, talking about? He was +dazed at being transported so suddenly from his observations to such +reflections. + +"That's right," he replied, inanely. "I remember reading +that--somewhere!" + +"You've read Ruskin?" she cried. "Really, have you?" + +"Sesame and Lilies--there's where it was!" + +"Oh, you know?" she exclaimed, looking at him. He caught the full flash +of her delight, as well as surprise, at finding someone who had read +what she quoted, and could place the phrase. + +"The sun's bright," she continued. "Won't you come down on my boat in +the shade? I've lots of books, and I'm hungry--I'm starving to talk to +somebody about them!" + +It was a pretty little boat, sweet and clean; the sitting room was +draped with curtains along the walls, and there was a bookcase against +the partition. She drew a rocking chair up for him, drew her own little +sewing chair up before the shelves, and began to take out books. + +He had but to sit there and show his sympathy with her excitement over +those books. He could not help but remember where he had first heard her +name, seen the depressed woman who was her mother. And the bent old +hunter who was her father. It was useless for him to try to explain +her. + +Just that morning, too, he had left Nelia Crele's husband in an +alcoholic stupor--a man almost incredibly stupid! + +"I know you don't mind listening to me prattle!" she laughed, archly. +"You're used to it. You're amused, too, and you're thinking what a story +I will make, aren't you, now?" + +"If--if a man could only write you!" he said, with such sincerity that +she laughed aloud with glee. + +"Oh, I've read books!" she declared. "I know--I've been miserable, and +I've been unhappy, but I've turned to the books, and they've told me. +They kept me alive--they kept me above those horrid little things which +a woman--which I have. You've never been in jail, I suppose?" + +"What--in jail? I've been there, but not a prisoner. To see prisoners." + +"You couldn't know, then, the way prisoners feel. I know. I reckon most +women know. But now I'm out of jail. I'm free." + +He could not answer; her eyes flashed as they narrowed, and she fairly +glared at him in the intensity of her declaration. + +"Oh, you couldn't know," she laughed, "but that's the way I feel. I'm +free! Isn't the river beautiful to-day? I'm like the river----" + +"Which is kept between two banks?" he suggested. + +"I was wrong," she shook her head. "I'm a bird----" + +"I can well admit that," he laughed. + +"Oh," she cried, in mock rebuke, "the idea!" + +"It's your own--and a very brilliant one," he retorted, and they laughed +together. + +There was no resisting the gale of Nelia Crete's effervescent spirits. +It was clear that she had burst through bonds of restraint that had +imprisoned her soul for years. Terabon was too acute an observer to +frighten the sensitive exhilaration. It would pass--he was only too sure +of that. What would follow? + +The sandbar was miles long, miles wide; six or seven miles of caving +bend was visible below them, part of it over another sandbar that +extended out into the river. There was not a boat, house, human being, +or even fence in sight in any direction. Across the river there was a +cotton field, but so far away it was that the stalks were but a purple +haze under the afternoon sun. + +"You think I'm queer?" she suddenly demanded. + +"No, but I would be if----" + +"If what?" + +"If I didn't think you were the dandiest river tripper in the world," he +exclaimed. + +"You're a dear boy," she laughed. "You don't know how much good you've +done me already. Now we'll get supper." + +"I've two black ducks," he said. "I'll bet they'll make a good----" + +"Roast," she took his word. "I'll show you I'm a dandy cook, too!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The Mississippi River brings people from the most distant places to +close proximity; Pittsburg and even Salamanca meet Fort Benton and St. +Paul at the Forks of the Ohio. On the other hand, with uncanny +certainty, those most eager to meet are kept apart and thrown to the +ends of the world. + +Parson Rasba saw Nelia Crele's boat drift out into the current and drop +down the Chute of Wolf Island, and impelled by solitude and imagination +he followed her. She had awakened sensations in his heart which he had +never before known, so he acted with primitive directness and moved out +into the Mississippi. + +The river carried him swiftly toward a town whose electric lights +sparkled on a high bluff, Hickman, and he saw the cabin-boat of the +young and venturesome woman clearly outlined between him and the town. +For nearly an hour he was conscious of the assistance of the river in +carrying him along at an even pace, permitting him to remain as guardian +of the woman. He felt that she needed him, that he must help her, and +there grew in his heart an emotion which strangely made him desire to +sing and to shout. + +He watched the cabin-boat drift down right into the pathway of +reflections that fell from the lights on Hickman bluffs. His eyes were +apparently fixed upon the boat, and he could not lose sight of it. The +river carried him right into the same glare, and for a few minutes he +looked up at the arcs, and shaded his eyes to get some view of the town +whose sounds consisted of the mournful howling of a dog. + +Rasba looked back at the town, and felt the awe which a sleeping +village inspires in the thoughts of a passer-by. He thought perhaps he +would never again see that town. He wondered if there was a lost soul +there whose slumberings he could disturb and bring it to salvation. He +looked down the river, and the next instant his boat was seized as by a +strong hand and whirled around and around, and flung far from its +course. He remembered the phenomenon at the Forks of the Ohio, and again +at Columbus bluff's. With difficulty he found his bearings. + +He looked around and saw to his surprise that he was drifting up stream. +He looked about him in amazement. He searched the blackness of the +river, and stared at the blinding lights of the town. He began to row +with his sweeps, and look down stream whither had disappeared the +cabin-boat whose occupant he had felt called upon to guard and protect. + +That boat was gone. In the few minutes it had disappeared from his view. +He surmised, at last, that he had been thrust into an eddy, for the +current was carrying him up stream, and he rowed against it in vain. +Only when he had floated hundreds of yards in the leisurely reverse +current below the great bar of Island No. 6 and had drifted out into the +main current again, almost under the Hickman lights once more, was he +able in his ignorance to escape from the time-trap into which he had +fallen. + +Standing at his oars, and rowing down stream, he tried to overtake the +young woman whose good looks, bright eyes, sympathetic understanding, +and need of his spiritual tutoring had caught his mind and made it +captive. + +Dawn, following false dawn, saw him passing New Madrid, still rowing +impatiently, his eyes staring down the wild current, past a graveyard +poised ready to plunge on the left bank, and then down the baffling +crossing at Point Pleasant and through the sunny breadths up to +Tiptonville, half sunk in the river, only to fall away toward Little +Cypress--and still no sight of the lost cabin-boat. + +In mid-afternoon, weary and worn by sleeplessness and expectancy, he +pulled his boat into the deadwater at the foot of an eddy and having +thrown over his stone anchor, sadly entered his cabin and, without +prayer, subsided into sleep. + +If he dreamed he was not awakened to consciousness by his visions. He +slept on in the deep weariness which followed the wakefulness that had +continued through a night of undiminished anxiety into a day of doubt +and increasing despair. It had not occurred to him, in his simplicity, +that the young woman would escape from him. The shadow and the gloom +next to the bank on either side had not suggested his passing by the +object of his intention. His thought was that she must have gone right +on down stream, though he might have divined from his own condition that +she, too, long since must have been weary. + +He awakened some time in the morning, after twelve hours or so of +uninterrupted slumber. He turned out into the fascinating darkness of +early morning on the Mississippi. A gust of chill wind swept down out of +the sky, rippling the surface and roaring through the woods up the bank. +The gust was followed by a raw calm and further blanketing of the few +stars that penetrated the veil of mist. + +He had in mind the further pursuit of Nelia, and hauling in his anchor +he pulled out into mid-current and then by lamp-light prepared his +breakfast. While he worked, he discovered that dawn was near, and at +lengthening intervals he went out to look ahead, hoping to see the +object of his pursuit. Perhaps he would have gone on down to New +Orleans, only it is not written in Mississippi weather prophecies that +the tenor of one's way shall be even. + +He heard wind blowing, and felt his boat bobbing about inexplicably. He +went out to look about him, and in the morning twilight he discovered +that the whole aspect of the Mississippi had changed. With the invisible +sunrise had come an awe-inspiring spectacle which excited in his mind +forebodings and dismay. + +First, there was the cold wind which penetrated his clothes and +shrivelled the very meat of his bones. The river's surface, which he had +come to regard as a shimmering, polished floor, was now rumpled and +broken into lumpy waves, like mud on a road, and the waves broke into +dull yellow foam caps. There was not a light gleam on the whole surface, +and dark shadows seemed to crawl and twist about in the very substance +of the heavy and turgid waters. + +Rasba stared. Born and trained in mountains, where he remembered clear +streams of pale, beautiful green, catching reflections of white clouds +and clean foliage, with only occasional patches of sullen clay-bank +wash, he refused to acknowledge the great tawny Mississippi at its best, +as a relation of the streams he knew. Certainly this menacing dawn +reminded him of nothing he had ever witnessed. Waves slapped against his +boat, waves which did not conceal, but rather accentuated, the sullen +and relentless rush of the vast body of the water. While the surface +leaped and struggled, wind-racked, the deeps moved steadily on. Elijah +saw that his boat was being driven into a river chute, and seizing his +sweeps, he began to row toward a sandbar which promised shoal water and +a landing. + +He managed to strike the foot of the bar, and threw out his anchor rock. +He let go enough line to let the boat swing, and went in to breakfast. +While he was eating, he noticed that the table turned gray and that a +yellowish tinge settled upon everything. When he went out to look +around, he found that the air was full of a cloud that filled his eyes +with dust, and that a little drift of sand had already formed on the +deck of his boat, gritting under his feet. The cloud was so thick that +he could hardly see the river shores; a gale was blowing, and a whole +sandbar, miles long, was coming down upon him from the air. The sandbar, +when he looked at it, seemed fairly to be running, like water. + +Parson Rasba remembered the storms of biblical times, and better +understood the wrath that was visited upon the Children of Israel. + +He dwelt in that storm all that day. He shut the door to keep the sand +out, but it spurted through the cracks. He could see the puffing gusts +as they burst through the keyhole, and he could hear the heavier grains +rattling upon the thin, painted boards of his roof. His clothes grayed, +his hands gritted, his teeth crunched fine stone; he pondered upon the +question of what sin he had committed to bring on him this ancient +punishment. + +For a long time his finite mind was without inspiration, without +understanding, and then he choked with terror and regret. He had +beguiled himself into believing that it was his duty to take care of +Nelia Crele, the fair woman of the river. He had believed only too +readily that his duty lay where his heart's desire had been most eager. +He sat there in dumb horror at the sin which had blinded him. + +"I come down yeah to find Jock Drones for his mother!" He reminded +himself by speaking his mission aloud, adding, "And hyar I've be'n +floating down looking for a woman, looking for a pretty woman!" + +And because he could remember her shoes, the smooth leather over those +exquisite ankles, Parson Rasba knew that his sin was mortal, and that no +other son of man had ever strayed so far as he. + +No wonder he was caught in a desert blizzard where no one had ever said +there was a desert! + +"Lord God," he cried out, "he'p this yeah po'r sinner! He'p! He'p!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Jock, _alias_ "Slip," Drones, was discovering how small the world really +is. Like many another man, he had figured that no one would know him, no +one could possibly find him, down the Mississippi River, more than a +thousand miles from home. Having killed, or at least fought his man in a +deadly feud war, he had escaped into the far places. His many months of +isolation had given him confidence and taken the natural uneasiness of +flight from his mind. + +Now someone was coming down the Mississippi inquiring for Jock Drones! A +detective, as relentless, as sure as a bullet in the heart, was coming. +He might even then be lurking in the brush up the bank, waiting to get a +sure drop. He might be dropping down that very night. He might step in +among the players, unnoticed, unseen, and wait there for the moment of +surprise and action. + +Slip's mind ransacked the far places of which he had heard: Oklahoma, +the Missouri River, California, the Mexican border, Texas. Far havens +seemed safest, but against their lure he felt the balance of Buck's +comradeship. + +Caruthersville had a sporting crowd with money, lots of money. The +people there were liberal spenders, and they liked a square game better +than any other sport in the world. The boat was making good money, big +money. The two partners had only to break even in their own play to make +a big living out of the kitty in the poker tables, and there was always +a big percentage in favour of the boat, because Buck and Slip understood +each other so well. Slip's share often amounted to more in a week than +he had earned in two years up there in the mountains felling trees, +rafting them in eddies, and tripping them down painfully to the +sawmills. These never did pay the price they were advertised to pay for +timber, and one had to watch the sealers to see that they didn't short +the measure in the under water and goose-egg good logs. + +He remembered Jest Prebol, who was lying shot through in the boat +alongside, and he went over to the boat, lighted the lamp, and sat down +by the wounded man. Prebol was a little delirious, and Slip went over on +his own boat, and called Buck out. + +"We got a sick man on our hands," he whispered. "Ain't Doc Grell come +oveh yet?" + +"Come the last boat," Buck said, and called the doctor out. + +"Say, Doc, that sick feller out here, will you look't him?" + +Doctor Grell went over to the boat. He looked at the wounded man, and +frowned as he took the limp wrist. He tried the temperature, too, and +then shook his head. + +"He's a sick man, Slip," he said. "Thought he was coming all right last +night. Now----" + +He looked at the wound, and gazed at the great, blue plate around the +bullet hole. + +"He's bad?" Slip said, in alarm. "Poison's workin', Doc?" + +"Mighty bad!" + +There was nothing for it. Doctor Grell's night of pleasure had turned +into one of life-saving and effort. He sent Slip over to drag away one +of the young men from his game, and they rigged up two square trunks and +a waterproof tarpaulin into an operating table. Then, as Slip was faint +and sick, the two drove him back to the gambling boat, while they, the +graduate and the student, entered upon a gamble with a human life the +stake. + +Of that night's efforts, fighting the "poison" with the few sharp +weapons at their command--later reinforced by a hasty trip across the +river to get others--the two need never tell. While they worked, they +could hear at intervals the shout of a winner in the other boat. In +moments of perfect quiet they heard the quick rustling of shuffled +cards; they heard the rattling of dice in hard, muffled boxes; they +heard, at intervals, the rattling of stove lids and smelt the soft-coal +smoke which blew down on them from the kitchen chimney. Slip, not +forgetful of them, brought over pots of black coffee and inquired after +the patient. He found the two men paler on each visit, and stripped down +more and more, till they were merely in their sweaty undershirts. + +Toward morning the wind began to blow; it began to grow cold. The noises +on the neighbouring boat grew fainter in the low rumble of a stormy wind +out of the northwest, and the shanty-boat lifted at intervals on a wave +that rolled out of the main current and across the eddy, making their +operating room even more unstable. + +Under their onslaught the death which was taking hold of Jest Prebol was +checked, and the river rat whose life had been forfeited for his sly +crimes became the object of a doctor's sentiment and belief in his own +training. + +Long after midnight, when some few of the patrons of the games had +already taken their departure, the doors opened oftener and oftener, +letting the geometrical shaft of the yellow light flare out across the +waters, and the grotesque shadows of those who departed stood out +against the night and waters as the men shivered in the wind and bent to +feel their way into the boats. + +After dawn Doctor Grell and his assistant, peaked and white, limp with +their tremendous effort, and shivering with exhaustion of mind and body, +walked out of the little shanty-boat, up to the big one, sat down with +Buck and Slip to breakfast, and then took their own course across the +ruffled and tumble-surfaced river. + +"I 'low he'll pull through," Doctor Grell admitted, almost reluctantly. +"He's in bad shape, though, with the things the bullet carried into him, +but we sure swabbed him out. How'd the game go to-night, boys?" + +"Purty good." Buck shook his head. "Tammer sure had luck his way--won a +seventy-dollar pot onct." + +"I sure wanted to play," Grell shook his head, "but in my profession you +aren't your own, and you cayn't quit." + +"We owe you for it," Buck said. "He's our friend----" + +"And he's ourn, too," Grell declared, "so we'll split the difference. I +expect it was worth a hundred dollars what we two did to-night. That'll +be fifty, boys, if it's all right." + +"Yes, suh," Slip said, handing over five ten-dollar bills, and Grell +handed two of them to his companion, who shook his head, saying: + +"Nope, Doc! Ten only to-night. My first fee!" + +"And you'll never have a more interesting case," Grell declared. "No, +indeed! You'll see cases, come you go to college, but none more +interesting, and if we've pulled him through, you'll never have better +reason for satisfaction." + +The two got into a little motorboat and went bounding and rocking in the +wind and waves toward the town behind the levee on the far bank. The +two gamblers watched the little boat rocking along till it was but a +black fleck in the midst of the weltering brown waters. + +"I don't reckon any one'll drap down to-day," Slip muttered, looking up +the river. + +"We'll keep our eyes open," Buck replied. "You needn't to worry, you're +plumb worn out, Slip. Git to bed, now, an' I'll slick up around." + +It was a cold, dry gale. From sharp gusts with near calms between the +wind grew till it was a steady, driving storm that flattened against the +shanty-boat sides, and whistled and roared through the trees up the +bank. And instead of dying down at dusk, it increased so much that the +big acetylene light was not hung out, and if any one came down to the +opposite shore he saw that there would be no game that night. + +Buck went in and sat down by the wounded man's bed, giving him the +medicines Doctor Grell had left. For the attentions Prebol, in lucid +intervals, showed wondering looks of gratitude, like an ugly dog which +has been trapped and then set free. What he had suffered during the +night even he could hardly recall in the enfeebled condition of his +mind, but the spoonfuls of broth, the medicine that thrilled his body, +the man's very companionship, lending strength, took away the feeling of +despair which a man in the extremities of anguish and alone in the world +finds hardest to resist. + +Buck, sitting there, gazed at the wan countenance, studying it. Prebol +had forgotten, but when Buck first arrived on the river, the pirate, a +much younger man then, had carelessly and perhaps for display told the +stranger and softpaw many things about the river which were useful. It +occurred to Buck that he was now paying back a debt of gratitude. + +Something boiled up in his thoughts, and he swore to himself that +he owed nothing, that the world owed him, and he bridged the years of +his disappointment and desolation back to the hour when he had stormed +out of the life he had known, to come down the Mississippi to be a +gambler. Prebol, in his lapses into delirium, called a woman's name, +Sadie--always Sadie! And if he would have cursed that name in his +consciousness, out of the depths of his soul it came with softness and +gentleness of affection. + +Buck wondered what Jest Prebol had done to Sadie that she had driven him +down there, and he cursed with his own lips, while he stifled in the +depths of his own soul another name. His years, his life, had been +wasted, just as this man Prebol's life was wasted, just as Slip's life +was being wasted. Buck gave himself over to the exquisite torture of +memories and reflections. He wondered what had become of the woman for +love of whom he had let go all holds and degenerated to this heartless +occupation of common gambler? + +True to Slip, he had watched the river for the stranger whose inquiries +had been carried down in fair warning to all the river people--and Buck, +suddenly conscious of his own part in that river system, laughed in +surprise. + +"Why," he said to himself, "humans are faithful to one another! It's +what they live for, to be faithful to one another!" + +It was an incredible, but undeniable theory. In spite of his own wilful +disbelief in the faith of mankind, here he was sitting by one poor +devil's bed while he kept his weather eye out upon the rough river in +the interests of another--a murderer! He pondered on the question of +whether any one kept faith with him. His mind cried out angrily, "No!" +but on second thought, in spite of himself, he realized distinctly that +he had let one person's faithlessness overcome his trust of all others. + +No day on the Mississippi is longer than the cold, bleak monotone of a +dry gale out of the north. There is an undertone to the voices which +depresses the soul as the rank wind shrivels the body. On whistling +wings great flocks of wild fowl come driving down before the wintry +gales, or they turn back from the prospect of an early spring. +Steamboats are driven into the refuge of landing or eddy, and if the +power craft cannot stand the buffetings, much less are the exposed +little houseboats, toys of current and breeze, able to escape the +resistless blasts. So the wind possesses itself of the whole river +breadth and living creatures are driven to shelter. + +Prebol, shot through and conscious of the reward of his manner of +living; Slip, a fugitive under the menace of a murderer's fate; and +Buck, given over to melancholy, were but types on the lengths and +tributaries of the indifferent flood. + +Nothing happened, nothing could happen. The arrival of Slip from his +restless bunk relieved Buck of his vigil, and he went to bed and slept +into the dawn of another day--a day like the previous one, and fit to +drive him up the bank, into the woods, and among the fallen branches of +rotten trees seeking in physical activity to check the mourning and +tauntings of a mind over which he found, as often before, that he had no +control. + +And yet, when the storm suddenly blew itself out with a light puff and a +sudden flood of sunshine, just as the sun went down, Prebol's condition +took a sudden turn for the better, Slip forgot his fears, and Buck burst +into a gay little whistled tune, which he could never whistle except +when he was absurdly and inexplicably merry. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Terabon's notebooks held tens of thousands of words describing the +Mississippi River and the people he had met. He had drifted down long, +lonely bends, and he had surprised a flock of wild geese under a little +bluff on an island sandbar just above Kaskaskia, in the big cut-off +there. Until this day the Mississippi had been growing more and more +into his consciousness; not people, not industries, not corn, wheat, or +cotton had become interesting and important, but the yellow flood +itself. + +His thought had been, when he left St. Louis, to stop in towns and +gather those things which minds not of the newspaper profession lump +under the term of "histories," but now, after his hundreds of miles of +association with the river, his thought took but brief note of those +trifling and inconspicuous appearances known as "river towns." He had +passed by many places with hardly a glance, so entrancing had been the +prospect of endless miles of earth-bound flood!--bound but wearing away +its bonds. + +Now, in one of the most picturesque of all the scenes he had witnessed, +in the historic double bend above New Madrid, he found himself with a +young and attractive woman. He realized that, in some way, the +Mississippi River "spirit"--as he always quoted it in his calm and +dispassionate remarks and dissertations and descriptions--had +encompassed him about, and, without giving him any choice, had tied him +down to what in all the societies he had ever known would have been +called a "compromising position." + +That morning he had left the husband of this pretty girl lying in a +drunken stupor, and now in the late evening the fugitive wife was +taking it for granted that he would dine with her on her boat--and he +had himself entered upon a partnership with her for that meal which +could not by any possibility be called prosaic or commonplace. He had a +vivid recollection of having visited a girl back home--he thought the +phrase with difficulty--and he remembered the word "chaperon" as from a +foreign language, or at least from an obsolete and forgotten age. + +His familiarity with newspaper work did not relieve him of a feeling of +uncertainty. In fact, it emphasized the questionableness of the +occasion. "I'll show you I'm a dandy cook," she had said, and while he +followed her on board the boat, with the two big black ducks to help +prepare, he wondered and remembered and, in spite of his life-long +avoidance of all appearance of evil, submitted to this irresistible +circumstance, wherever it might lead. + +So he built the fire in her kitchen stove. She mixed up dressing and +seasoned the birds, made biscuit batter for hot-bread, brought out +stacks and stores of things to eat, or to eat with, and they set the +table, ground the coffee, and got the oven hot for the roasting and +baking. + +One thing took the curse off their position: They had to have all the +windows and doors wide open so that they seemed fairly to be cooking on +an open sandbar at the edge of the river. Terabon took an inward +satisfaction in that fact. It is not possible to feel exceedingly wicked +or depraved when there is a mile-wide Mississippi on the one hand and a +mile-wide sandbar on the other side, and the sun is shining calmly upon +the bright and innocent waters. + +As the ducks were young and tender, their cooking took but an hour, or a +little more, and the interim was occupied in the countless things that +must be done to prepare even a shanty-boat feast. He stirred some +cranberry sauce, and she had to baste the ducks, get the flour stirred +with water, and condensed cream for gravy, besides setting the table and +raising the biscuits, to have them ready for the ducks. She must needs +wonder if she'd forgotten the salt, and for ten minutes she was almost +in a panic at the thought, while he watched her in breathless +wonderment, and took covert glances up the Mississippi River, fearful +of, and yet almost wishing to see, that pursuing motorboat come into +view. + +When at last the smoking viands were on the ample table and they sat +with their knees under it, and he began to carve the ducks and dish out +the unblessed meal, he glanced up stream through the cabin window on his +right. He caught a glimpse of a window pane flashing miles distant in +the light of the setting sun--the whiskey boat without doubt. He saw a +flock of ducks coming like a great serpent just above the river surface, +then a shadow lifted as out of the river, swept up the trees in the lost +section of Kentucky opposite, and from spattering gold the scene turned +to blue which rapidly became purple, darkening visibly. + +Through the open doors and windows swept the chill of twilight, and +while she lighted the big lamp he did her bidding and closed the doors +and windows. Those shelves of books, classics and famous, time-tried +fiction, leered at him from their racks. The gold of titles, the blues +and reds and greens of covers fairly mocked him, and he saw himself +struggling with the menace of sin; he saw an honourable career and +carefully nurtured ambition fading from view, for did not all those +master minds warn the young against evil? + +But they talked over the ducks of what a pity it was that all towns +could not engage themselves in thought the way Athens used to do, and +they wondered to each other when the hurrying passion of greed and its +varying phenomena would become reconciled to a modest competence and the +simplicity which they, for example, were enjoying down the Mississippi. + +When he looked up from his meat sometimes he caught her eyes looking at +him. He recognized her superiority of experience and position; she made +him feel like a boy, but a boy of whom she was really quite fond, or at +least in whom she was interested. For that feeling he was grateful, +though there was something in her smile which led him to doubt his own +success in veiling or hiding the doubts or qualms which had, unbidden, +risen in his thoughts at the equivocal nature of their position. + +Having dined on the best meal he had had since leaving home, they talked +a little while over the remains of the sumptuous repast. But their mood +grew silent, and they kept up the conversation with difficulty. + +"I think I'd better put up my canvas top," he blurted out, and she +assented. + +"And then you must come back and help me wash this awful pile of +dishes," she added. + +"Oh, of course!" he exclaimed. + +"I'll help with the canvas," she said, and he dared not look at her. + +By the light of his lantern they put up the canvas to protect the boat +from dew. Then they looked around at the night; stars overhead, the +strange haze from the countless grains of sand which wavered over the +bar, and the river in the dark, running by. + +They looked at the river together, and they felt its majesty, its power, +its resistlessness. + +"It's overwhelming," he whispered. "When you can't see it you hear it, +or you feel it!" + +"And it makes everything else seem so small, so unimportant, so +perfectly negligible," she added, consciously, and then with vivacity: +"I'll not make you wipe those dishes, after all. But you must take me +for a walk up this sandbar!" + +"Gladly," he laughed, "but I'll help with the dishes as well!" + +She put on a jacket, pinned on a cap, and together, in merry mood, they +romped up the sandbar. It was all sand; there was not a log of timber, +not a drift barrel, not a stick of wood anywhere as far as they could +see. But as they walked along every foot of the sandbar was different, +wind-rifts, covering long, water-shaped reefs; or rising knolls, like +hills, and long depressions which held shadows darker by far than the +gloom of the night. They walked along, sometimes yards apart, sometimes +side by side. They forgot Ruskin and Carlyle--they remembered Thoreau's +"Cape Cod" and talked of the musical sands which they could hear now +under their own feet. In the silence they heard river voices; murmurings +and tones and rhythms and harmonies; and Terabon, who had accumulated a +vast store of information from the shanty-boaters, told her some of the +simple superstitions with which the river people beguile themselves and +add to the interest and difficulties of their lives. + +"An old river man can look at the river and tell when a headrise is +coming," he told her. "He knows by the looks of the water when the river +is due to fall again. When he dreams, he says he knows what is going to +happen, and where to find buried treasure, and if there is going to be +an earthquake or a bad storm." + +"They get queer living alone!" she said, thoughtfully. "Lots of them +used to stop in at our slough on Kaw River. I was afraid of them!" + +"You afraid of anything!" he exclaimed. "Of any one!" + +"Oh, that was a long time ago--ages ago!" She laughed, and then gave +voice to that most tragic riverside thought. "But now--nothing at all +matters now!" + +She said it with an intonation which was almost relief and laughing, +that Terabon, whose mind had grappled for years with one of Ruskin's +most touching phrases, understood how it could be that the heart of a +human being could become so used to sorrows that no misery could bring +tears. + +He knew in that very moment, as by revelation, that he had caught from +her lips one of the bitterest phrases which the human mind is capable of +forming. He was glad of the favour which fate had bestowed upon him, and +he thrilled, while he regretted, that in that hour he could not forget +that he was a seeker of facts, a gatherer of information. + +To match her mood was beyond his own power. By a simple statement of +fact she had given herself a place in his thought comparable to--he went +at making ideas again, despite himself--comparable to one of those +wonderful widows which are the delight, while they rend to tatters the +ambitions of delvers into the mysteries of Olympian lore. This bright, +pretty, vivacious young woman had suffered till she had arrived at a +Helen's recklessness--nothing mattered! + +There was a pause. + +"I think you are in a fair way to become unforgetable in connection with +the Mississippi River," he suggested, with even voice. + +"What do you mean?" she demanded, quickly. + +"Well, I'll tell you," with the semblance of perfect frankness. "I've +been wondering which one of the Grecian goddesses you would have been +if you had lived, say, in Homer's time." + +"Which one of them I resemble?" she asked, amused. + +"Exactly that," he declared. + +"Oh, that's such a pretty compliment," she cried. "It fits so well into +the things I've been thinking. The river grows and grows on me, and I +feel as though I grew with it! You don't know--you could never +know--you're a man--masculine! For the first time in my life I'm +free--and--and I don't--I don't care a damn!" + +"But the future!" he protested, feebly. + +"That's it!" she retorted. "For a river goddess there is no future. It's +all in the present for her, because she is eternal." + +They had walked clear up to the southernmost tip of the sandbar point. +They could hear someone, perhaps a chorus of voices, singing on the +whiskey boat at the Upper Landing. They could see the light of the +boat's windows. There they turned and started back down the sandbar, +reaching the two boats moored side by side in the deadwater. + +"Shall I help with those dishes to-night?" he asked. + +"No, we'll do them in the morning," she replied without emphasis and as +a matter of course, which left him unassisted in his obvious +predicament. + +"Well," he drawled, after a time, "it's about midnight. I must say a +river goddess is--is beyond my most vivid dreams. I wonder----" + +"What do you wonder?" + +"If you'll let me kiss you good-night now?" + +"Yes," she answered. + +The stars twinkled as he put his arm around her and took the kiss which +her lips gave--smiling. + +"I'll help with those dishes in the morning," he said, helping her up +the gang plank of her boat. "Good-night!" + +"Good-night," she answered, and entered the cabin, the dim light of her +turned-down lamp flashing across the sandbar and revealing his face for +a moment. Then the door closed between them. + +He went to his skiff, raised the cover, and crawled into his canvas +hammock which was swung from both sides of his boat. Before going to +sleep he looked under the canvas at the river, at the stars, at the dark +cabin-boat forty feet distant in the eddy. + +At the same moment he saw a face against a window pane in the cabin. + +"What does it mean?" he asked himself, but there was no answer. The +river, when asked, seldom answers. Just as he was about to go to sleep, +he started up, wide awake. + +For the first time on the river, he had forgotten to post up his notes. +He felt that he had come that day, as never before, to the forks in the +road--when he must choose between the present and the future. He lighted +his lantern, sat up in his cot, and reached for his typewriter. + +He wrote steadily, at full speed, for an hour. When he had those +wonderful and fleeting thoughts and observations nailed down and safe, +he again put out his lantern, and turned in once more. + +Then he heard a light, gay laugh, clear and distinct-a river voice +beyond question--full of raillery, and yet beneath the mocking note was +something else which he could neither identify nor analyze, which he +hoped was not scorn or mere derision, which he wished might be +understanding and sympathy--till he thought of his making those notes. + +Then he despised himself, which was really good for his soul. His +conscience, instead of rejoicing, rebuked him as a cad. He swore under +his breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Augustus Carline was a long time recovering even his consciousness. A +thousand dreams, a thousand nightmares tormented his thoughts while the +mangling grip of unnumbered vises and ropes sank deep into his flesh; +ploughs and harrows dragged through his twisted muscles. + +Yet he did rise at last out of his pit and, leaning against the cabin of +his boat, look about him to see what hell he had escaped into. The sun +was shining somewhere, blinding his eyes, which were already seared. A +river coiled by, every ripple a blistering white flame. He heard birds +and other music which sounded like an anvil chorus performing in the +narrow confines of a head as large as a cabin. + +He remembered something. It was even worse than what he was undergoing, +but he could not quite call the horror to the surface of the weltering +sea of his feelings; he did not even know his name, nor his place, nor +any detail except the present pain--and he didn't want to know. He +fought against knowing, till the thing pressed exuberantly forward, and +then he knew that the beautiful girl, the woman he loved and to whom he +was married, had left him. That was the exquisite calamity of his soul, +and he flinched from the fact as from a blow. He was always flinching, +he remembered. He was always turning from the uncomfortable and the +bothering to seek what was easy and unengaging. Now, for the moment, he +could not undertake any relief from his present misery. + +Acres and lakes of water were flowing by, but his thirst was worse than +oceans could quench. He wanted to drink, but the thought of drinking +disgusted him beyond measure. It seemed to him that a drop of water +would flame up in his throat like gasolene on a bed of coals, and at +that moment his eyes fell upon the jug which stood by the misty engine +against the intangible locker. The jug was a monument of comfort and +substantiality. + +At the odour which filled the air when he had taken out the cork his +very soul was filled with horror. + +"But I got to drink it!" he whimpered. "It's the only thing that'll cure +me, the only thing I can stand. If I don't I'll die!" + +Not to drink was suicide, and to drink was living death! He could not +choose between the suggestions; he never had been trained to face fate +manfully. His years' long dissipation had unfitted him for every +squarely made decision, and now with horror on one side and terror on +the other, he could not procrastinate and wonder what folly had brought +him to this state. + +"Why couldn't it smell good!" he choked. "The taste'll kill me!" + +Taste he must, or perish! The taste was all that he had anticipated, and +melted iron could hardly have been more painful than that first torture +of cold, fusil acid. Gulping it down, he was willing to congratulate +himself on his endurance and wisdom, his very heroism in undertaking +that deadly specific. + +After it was over with, however, the raw chill, which the heat of the +sun did not help, began to yield to a glow of warmth. He straightened +his twisted muscles and after a hasty look around retreated into his +cabin and flung himself on his bunk. + +What length of time he spent in his recovery from the attacks of his +enemy, or rather enemies of a misspent youth, he could not surmise. He +did at last stir from his place and look with subdued melancholy into a +world of woe. He recalled the visitor, the man who wrote for newspapers, +and in a panic he searched for his money. + +The money was gone; $250, at least, had disappeared from his pockets. An +empty wallet on the cabin floor showed with what contemptuous calm the +funds had been abstracted from his pockets. He turned, however, to a +cunning little hiding place, and found there his main supply of +currency--a thousand dollars or more. + +No man likes to be robbed, and Carline, fixing upon his visitor Terabon +as his assailant, worked himself into a fine frenzy of indignation. The +fellow had purposely encouraged him to drink immoderately--Carline's +memory was clear and unmistaken on that point--and then, taking +advantage of his unconsciousness, the pseudo writer had committed +piracy. + +"I'd ought to be glad he didn't kill me!" Carline sneered to himself, +looking around to conjure up the things that might have been. + +The prospect was far from pleasing. The sky was dark, although it was +clearly sometime near the middle of a day--what day, he could but guess. +The wind was raw and penetrating, howling through the trees, and +skipping down the chute with a quick rustling of low, breaking waves. +The birds and animals which he had heard were gone with the sunshine. + +When Carline took another look over his boat, he found that it had been +looted of many things, including a good blanket, his shot gun and rifle, +ammunition, and most of his food supply--though he could not recall that +he had had much food on board. + +He lighted the coal-oil heater to warm the cabin, for he was chilled to +the bone. He threw the jug overboard, bound now never again to touch +another drop of liquor as long as he lived--that is, unless he happened +to want a drink. + +Wearily he set about cleaning up his boat. He was naturally rather +inclined to neatness and orderliness. He picked up, folded, swept out, +and put into shape. He appeased his delicate appetite with odds and ends +of things from a locker full of canned goods which had escaped the +looter. + +As long as he could, Carline had not engaged his thoughts with the +subject of his runaway wife. Now, his mind clearing and his body numb, +his soul took up the burden again, and he felt his helplessness thrice +confounded. He did not mind anything now compared to the one fact that +he had lost and deserved to lose the respect of the pretty girl who had +become his wife. He took out the photographs which he had of her, and +looked at them, one by one. What a fool he had been, and what a +scoundrel he was! + +He could not give over the pursuit, however; he felt that he must save +her from herself; he must seek and rescue her. He hoisted in his anchor +and starting the motor, turned into the chute and ran down before the +wind into the river. Never had he seen the Mississippi in such a dark +and repellent mood. + +When he had cleared the partial shelter of Island No. 8, he felt the +wind and current at the stern of his boat, driving it first one way then +the other. Steering was difficult, and fear began to clutch at his +heart. He felt his helplessness and the hopelessness of his search down +that wide river with its hundred thousand hiding places. He knew nothing +of the gossiping river people except that he despised them. He could not +dream that his ignorance of things five or ten miles from his home was +not typical of the shanty-boaters; he could not know that where he was a +stranger in the next township to his own home, a shanty-boater would +know the landing place of his friends a thousand miles or so down +stream. + +Without maps, without knowledge, without instinct, he might almost as +well have been blind. His careless, ignorant glance swept the eight or +nine miles of shoreline of sandbar from above Island No. 10 clear down +to the fresh sloughing above Hotchkiss's Landing, opposite the dry +Winchester Chute--in which deep-draft gun-barges had been moored fifty +years or so before. He did not even know it was Island No. 10, +Donaldson's Point; he didn't know that he was leaving Kentucky to skirt +Tennessee; much less did he dream that he was passing Kentucky again. He +looked at a shanty-boat moored at the foot of a mile-long sandbar; saw, +without observing, a skiff against the bar just above the cabined scow. +His gaze discovered smoke, houses, signs of settlement miles below, and +he quickened the beat of his motor to get down there. + +He longed for people, for humanity, for towns and cities; and that was a +big sawmill and cotton-gin town ahead of him, silhouetted along the top +of a high bank. He headed straight for it, and found his boat +inexplicably slowed up and rebuffed. Strangers on the river always do +find themselves baffled by the big New Madrid eddy, which even power +boats engage with difficulty of management. He landed at last against a +floating dock, and found that it was a fish market. + +Having made fast, he went up town and spent hours, till long after dark, +buying supplies, talking to people, getting the lonesomeness out of his +system, and making veiled inquiries to learn if anything had been heard +about a woman coming down the Mississippi. He succeeded in giving the +impression that he was a detective. In the restaurant he talked with a +cocky little bald-headed man all spruced up and dandyish. + +"I'm from Pittsburgh," the man said. "My name's Doss, Ronald Doss; I'm a +sportsman, but every winter I drop down here, hunting and fishing; +sometimes on the river, sometimes back in the bottoms. I suppose, Mr. +Carline, that you're a stranger on the river?" + +"Why, yes-s, down this way; I live near it, up at Gage." + +"I see, your first trip down. Got a nice gasolene boat, though!" + +"Oh, yes! You're stopping here?" + +"Just arrived this morning; trying to make up my mind whether I'll go +over on St. Francis, turkey-and deer-hunting, or get a boat and drop +down the Mississippi. Been wondering about that." + +"Well, say, now--why can't you drop down with me?" + +"Oh, I'd be in the way----" + +"Not a bit----" + +"Costs a lot to run a motorboat, and I'd have to----" + +"No, you wouldn't! Not a cent! Your experience and my boat----" + +"Well, of course, if you put it that way. If it'd be any accommodation +to you to have an old river man--I mean I've always tripped the river, +off and on, for sport." + +"It'd be an education for me, a great help!" + +"Yes, I expect it would be an education, if you don't know the river." +Doss smiled. + +They walked over to the river bank. An arc light cast its rays upon the +end of the street, down the sloping bank, and in a light circle upon the +rocking, muddy waters where the fish dock and several shanty-boats +rested against the bank. + +Doss whistled a little tune as he rested on his cane. + +The front door of the third houseboat up the eddy opened and closed. A +man climbed the bank and passed the two with a basket on his arm. + +"Come on down," Carline urged. + +"Not to-night," Doss said. "I've got my room up at the hotel, and I'll +have to get my stuff out of the railroad baggage room. But I'll come +down about 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning. Then we'll fit up and drop +down the river. Good-night!" + +Doss watched Carline go down to the dock and on to his boat. Then he +went up the street and held earnest confab with a man who had a basket +on his arm. They whispered ten minutes or so, then the man with the +basket returned to his shanty-boat, and within half an hour was back up +town, carrying two suitcases, a gun case, and a duffle bag. + +Doss went to the smaller hotel with these things and registered. He +walked down to the river in the morning and noticed that the third +shanty-boat had dropped out into the river during the night, in spite of +the storm that was blowing up. He went down and ate breakfast with +Carline, and the two went up and got Doss's outfit at the hotel. They +returned to the motorboat, and, having laid in a supply of groceries, +cast off their lines and steered away down the river. + +"Yes, sir, we'll find that girl if it takes all winter!" the fish-market +man heard Doss tell Carline in a loud voice. + +That afternoon a man in a skiff came down the river and turned into the +dock. As he landed, the fish-market man said to him: + +Yes. + +"If you see any lady coming down, tell her a detector is below, lookin' +fo' her. He's a cheap skate, into a motorboat--but I don't expect he'll +be into hit long, 'count of some river fellers bein' with him. But he +mout be bad, that detector. If you should see a nice lady, tell her." + +"You bet!" the skiff man, who was Lester Terabon, exclaimed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +For long hours Parson Rasba endured the drifting sand and the biting +wind which penetrated the weather-cracks in his poplar shanty-boat. It +was not until near nightfall that it dawned on him that he need not +remain there, that it was the simplest thing in the world to let go his +hold and blow before the wind till he was clear of the sandblast. + +He did haul in his anchor and float away. As he rode the waves and +danced before the wind the clouds of sand were flung swiftly down upon +the water, where the surface was covered with a film and a sheet of +dust. + +Standing at his sweeps, he saw that he was approaching the head of +another sandbar, and as he felt the water shoaling under the boat he +cast over the anchor and rode in clear air again. He was not quite +without a sense of humour. + +Shaking the dust out of his long hair and combing it out of his +whiskers, he laughed at his ignorance and lack of resource. He swept the +decks and floor of his cabin, and scooped the sand up with an ash shovel +to throw overboard. A lesson learned on the Mississippi is part of the +education of the future--if there is anything in the pupil's head to +hold a memory of a fact or experience. + +Even though he knew it was his own ignorance that had kept him a +prisoner in that storm, Parson Rasba did not fail to realize that his +ignorance had been sin, and that his punishment was due to his +absorption in the fate of a pretty woman. + +Certainly after such a sharp rebuke he could not fail to return to his +original task, imposed upon him because of his fault in bringing the +feud fighters of his home mountains together, untrained and +unrepentant, to hear the voice of his pride declare the Word for the +edification of sinners. Parson Rasba did not mince his words as he +contemplated the joy he had felt in being eloquent and a "power" of a +speaker from the pulpits of the mountain churches. The murdering by the +feud fighters had taught him what he would never forget, and his frank +acknowledgment of each rebuke gave him greater understanding. + +While the gale lasted he watched the river and the sky. The wild fowl +flying low, and dropping into woods behind him led to forays seeking +game, and in a bayou a mile distant he drew down with deadly aim on one +of a flock of geese. He killed that bird, and then as its startled and +lumbering mates sought flight, he got two more of them, missing another +shot or two in the excitement. + +The three great birds made a load for him, and he returned to his boat +with a heart lighter than he had known in many a day because it seemed +to him a "sign" that he need not hate himself overmuch. The river +consoled him, and its constancy and integrity were an example which he +could not help but take to heart. + +Gales might blow, fair weather might tempt, islands might interpose +themselves in its way, banks and sandbars might stand against the flood, +but come what might, the river poured on through its destined course +like a human life. + +He entertained the whimsical fancy, as his smallest goose was roasting, +that perhaps the Mississippi might sin. In so many ways the river +reminded him of humankind. He had stood beside a branch of the +Mississippi which was so small and narrow that he could dam it with his +ample foot, or scoop it up with a bucket--and yet here it was a mile +wide! In its youth it was subject to the control of trifling things, a +stone or a log, or the careless handiwork of a man. Down here all the +little threads of its being had united in a full tide of life still +subject to the influences of its normal course, but wearing and tearing +along beyond any power to stop till its appointed course was run. + +Insensibly Parson Rasba felt the resources of his own mind flocking to +help him. Just being there beside that mighty torrent helped him to get +a perspective on things. Tiny things seemed so useless in the front of +that overwhelming power. What were the big things of his own life? What +were the important affairs of his existence? + +He could not tell. He had always meant to do the right thing. He could +see now, looking back on his life, that his good intentions had not +prevented his ignorance from precipitating a feud fight. + +"I should have taken them, family by family, and brought them to their +own knees fustest," he thought, grimly. "Then I could have helt 'em all +together in mutual repentance!" + +Having arrived at that idea, he shrugged his shoulders almost +self-contemptuously. "I'm a learnin'. That's one consolation, I'm a +learnin'!" + +And then Rasba heard the Call! + +It was Old Mississip's voice; the river was heaping duties upon him more +and more. So far, he had been rather looking out for himself, now he +recalled the houseboats which he had seen moored down the reaches and in +the bends. Those river people, dropping down incessantly with the river +current, must sometimes need help, comfort, and perhaps advice. His +humility would not permit him to think that he could preach to them or +exhort them. + +"Man to man, likely I could he'p some po'r sinner see as much as I can +see. If I could kind of get 'em to see what this big, old riveh is like! +Hit's carryin' a leaf er a duck, an' steamboats an' shanty-bo'ts; hit +carries the livin' an' hit carries the daid; hit begrudges no man it's +he'p if he comes to it to float down a log raft er a million bushels of +coal. If Ole Mississip'll do that fo' anybody, suttin'ly hit's clear an' +plain that God won't deny a sinner His he'p! Yas, suh! Now I've shore +found a handle to keep hold of my religion!" + +Peace of mind had come to him, but not the peace of indolence and +neglect. Far from that! He saw years of endless endeavour opening before +him, but not with multitudes looking up to him as he stood, grand and +noble, in the bright light of a thousand pulpits, circuit riding the +earth. Instead, he would go to a sinning man here, a sorrowing woman +there, and perhaps sit down with a little child, to give it comfort and +instruction. + +People were too scattered down the Mississippi to think of +congregations. All days were Sunday, and for him there could be no +day of rest. If he could not do big work, at least he could meet +men and women, and he could get to know little children, to +understand their needs. He knew it was a good thought, and when he +looked across the Mississippi, he saw night coming on, but between +him and the dark was sunset. + +The cold white glare changed to brilliant colours; clouds whose +gray-blue had oppressed the soul of the mountain man flashed red and +purple, growing thinner and thinner, and when he had gazed for a minute +at the glow of a fixed government light he was astonished by the +darkness of night--only the night was filled with stars. + +Thus the river, the weather, the climate, the sky, the sandbars, and the +wooded banks revealed themselves in changing moods and varying lights to +the mountain man whose life had always been pent in and narrowed, +without viewpoint or a sense of the future. The monster size of the +river dwarfed the little affairs of his own life and humbled the pride +which had so often been humbled before. At last he began to look down on +himself, seeing something of the true relation of his importance to the +immeasurable efforts of thousands and millions of men. + +The sand clouds carried by the north wind must ever remain an epoch in +his experience. Definitely he was rid of a great deal of nonsense, +ignorance, and pride; at the same time it seemed, somehow, to have +grounded him on something much firmer and broader than the vanities of +his youth. + +His eyes searched the river in the dark for some place to begin his +work, and as they did so, he discovered a bright, glaring light a few +miles below him across the sandbar at the head of which he had anchored. +He saw other lights down that way, a regular settlement of lights across +the river, and several darting firefly gleams in the middle of the +stream which he recognized were boats, probably small gasolene craft. + +In forty minutes he was dipping his sweep blades to work his way into +the eddy where several small passenger craft were on line-ends from a +large, substantial craft which was brightly lighted by lanterns and a +big carbide light. Its windows were aglow with cheeriness, and the +occupants engaged in strange pastimes. + +"Come, now, come on, now!" someone was crying in a sing-song. "Come +along like I said! Come along, now--Seven--Seven--Seven!" + +Parson Rasba's oar pins needed wetting, for the strain he put on the +sweeps made them squeak. The splash of oars down the current was heard +by people on board and several walked out on the deck. + +"Whoe-e-e!" one hailed. "Who all mout yo' be?" + +"Rasba!" the newcomer replied. "Parson Elijah Rasba, suh. Out of the +Ohio!" + +"Hi-i-i!" a listener cried out, gleefully, "hyar comes the Riveh Prophet +after yo sinners. Hi-i-i!" + +There was a laugh through the crowd. Others strolled out to see the +phenomenon. A man who had been playing with fortune at one of the poker +tables swore aloud. + +"I cayn't neveh git started, I don't shift down on my luck!" he whined. +"Las' time, jes' when I was coming home, I see a piebald mewl, an' now +hyar comes a parson. Dad drat this yeah ole riveh! I'm goin' to quit. +I'm gwine to go to Hot Springs!" + +These casual asides were as nothing, however, to the tumult that stirred +in the soul of Jock Drones, who had been cutting bread to make +boiled-ham sandwiches for their patrons that night. His acute hearing +had picked up the sound of the coming shanty-boat, and he had felt the +menace of a stranger dropping in after dark. Few men not on mischief +bent, or determined to run all night, run into shanty-boat eddies. + +He even turned down the light a little, and looked toward the door to +see if the way was clear. The hail relieved the tension of his mind +strain, but only for a minute. Then he heard that answer. + +"Rasba!" he heard. "Parson Elijah Rasba, suh. Out of the Ohio!" + +In a flash he knew the truth! Old Rasba, whose preaching he had +listened to that bloody night away up in the mountains, had come down +the rivers. A parson, none else, was camping on the mountain fugitive's +trail. That meant tribulation, that meant the inescapableness of sin's +punishment--not in jails, not in trial courts, not on the gallows, but +worse than that! + +"Come abo'd, Parson!" someone shouted, and the boats bumped. There was a +scramble to make a line fast, and then the trampling of many feet, as +the Prophet was introduced to that particular river hell, amid stifled +cries of expectancy and murmurs of warning. Next to being raided by the +sheriff of an adjacent county, having a river prophet come on board is +the greatest excitement and the smartest amusement of the bravados down +the river. + +"Hyar's the Prophet!" a voice shouted. "Now git ready fo' yo' eternal +damnation. See 'im gather hisse'f!" + +Rasba gathering himself! Jock could not help but take a peep. It was +Rasba, gaunt, tall, his head up close to the shanty-boat roof and his +shoulders nearly a head higher than the collars of most of those men who +stood by with insolence and doubtful good humour. + +"Which'd yo' rather git to play, Parson?" someone asked, slyly. "Cyards +er bones er pull-sticks?" + +"I've a friend down yeah, gentlemen." The Prophet ignored the insult. +"His mother wants him. She's afeared likely he mout forget, since he was +jes' a boy friendly and needing friends. He's no runt, no triflin' +no-'count, puppy man, like this thing," in the direction whence the +invitation had come, "but tall an' square, an' honourable, near six +foot, an' likely 160 pounds. Not like this little runt thing yeah, but a +real man!" + +There was a yell of approval and delight. + +"Who all mout yo' friend be?" Buck asked, respectfully, seeing that this +was not a raid, but a visit. + +"Jock, suh, Jock Drones, his mammy wants him, suh!" + +Buck eyed the visitor keenly for a minute. Someone said they never had +heard of him. Buck, who saw that the visitor was in mind to turn back, +suggested: + +"Won't yo' have a cup of coffee, suh? Hit's raw outside to-night, fresh +and mean. Give him a chair, boys! I'm friendly with any man who takes a +message from a mother to her wandering son." + +A dozen chairs were snatched out to the stove, and when Parson Rasba had +accepted one, Buck stepped into the kitchen. He found Slip, _alias_ Jock +Drones, standing with beads of sweat on his forehead. No need to ask the +first question; Buck poured out a cup of coffee and said: + +"What'll I tell him, Slip?" + +"I cayn't go back, Buck!" Slip whimpered. "Hit's a hanging crime!" + +"Something may have changed," Buck suggested. + +"No, suh, I've heard. Hit were my bullet--I've heard. Hit's a trial, an' +hit's--hit's hanging!" + +"Sh-h! Not so loud!" Buck warned. "If it's lawyer money you need?" + +"I got 'leven hundred, an' a trial lawyer'll cost only a thousand, Buck! +Yo's a friend--Lawse! I'd shore like to talk to him. He's no detector, +Parson Rasba yain't. Why, he's be'n right into a stillhouse, drunk the +moonshine--an' no revenue hearn of hit, the way some feared. My sister +wrote me. I want to talk to him, Buck, but--but not let them outside +know." + +"I'll fix it," Buck promised, carrying out steaming coffee, a plate of +sandwiches, and two big oranges for the parson. + +He returned, filled up the trays for the others, and took them out. Soon +the crowd were sitting around, or leaning against the heavy crap table, +talking and listening. + +"Yo' come way down from the mountangs to find a mammy's boy?" someone +asked, his tone showing better than his words how well he understood the +sacrifice of that journey. + +"Hit's seo," Rasba nodded. "I'm partly to blame, myse'f, for his coming +down. I was a mountain preacher, exhorter, and I 'lowed I knowed hit +all. One candlelight I had a congregation an' I hit 'er up loud that +night, an' I 'lowed I'd done right smart with those people's souls. +But--but hit were no such thing. This boy, Jock, he runned away that +night, 'count of my foolishness, an' we know he's down thisaway; if I +could git to find him, his mammy'd shore be comforted. She's a heap more +faith in me'n I have, but I come down yeah. Likely I couldn't do much +for that boy, but I kin show I'd like to." + +"Trippin' a thousand miles shows some intrust!" somebody said. + +"I lived all my life up theh in the mountangs, an' hit's God's country, +gem'men! This yeah--" he glanced around him till his glance fell upon +the card cabinet on the wall between two windows, full of decks of cards +and packets of dice and shaker boxes--"this yeah, sho! Hit ain't God's +country, gem'men! Hit's shore the Devil's, an' he's shore ketched a +right smart haul to-night! But I live yeah now!" + +Buck, who had been coming and going, had stopped at the parson's voice. +He did not laugh, he did not even smile. The point was not missed, +however. Far from it! He went out, bowed by the truth of it, and in the +kitchen he looked at Slip, who was sitting in black and silent +consideration of that cry, carried far in the echoes. + +"You're one of us, Parson!" a voice exclaimed in disbelief. + +"Yas, suh," Rasba smiled as he looked into the man's eyes, "I'm one of +you. I 'low we uns'll git thar together, 'cordin' as we die. Look! This +gem'men gives me bread an' meat; he quenches my thirst, too. An' I take +hit out'n his hands. 'Peahs like he owns this boat!" + +"Yas, suh," someone affirmed. + +"Then I shall not shake hit's dust off my feet when I go," Rasba +declared, sharply. Buck stared; Rasba did not look at even his shoes; +Buck caught his breath. Whatever Rasba meant, whatever the other +listeners understood, Buck felt and broke beneath those statements which +brought to him things that he never had known before. + +"He'll not shake the dust of this gambling dive from his feet!" Buck +choked under his breath. "And this is how far down I've got!" + +Rasba, conscious only of his own shortcomings, had no idea that he had +fired shot after shot, let alone landed shell after shell. He knew only +that the men sat in respectful, drawn-faced silence. He wondered if they +were not sorry for him, a preacher, who had fallen so far from his +circuit riding and feastings and meetings in churches. It did not occur +to him that these men knew they were wicked, and that they were +suffering from his unintentional but overwhelming rebuke. + +They turned away impatiently, and went in their boats to the village +landing across the river; a night's sport spoiled for them by the coming +of a luck-breaking parson. Others waited to hear more of what they knew +they needed, partly in amusement, partly in curiosity, and partly +because they liked the whiskery fellow who was so interesting. At the +same time, what he said was stinging however inoffensive. + +"Game's closed for the night!" Buck announced, and the gamesters took +their departure. They made no protest, for it was not feasible to +continue gambling when everyone knows a parson brings bad luck to a +player. + +The outside lights were extinguished, and Buck brought Slip from the +kitchen inside to Rasba. + +"This is Slip," Buck explained, and the two shook hands, the fugitive +staring anxiously at the other's face, expecting recognition. + +"Don't yo' know me, Parson?" Slip exclaimed. "Jock Drones. Don't yo' +know me?" + +"Jock Drones?" Rasba cried, staring. "Why, Sho! Hit is! Lawse--an' I +found yo' right yeah--thisaway!" + +"Yassuh," Jock turned away under that bright gaze, "but I'm goin' back, +Parson! I'm goin' back to stand trial, suh! I neveh knowed any man, not +a blood relation would think so much of me, as to come way down yeah to +tell me my mammy, my good ole mammy, wanted me to be safe----" + +"An' good, Jock!" Rasba cried. + +"An' good, suh," the young man added, obediently. + +"I'd better go over and see our sick man," Buck turned to Slip. + +"A sick man?" Rasba asked. "Where mout he be?" + +"In that other shanty-boat, that little boat," Slip exclaimed. "We'll +all go!" + +When they entered the little boat, which sagged under their combined +weights, Slip held the light so it would shine on the cot. + +"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "Hyar's my friend who got shot by a lady!" + +"Yes, suh, Parson!" Prebol grinned, feebly. "Seems like I cayn't get +shut of yo' nohow, but I'm shore glad to see yo'. These yeah boys have +took cyar of me great. Same's you done, Parson, but I wa'nt your kind, +swearin' around, so I pulled out. Yo' cayn't he'p me much, but +likely--likely theh's some yo' kin." + +"I'd shore like to find them," Rasba declared, smoothing the man's +pillow. "But there's not so many I can he'p. Yo' boys are tired; I'll +give him his medicine till to'd mornin'. Yo'd jes' soon, Prebol?" + +"Hit'd be friendly," Prebol admitted. "Yo' needn't to sit right +yeah----" + +"I 'low I shall," Rasba nodded. "I got some readin' to do. I'll git my +book, an' come back an' set yeah!" + +He brought his Bible, and looking up to bid the two good-night, he +smiled. + +"Hit's considerable wrestle, readin' this yeah Book! I neveh did git to +understand hit, but likely I can git to know some more now. I've had +right smart of experiences, lately, to he'p me git to know." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Terabon possessed a newspaper man's feeling of aloofness and detachment. +When he went afloat on the Mississippi at St. Louis he had no intention +of becoming a part of the river phenomena, and it did not occur to his +mind that his position might become that of a participator rather than +an observer. + +The great river was interesting. It had come to his attention several +years before, when he read Parkman's "La Salle," and a little later +he had read almost a column account of a flood down the Mississippi. +The A. P. had collected items from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Memphis, +Cairo, Natchez, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, and fired +them into the aloof East. New York, Boston, Bangor, Utica, Albany, and +other important centres had learned for the first time that a +"levee"--whatever that might be--had suffered a cravasse; a steamboat +and some towbarges had been wrecked, that Cairo was registering 63.3 on +the gauge; that some Negroes had been drowned; that cattle thieves were +operating in the Overflow, and so on and so forth. + +The combination of La Salle's last adventure and the Mississippi flood +caught the fancy of the newspaper man. + +"Shall I ever get out there?" Terabon asked himself. + +His dream was not of reporting wars, not of exploring Africa, not of +interviewing kings and making presidents in a national convention. Far +from it! His mind caught at the suggestion of singing birds in their +native trees, and he could without regret think of spending days with a +magnifying glass, considering the ant, or worshipping at the stalk of +the flowering lily. + +He was astonished, one day, to discover that he had several hundred +dollars in the Chambers Street Savings Bank. It happened that the city +editor called him to the desk a few minutes later and said: + +"Go see about this conference." + +"You go to hell!" the reporter replied, smilingly, gently replacing the +slip on the greenish desk. + +"T-t-t-t-t----" Mr. Dekod sputtered. There _is_ something new under the +sun! + +Lester Terabon strolled forth with easy nonchalance, and three days +later he was in the office of the secretary of the Mississippi River +Commission, at St. Louis, calmly inquiring into the duties and +performance thereof, involving the efforts of 100,000 Negroes, 40,000 +mules, 500 contractors, 10,000 government officials, a few hundred +pieces of floating plant, and sundry other things which Terabon had +conceived were of importance. + +He had approached the Mississippi River from the human angle. He knew of +no other way of approach. His first view of the river, as he crossed the +Merchants Bridge, had not disturbed his equilibrium in the least, and he +had floated out of an eddy in a 16-foot skiff still with the +human-viewpoint approach. + +Then had begun a combat in his mind between all his preconceived ideas +and information and the river realities. Faithfully, in the notebooks +which he carried, he put down the details of his mental disturbances. + +By the time he reached Island No. 10 sandbar he had about resigned +himself to the whimsicalities of river living. He had, however, +preserved his attitude of aloofness and extraneousness. He regarded +himself as a visiting observer who would record the events in which +others had a part. It still pleased his fancy to say that he was +interviewing the Mississippi River as he might interview the President +of the United States. + +But as Lester Terabon rowed his skiff back up the eddy above New Madrid, +and breasted the current in the sweep of the reach to that little +cabin-boat half a mile above the Island No. 10 light, his attitude was +undergoing a conscious change. While he had been reporting the +Mississippi River in its varying moods something had encircled him and +grasped him, and was holding him. + +For some time he had felt the change in his position; glimmerings of its +importance had appeared in his notes; his mind had fought against it as +a corruption, lest it ruin the career which he had mapped out for +himself. + +When the New Madrid fish-dock man told him to carry the warning that a +"detector" was hunting for a certain woman, and that the detective had +gone on down with some river fellows, his place as a river man was +assured. River folks trusted and used him as they used themselves. +Moreover, he was possessed of a vital river secret. + +Nelia Crele, _alias_ Nelia Carline, was the woman, and they were both +stopping over at the Island No. 10 sandbar. He knew, what the fish-dock +man probably did not know, that the pursuer was the woman's husband. + +"What'll I tell her?" Terabon asked himself. + +With that question he uncovered an unsuspected depth to his feelings. It +was a dark, dull day. The waves rolled and fell back, sometimes the wind +seeming the stronger and then the current asserting its weight. With the +wind's help over the stern, Terabon swiftly passed the caving bend and +landed in the lee above the young woman's boat. + +He carried some things he had bought for her into the kitchen and they +sat in the cabin to read newspapers and magazines which he had +obtained. + +"I heard some news, too," he told her. + +"Yes? What news?" + +"The fish-dock man at New Madrid told me to tell the people along that a +detective has gone on down, looking for a woman." + +"A detective looking for a woman?" she repeated. + +"A man the name of Carline----" + +"Oh!" she shrugged her shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me!" + +He flushed. Almost an hour had elapsed since he had returned. He had +found it difficult to mention the subject. + +"I did not tell you either," he apologized, "that I happened to meet Mr. +Carline up at Island No. 8, when I had no idea the good fortune would +come to me of meeting you, whose--whose pictures he showed me. I could +not--I saw----There was----" + +"And you didn't tell me," she accused him. + +"It seemed to me none of my affair. I'm a newspaper man--I----" + +"And did that excuse you from letting me know of his--of that pursuit of +me?" + +His newspaper impartiality had failed him, and he hung his head in doubt +and shame. She claimed, and she deserved, his friendship; the last +vestige of his pretence of mere observation was torn from him. He was a +human among humans--and he had a fervid if unexpected thought about the +influence and exasperation of the river out yonder. + +"I could not tell you!" he cried. "I didn't think--it seemed----" + +"You know, then, you saw why I had left him?" + +"Liquor!" he grasped at the excuse. "Oh, that was plain enough." + +"Perhaps a woman could forgive liquor," she suggested, thoughtfully, +"but not--not stupidity and indifference. He never disturbed the dust on +any of the books of his library. Oh, what they meant my books mean to +me!" + +She turned and stared at her book shelves. + +"Suppose you hadn't found books?" he asked, glad of the opportunity for +a diversion. + +"I'd be dead, I think," she surmised, "and one day, I did deliberately +choose." + +"How was that?" + +"Get your notebook!" she jeered. "I thought if he was going to rely on +the specious joys of liquor I would, and tried it. It was a blizzard day +last winter. He had gone over to see the widow, and there was a bottle +of rum in the cupboard. I took some hot milk, nutmeg, sugar, and rum. +I've never felt so happy in my life, except----" + +"With what exception?" he asked. + +"Yesterday," she answered, laughing, "and last night and to-day! You +see, I'm free now. I say and do what I please. I don't care any more. +I'm perfectly brazen. I don't love you, but I like you very much. You're +good company. I hope I am, too----" + +"You are--splendid!" he cried, almost involuntarily, and she shivered. + +"Let's go walking again, will you?" she said. "I want to get out in the +wind; I want to have the sky overhead, a sandbar under my feet, and all +outdoors at my command. You don't mind, you'd like to go?" + +"To the earth's end!" he replied, recklessly, and her gay laugh showed +how well he had pleased her mood. + +They kept close up to the north side of the bar because down the wind +the sand was lifting and rolling up in yellow clouds. They went to +Winchester Chute, and followed its winding course through the wood +patch. There was a slough of green water, with a flock of ducks which +left precipitately on their approach. They returned down to the sandbar, +and pressed their way through the thick clump of small willows into the +switch willows and along the edge of the unbroken desert of sand. They +could see the very surface of the bar rolling along before the wind, and +as they walked along they found their feet submerged in the blast. + +But when they arrived at the boat night was near at hand, and the +enveloping cold became more biting and the gloom more depressing. + +Just when they had eaten their supper together, and had seated +themselves before the fire, and when the whirl and whistle of the wind +was heard in the mad music of a river storm, a motorboat with its +cut-out open ploughed up the river through the dead eddy and stopped to +hail. + +Jim Talum, a fisherman whose line of hoop nets filled the reach of +Island No. 9 for eight or ten miles, was on his way to his tent which he +had pitched at the head of Winchester Chute. + +He tramped aboard, and welcomed a seat by the fire. + +"'Lowed I'd drap in a minute," he declared. "Powerful lonesome up on the +chute where I got my tent. Be'n runnin' my traps down the bank, yeah, +an' along of the chute, gettin' rats. Yo' trappin'?" + +"No, just tripping," Terabon replied. "I was down to New Madrid this +morning." + +"I'm just up from there. Ho law! Theh's one man I'd hate to be down +below. I expect yo've hearn tell of them Despard riveh pirates? No! +Well, they've come drappin' down ag'in, an' they landed into New Madrid +yestehd'y evenin'. Likely they 'lowed to raid some commissary down +b'low--cayn't tell what they did 'low to do. But they picked good +pickin's down theh! Feller come down lookin' fo' a woman, hisn's I +expect. Anyhow, he's a strangeh on the riveh. He's got a nice power +boat, an' likely he's got money. If he has, good-bye! Them Despards'd +kill a man for $10. One of 'em, Hilt Despard's onto the bo't with him, +pretendin' to be a sport, an' they've drapped out. The rest the gang's +jes' waitin' fo' the wind to lay, down b'low, an' down by Plum P'int, +some'rs, Mr. Man'll sudden come daid." + +The fisherman had been alone so much that the pent-up conversation of +weeks flowed uninterruptedly. He told details; he described the +motorboat; he laughed at the astonishment the man would feel when the +pirates disclosed their intentions with a bullet or knife; and he +expected, by and by, to hear the story of the tragedy through the medium +of some whiskey boater, some river gossip coming up in a power boat. + +For an hour he babbled and then, as precipitately as he had arrived, he +took his departure. When he was gone, Nelia Crele turned to Terabon with +helpless dismay. Augustus Carline was worthless; he had been faithless +to her; he had inflicted sufferings beyond her power of punishment or +forgiveness. + +"But he's looking for me!" she recapitulated, "and he doesn't know. He's +a fool, and they'll kill him like a rat! What can I do?" + +Obviously there was nothing that she could do, but Lester Terabon rose +instantly. + +"I'd better drop down and see if I can't help him--do something. I know +that crew." + +"You'll do that for me!" her voice lifted in a cry of thankfulness. "Oh, +if you would, if you would. I couldn't think of his being--his being +killed, trying to find me. Get him; send him home!" + +"I'd better start right down," Terabon said, "it's sixty or seventy +miles, anyhow. They'll not hurry. They can't, for the gang's in a +shanty-boat." + +She walked up to him with her arms raised. + +"How can I thank you?" she demanded. "You do this for me--a stranger!" + +"Why not, if I can help?" he asked. + +"Where shall I see you again?" + +He brought in his book of river maps, and together they looked down the +tortuous stream; he rested the tip of his pencil on Yankee Bar below +Plum Point. + +"It's a famous pirate resort, this twenty miles of river!" he said. +"I'll wait at Fort Pillow Landing. Or if you are ahead?" + +"We'll meet there!" she cried. "I'll surely find you there. Or at +Mendova--surely at Mendova." + +She followed him out on the bow deck. + +"Just a minute," she whispered, "while I get used to the thought of +being alone again. I did not know there were men like you who would +rather do a favour than ask for kisses." + +"It isn't that we don't like them!" he blurted out. "It's--it's just +that we'd rather deserve them and not have them than have them and not +deserve them!" + +She laughed. "Good-bye--and don't forget, Fort Pillow!" + +"Does a man forget his meals?" he demanded, lightly, and with his duffle +packed low in his skiff he rowed out into the gray river and the black +night. + +Having found a lee along the caving bank above New Madrid he +gain-speeded down the current behind the sandbar, but when he turned the +New Madrid bend he pulled out into mid-river and with current and wind +both behind him, followed the government lights that showed the +channel. + +He had expected to linger long down this historic stretch of river with +its Sunk Lands of the New Madrid earthquakes, with its first glimpse of +the cotton country, and with its countless river phenomena. + +"But Old Mississip' has other ideas," he said to himself, and miles +below he was wondering if and when he would meet the girl of Island No. +10 again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Pirates have infested the Mississippi from the earliest days. The +stranger on the river cannot possibly know a pirate when he sees one, +and even shanty-boaters of long experience and sharp eyes penetrate +their disguises with difficulty. How could Gus Carline suspect the +loquacious, ingratiating, and helpful Renald Doss? + +Lonely; pursued by doubts, ignorance, and a lurking timidity, Carline +was only too glad to take on a companion who discoursed about all the +river towns, called river commissioners by their first names, knew all +the makes of motors, and called the depth of the water in Point Pleasant +crossing by reading the New Madrid gauge. + +He relinquished the wheel of his boat to the dapper little man, and fed +the motor more gas, or slowed down to half speed, while he listened to +volumes of river lore. + +"You've been landing along down?" Doss asked. + +"All along," Carline replied, "everywhere." + +"Seen anybody?" + +"I should say so; there was a fellow come down pretending to be a +reporter. He stopped over with me, got me full's a tick, and then robbed +me." + +"Eh--_he_ robbed you?" + +"Yes, sir! He got me to drinking heavy. I like my stew a little, but he +fixed me. Then he just went through me, but he didn't get all I had, you +bet!" + +This was rich! + +"Lucky he didn't hit you on the head, and take the boat, too!" Doss +grinned. + +"I suppose so." + +"Yes, sir! Lots of mean men on this river, they play any old game. They +say they're preachers, or umbrella menders, or anything. Every once in a +while some feller comes down, saying he's off'n some magazine. They come +down in skiffs, mostly. It's a great game they play. Everybody tells 'em +everything. If I was going to be a crook, I bet I'd say I was a hist'ry +writer. I'd snoop around, and then I'd land--same's that feller landed +on you. Get much?" + +"Two--three hundred dollars!" + +The little man laughed in his throat. He handled the boat like a river +pilot. His eyes turned to the banks, swept the sandbars, gazed into the +coiling waters alongside, and he whispered names of places as he passed +them--landings, bars, crossings, bends, and even the plantations and log +cuttings. He named the three cotton gins in Tiptonville, and stared at +the ferry below town with a sidelong leer. + +Carline would have been the most astonished man on the Mississippi had +he known that nearly all his money was in the pockets of his guest. He +babbled on, and before he knew it, he was telling all about his wife +running away down the Mississippi. + +"What kind of a boat's she in?" Doss asked. + +"I don't know." + +"How do you expect to find her if you don't know the boat?" + +"Why--why, somebody might know her; a woman alone!" + +"She's alone?" + +"Why--yes, sir. I heard so." + +"Good looker?" + +Without a word Carline handed the fellow a photograph. Doss made no +sign. For two minutes he stared at that fine face. + +"I bet she's got an awful temper," he half whispered. + +"She's quick," Carline admitted, fervently. + +"She'd just soon shoot a man as look at him," Doss added, with a touch +of asperity. + +"Why--she----" Carline hesitated. He recalled a day in his own +experience when she took his own shot gun from him, and stood a fury, +flaming with anger. + +"Yes, sir, she would," Doss declared, with finality. + +Doss had seen her. By that time a thousand shanty-boaters had heard +about that girl's one shot of deadly accuracy. The woman folks on a +thousand miles of reach and bend had had a bad example set before them. +Doss himself felt an anger which was impotent against the woman who had +shot Jest Prebold down. Probably other women would take to shooting, +right off the bat, the same way. He despised that idea. + +Carline, doubtful as to whether his wife was being insulted, +congratulated, or described, gazed at the photograph. The more he +looked, the more exasperated he felt. She was a woman--what right had +she to run away and leave him with his honour impugned? He felt as +though he hadn't taught her her place. At the same time, when he looked +at the picture, he discovered a remembrance of his feeling that she was +a very difficult person to teach anything to. Her learning always had +insulted his own meagreness of information and aptness in repartee. Next +to not finding her, his big worry had become finding her. + +They steered down the river without great haste. Doss studied the +shanty-boats which he saw moored in the various eddies, large and small. +Some he spoke of casually, as store-boats, fishermen, market hunters, +or, as they passed between Caruthersville and the opposite shore, a +gambling boat. Even the river pirate, gloating over his prey, and +puzzled only as to the method of making the most of his victim, could +not penetrate the veil which it happened the Mississippi River +interposed between them and the river gambling den--for the moment. +There is no use seeking the method of the river, nor endeavouring to +discover the processes by which the lives of thousands who go afloat +down the Mississippi are woven as woof and warp in the fabric of river +life and river mysteries. The more faithful an effort to select one of +the commonest and simplest of river complications, the more improbable +and fanciful it must seem. + +Doss, in intervals when he was not consciously registering the smile of +good humour, the generosity of an experienced man toward the chance +visitor, and the willingness to defer to the gentleman from Up the Bank, +brought his expression unconsciously to the cold, rough woodenness of +blank insensitiveness--the malignance of a snapping turtle, to mention a +medium reptilian face. A whim, and the necessity of delay, led Doss to +suggest that they take a look up the Obion River as a likely hiding +place. Of course, Doss knew best, and they quit the tumbling Mississippi +for the quiet wooded aisle of the little river. + +When they emerged, two days later, Augustus Carline could well thank his +stars, though he did not know it, that he was still on the boat. All +unconscious of the real nature and habits of river rats he had given the +little wretch a thousand opportunities to commit one of the many crimes +he had in mind. But he developed a reluctance to choose the easiest one, +when from hint after hint he understood that a mere river piracy and +murder would be folly in view of the opportunity for a more profitable +stake which a man of means offered. + +As he steered by the government boat which was surveying Plum Point +bars, Doss showed his teeth like an indignant cat. Five or six miles +below he offered the supine and helpless Carline the information: + +"There's Yankee Bar. We'll swing wide and land in below, so's not to +scare up any geese or ducks that may be roosting there." + +Eagerly Doss searched through the switch willows for a glimpse of the +setback of the water beyond the bar. Away down in the old eddy he +discovered a shanty-boat, and to cover his involuntary exclamation of +satisfaction he said: + +"Shucks! There's somebody theh. I hoped we'd have it to ourselves but +they may be sports, too. If they are, we'll sure have a good time. Some +of these shanty-boaters are great sports. We'll soon find out!" + +He steered into the eddy and the two men stepped out on the flat boat's +deck to greet them. + +"Seems like I've seen them before," Doss said in a low voice; "I believe +they're old timers. Hello, boys! Hunting?" + +"Yes, suh! Lots of game. Sho, ain' yo' Doss, Ren Doss?" + +"You bet. I knew you! I told Mr. Carline, here, that I knew you, that +I'd seen you before! I'm glad to see you boys again. Catch a line +there." + +No doubt about it, they were old friends. In a minute they were shaking +hands all around, then went into the shanty-boat, and they sat down in +assorted chairs, and Doss, Jet, and Cope exchanged the gossip of a river +year. + +Carline's eyes searched about him with interest, and the three men +watched him more and more openly. When he walked toward the bow of the +boat, where the slope of the yellow sand led up to the woods of Flower +Island, one of them casually left his seat and followed. + +Carline looked at the stand of guns in the cabin corner and started +with surprise. He reached and picked up one of them to look at it. + +"Why," he shouted, "this is my shot gu----" + +No more. His light went out on the instant and he felt that he was +suspended in mid-air, poised between the abyss and the heavens. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Fortune, or rather the Father of Waters, had favoured Parson Elijah +Rasba in the accomplishment of his errand. It might not have happened in +a decade that he locate a fugitive within a hundred miles of Cairo, +where the Forks of the Ohio is the jumping-off place of the stream of +people from a million square miles. + +Rasba knew it. The fervour of the prophets was in his heart, and the +light of understanding was brightening in his mind. Something seemed to +have caught the doors of his intelligence and thrown them wide open. + +In the pent-up valleys of the mountains, with their little streams, +their little trails, their dull and hopeless inhabitants, their wars +begun in disputes over pigs and abandoned peach orchards, their +moonshine and hate of government revenues, there had been no chance for +Parson Rasba to get things together in his mind. + +The days and nights on the rivers had opened his eyes. When he asked +himself: "If this is the Mississippi, what must the Jordan be?" he found +a perspective. + +Sitting there beside the wounded Jest Prebol, by the light of a big +table lamp, he "wrestled" with his Bible the obscurities of which had +long tormented his ignorance and baffled his mental bondage. + +The noises of the witches' hours were in the air. Wavelets splashed +along the side and under the bow of the Prebol shanty-boat. The mooring +ropes stretched audibly, and the timber heads to which they were +fastened squeaked and strained; the wind slapped and hissed and whined +on all sides, crackling through the heavy timber up the bank. The great +river pouring by seemed to have a low, deep growl while the wind in the +skies rumbled among the clouds. + +No wonder Rasba could understand! He could imagine anything if he did +not hold fast to that great Book which rested on his knees, but holding +fast to it, the whisperings and chucklings and hissings which filled the +river wilderness, and the deep tone of the flood, the hollow roar of the +passing storm, were but signs of the necessity of faith in the presence +of the mysteries. + +So Rasba wrestled; so he grappled with the things he must know, in the +light of the things he did know. And a kind of understanding which was +also peace comforted him. He closed the Book at last, and let his mind +drift whither it would. + +Panoramas of the river, like pictures, unfolded before his eyes; he +remembered flashes taken of men, women, and children; he dwelt for a +time on the ruin of the church up there in the valley, standing vainly +against a mountain slide; his face warmed, his eyes moistened. His mind +seized eagerly upon a vision of the memory, the pretty woman, whose +pistol had shot down the deluded and now stricken wretch there in the +cabin. + +The anomaly of the fact that he was caring for her victim was not lost +on his shrewd understanding. He was gathering up and helping patch the +wreckage she was making. It was a curious conceit, and Elijah Rasba, +while he smiled at the humour of it, was at the same time conscious of +its sad truth. + +Her presence on the river meant no good for any one; Prebol was but one +of her victims; perhaps he was the least unfortunate of them all! Others +might perish through her, while it was not too much to hope that Prebol, +through his sufferings, might be willing to profit by their lesson. +Rasba was glad that he had not overtaken her that night of inexplicable +pursuit. Her brightness, her prettiness, her appeal had been +irresistible to him, and he could but acknowledge, while he trembled at +the fact, that for the time he had been possessed by her enchantment. + +Thus he meditated and puzzled about the things which, in his words, had +come to pass. Before he knew it, daylight had arrived, and Jock Drones +came over to greet him with "Good mo'nin', Parson!" Prebol was sleeping +and there was colour in his cheeks, enough to make them look more +natural. When Doctor Grell arrived, just as the three sat down to +breakfast, he cheered them with the information that Prebol was coming +through though the shadow had rested close to him. + +None of them admitted, even to himself, the strain the wounded man had +been and was on their nerves. Under his seeming indifference Buck was +near the breaking point; Jock, victim of a thousand worries, was bent +under his burdens. Grell, having fought the all-night fight for a human +life, was still weak with weariness from the effort. Rasba, a newcomer, +brought welcome reserves of endurance, assistance, and confidence. + +"Yo' men shore have done yo' duty by a man in need," he told them, and +none of them could understand why that truthful statement should make +them feel so very comfortable. + +They left the sick man to go on board the gaming boat, and they sat on +the stern deck, where they looked across the river and the levee to the +roofs of Caruthersville. If they looked at the horizon, their attention +was attracted and their gaze held by the swirling of the river current. +Their eyes could not be drawn away from that tremendous motion, the rush +of a thousand acres of surface; the senses were appalled by the +magnitude of its suggestion. + +"Going to play to-night?" Grell asked, uneasily. + +"No," Buck replied, instantly. + +"So!" the doctor exclaimed. + +"Slip's going up on the steamboat." + +"For good?" + +"So'm I!" Buck continued, breathlessly; "I'm quitting the riveh, too! +I've been down here a good many years. I've been thinking. I'm going +back. I'm going up the bank again." + +"What'll you do with the boat?" Grell continued. + +"Slip and I've been talking it all over. We're through with it. We +guessed the Prophet, here, could use it. We're going to give it to +him." + +"Going to give hit to me!" Rasba started up and stared at the man. + +"Yes, Parson; that poplar boat of yours isn't what you need down here." +Buck smiled. "This big pine boat's better; you could preach in this +boat." + +Tears started in Rasba's eyes and dripped through his dark whiskers. +Buck and Jock had acted with the impulsiveness of gambling men. +Something in the fact that Rasba had come down those strange miles had +touched them, had given Drones courage to go back and face the music, +and to Buck the desire to return into his old life. + +"We're going up on the _Kate_ to-morrow morning," Buck explained. +"Slip'd better show you how to run the gasolene boat if you don't know +how, Parson!" + +Dazed by the access of fortune, Rasba spent the mid-afternoon learning +to run the 28-foot gasolene launch which was used to tow the big +houseboat which would make such a wonderful floating church. It was a +big boat only a little more than two years old. Buck had made it +himself, on the Upper Mississippi, for a gambling boat. The frame was +light, and the cabin was built with double boards, with building paper +between, to keep out the cold wintry winds. + +"Gentlemen," Rasba choked, looking at the two donors of the gift, "I'm +going to be the best kind of a man I know how----" + +"It's your job to be a parson," Buck laughed. "If it wasn't for men like +us, that need reforming, you'd be up against it for something to look +out for. You aren't much used to the river, and I'll suggest that when +you drop down you land in eddies sheltered from the west and south +winds. They sure do tear things up sometimes. I've had the roof tore off +a boat I was in, and I saw sixty-three boats sunk at Cairo's Kentucky +shanty-boat town one morning after a big wind." + +"I'll keep a-lookin'," Rasba assured him, "but I've kind-a lost the +which-way down heah. One day I had the sun ahead, behind, and both +sides----" + +"There's maps in that pile of stuff in the corner," Buck said, going to +the duffle. "You're on Sheet 4 now. Here's Caruthersville." + +"Yas, suh. Those red lines?" + +"The new survey. You see, that sandbar up in Little Prairie Bend has cut +loose from Island No. 15, and moved down three miles, and we're at the +foot of this bar, here. That's moved down, too, and that big bar down +there was made between the surveys. You see, they had to move the levee +back, and Caruthersville moved over the new levee----" + +"Sho!" Rasba gasped. "What ails this old riveh?" + +"She jes' wriggles, same's water into a muddy road downhill," Kippy +laughed. "Up there in Little Prairie Bend hit's caved right through the +old levee, and they had to loop around. Now they've reveted it." + +"Reveted?" + +"They've woven a willow mattress and weighted it down with broken rock +from up the river--more than a mile of it, now, and they'll have to put +down another mile before they can head the river off there." + +"Put a carpet down. How wide?" + +"Four hundred feet probably----" + +"An' a mile long!" Rasba whispered, awed. "Every thing's big on the +riveh!" + +"Yes, sir--that's it--big!" Buck laughed. + +Thus the four gossiped, and when Doctor Grell had taken his departure +the three talked together about the river and its wonders. At intervals +they went over to look after Prebol whose chief requirement was quiet, +meat broths, and his medicines. + +As night drew down Drones turned to Buck: + +"It's goin' to be hard leaving the riveh! I neveh will forget, Buck. If +I'm sent to jail for all my life, I'll have something to remember. If +they hang me, I shore will come back to walk with those that walk in the +middle of the river." + +"What's that?" Rasba turned and demanded. + +"Riveh folks believe that thousands of people who died down thisaway, +sunk in snagged steamers, caught in burned-up boats, blown to kingdom +come in boiler explosions, those that have been murdered, and who died +along the banks, keep a-goin' up and down." + +"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "Yo' b'lieve that?" + +"A man believes a heap more after he's tripped the riveh once or twice, +than he ever believed in all his borned days, eh, Buck?" + +"It's so!" Buck cried out. "Last night I was thinking that I'd wasted my +life down here; years and years I've been a shanty-boater, drifter, +fisherman, trapper, market hunter, and late years, I've gambled. I've +been getting in bad, worse all the while. The Prophet here, coming +along, seemed to wake me up--the man I used to be--I mean. It wasn't so +much what you said, Parson, but your being here. Then I've been thinking +all over again. I've an idea, boys, that when I go back up to-morrow I +won't be so sorry for what I've been, as glad that I didn't grow worse +than I did. It won't be easy, boys--going back. I'm taking the old river +with me, though. I've framed its bends and islands, its chutes and +reaches, like pictures in my mind. Old Parson here, too, coming in on us +the way he did, saying that this was hell, but he'd come here to live in +it. That's what waked me up, Parson! I could see how you felt. You'd +never seen such a place before, but you said in your heart and your eyes +showed it, Parson, that you would leave God's country to help us poor +devils. It's just a point of view, though. I'm going right up to my +particular hell, and I'll look back here to this thousand miles of river +as heaven. Yes, sir! But my job is up there--in that hell!" + +So they talked, and always their thoughts were on the river channel, and +their minds groping into the future. + +When the _Kate_ whistled way down at Bell's Landing, Rasba took the two +across to Caruthersville and bade them good-bye at the landing. + +The _Kate_ pulled out and Parson Rasba crossed to the three houseboats, +two of them his own. He went in to see Prebol, who was lonesome and +wanted to talk a little. + +"What you going to do, Parson?" Prebol asked. + +"I'd kind-a like to get to see shanty-boaters, and talk to them," the +man answered. "I wonder couldn't yo' sort of he'p me; tell me where I +mout begin and where it'd he'p the most, an' hurt people's feelin's the +least? I'd jes' kind-a like to be useful. Course, I got to get you +cured up an' took cyar of first." + +"I cayn't say much about being pious on Old Mississip'," Prebol grinned, +"but theh's two ways of findin' trouble. One's to set still long enough, +and then, again, you can go lookin' fo' hit. Course, yo' know me! I've +hunted trouble pretty fresh, an' I've found hit, an' I've lived onto +hit. I cayn't he'p much about doin' good, an' missionaryin', an' River +Prophetin'." + +When Prebol's voice showed the strain of talking Rasba bade him rest. +Then he went over to the big boat, a gift that would have sold for +$1,000. He looked at the crap table, the little poker tables with the +brass-slot kitties; he stared at the cabinet of cards and dice. + +"All mine!" he said. + +He walked out on the deck where he could commune with the river, using +his eyes, his ears, and the feeling that the warm afternoon gave him. +The sun shone upon him, and made a narrow pathway across the rushing +torrent. The sky was blue and cloudless. Of the cold, the wind, the sea +of liquid mud, not one trace remained. + +He looked down and up the river, and his eyes caught a flicker which +became a flutter, like the agitation of a duck preening its feathers on +a smooth surface. + +He watched it for a long time. He did not know what it was. As a river +man, his curiosity was excited, but there was something more than mere +curiosity; the river instinct that the inexplicable and unknown should +be watched and inquired into moved him almost unconsciously to watch +that distant agitation which became a dot afloat in a mirage of light. A +little later a sudden flash along the river surface disclosed that the +thing was a shanty-boat turning in the coiling currents at the bend. + +The sun drew nearer the tree tops. The little cabin-boat was seeking a +place to land or anchor for the night. If it was an old river man, the +boat would drop into some little eddy at Caruthersville or down below; +but a stranger on the river would likely shoot across into the gamblers' +eddy tempted, perhaps, by the three boats already there. + +The boat drew swiftly near, and as it ran down, the navigator rowed to +make the shanty-boat eddy. Parson Rasba discovered that it was a woman +at the sweeps, and a few strokes later he knew that it was a slim, young +woman. When she coasted down outside the eddy, to swing in at the foot, +and arrived opposite him, he recognized her. + +"God he'p me!" he choked, "hit's Missy Nelia. Hit's Missy Nelia! An' +she's a runned away married woman--an' theh's the man she shot!" + +"Hello-o, Parson!" she hailed him, "did you see a skiff with a reporter +man drop by?" + +"No, missy!" he shook his head, his heart giving a painful thump + +"I'm a-landing in, Parson!" she cried. "I want to talk with you!" + +With that she leaned forward, drove the sweeps deep, and her boat +started in like a skiff. It seemed to Parson Rasba that he had never +seen a more beautiful picture in all his days. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Lester Terabon rowed down the rolling river waters in the dark night. He +had, of course, looked out into the Mississippi shades from the security +of landing, anchorage, and sandbar; he knew the looks of the night but +not the activities of currents and bends when a gale is sweeping by and +the air is, by turns, penetrated by the hissing of darting whitecaps and +the roar of the blustering winds. + +He would not from choice have selected a night of gale for a pull down +the Mississippi, and his first sensation as he sought a storm wave +stroke was one of doubt. What dangers might engulf him was not plain, +not the waves, for his skiff bobbed and rocked over them; not river +pirates bent on plunder, for they could not see him; perhaps a snag in +the shallows of a crossing; perhaps the leap of a sawyer, a great tree +trunk with branches fast in the mud and the roots bounding up and down +in the current; perhaps a collision with some other craft. + +He had salt-water rowlocks on his boat, open-topped "U" sockets, and the +oars he used were cased with a foot of black leather and collars of +leather strips; the tips were covered with copper sheets which gave them +weight and balance. At first he pulled awkwardly, catching crabs in the +hollows and backing into the heft of the waves, but after a time he felt +the waves as they came, and the oars feathered and caught. While he +watched ahead and searched the black horizon for the distant sparkle of +government lights, he fell into the swing of his stroke before he knew +it, and he was interested and surprised to observe that he swayed to the +side-wash while he pulled to the rhythm of the waves. + +The government lights guided him. He had not paid much attention to them +before; he had seen their white post standards as he dropped down, day +after day, but his skiff, drawing only five inches of water, passed over +the shallowest crossings and along the most gradually sloping sandbars. +Now he must keep to the deep water, follow the majestic curves and +sweeps of the meandering channel, lest he collide with a boiling eddy, +ram the shore line of sunken trees, or climb the point of a towhead. + +It was all a new experience, and its novelty compelled him at times to +pause in his efforts to jot down a few hasty words by light of a little +electric flash to preserve in his memory the sequence of the constantly +varying features of the night, beginning with the curtain of the +shanty-boat which flicked its good luck after him, passing the bright, +clear lights of New Madrid. After leaving far behind their glow against +the thin haze in the night he "made" the scattered shoals of Point +Pleasant, and hugged down vanishing Ruddles Point, taking a glimpse of +Tiptonville--which withdraws year by year from the fatal caving brink of +its site--wishing as he passed that he might return to that strange +place and visit Reelfoot Lake three or four miles beyond, where the New +Madrid earthquakes drowned a forest whose dead stubs rise as monuments +to the tragedy. + +In Little Cypress Bend, twenty-five miles below where he had left the +young woman, he heard the splash and thud of a caving bank, and felt the +big rollers from the falling earth twisting and tumbling him about for a +third of a mile. + +It was after 1 o'clock when he looked at his watch. He was beginning to +feel the pull on his shoulders, and the crick which constantly looking +over his shoulder to see the lights ahead caused him. The dulness of +his vision, due to inevitable fatigue, compelled him constantly to sit +more alert and dash away the fine spray which whipped up from the waves. +A feeling of listlessness overpowered him. He could not row on forever, +without resting at all. Taking advantage of a moment of calm in the +wind, he pulled the bow around and drifted down stern first. + +He had lost track of his position; he had not counted the lights, and +now for many miles there was no town distinguishable. He had felt the +loneliness of a mile-breadth; now he wondered whether he was in Missouri +or Arkansas, whether he had come forty miles or eighty, and after a +little he began to worry for fear he might have gone more than a +hundred. + +With the wind astern or nearly astern, he knew that he had pulled four +or five miles an hour, and he did not know how fast the current of the +river ran; it might be four miles or eight miles. In ten hours he might +leave more than a hundred miles of river bank behind him. + +A new sensation began to possess him: the feeling that he was not alone. +He looked around, while he rested trying to find what proximity thus +affected him. The wind? Those dull banks, seemingly so distant? Perhaps +some fellow traveller? It was none of those things. + +It was the river! The "feel" of the flood was that of a person. He could +not shake off the sensation, which seemed absurd. He shook his head +resolutely and then searched through the gloom to discover what eyes +might be shining in it. He saw the inevitable government lights between +which was deep water and a safe channel. He had but to keep on the line +between the lights, cutting across when he spied another one far ahead. +The lights but accentuated the certainty that on all sides, but a little +way from him, a host of invisible beings speculated on his presence and +influenced his course. + +A newspaper man of much experience could not help but protest in +his practical mind against such a determination of the invisible +and the unknown to give him such nonsensical ideas. He had in play, +in intellectual persiflage, and with some show of traditional +reasonableness, called Nelia Crele "a river goddess." She was very +well placed in his mind--a reckless woman, pretty, with a fine +character for a masterpiece of fiction (should he ever get to the +story-writing stage) and a delight to think about; commanding, too, +mysterious and exacting; and now he thought it might be the +laughter of her voice that carried in the wind, not a mocking +laugh, nor a jeering one, but one of sweet encouragement which +neither distance nor circumstances could dismiss from a distressed +and reluctant heart, let alone a heart so willing to receive as +his. + +Lester Terabon accepted the possibility of river lore and proclaimed +beliefs. Fishermen, store-boaters, trippers, pirates, and all sorts of +the shanty-boaters whom he had interviewed on his way down had solemnly +assured him that there were spirits who promenaded down mid-stream, and +who sometimes could be seen. + +Terabon was sorry when his cool, calculating mind refused to believe his +eyes, which saw shapes; his flesh, which felt creeps; his ears, which +heard voices; and his nostrils, which caught a whiff of a faint, sweet +perfume more exquisite than any which he remembered. He knew that when +he had kissed the river goddess whose eyes were blue, whose flesh was +fair, whose grace was lovely, he had tasted that nectar and sniffed that +ambrosia. He wondered if she were near him, watching to see whether he +performed well the task which she had set for him, the rescue of the +husband who had forfeited her love, and yet who still was under her +protection since in his indignant sorrow he had supposed himself capable +of finding and retaining her. + +Terabon would have liked nothing better than to believe what the +Grecians used to believe, that goddesses and gods do come down to the +earth to mingle among mankind. He fought the impossibility with his +reason, and night winds laughed at him, while the voices of the waves +chuckled at his predicament. They assailed him with their presence like +living things, and then roared away to give room to new voices and new +presences. + +"Anyhow," Terabon laughed, in spite of himself, "you're good company, +Old Mississip'!" + +Yet he felt the chilling and depressing possibility that he might never +again see that woman who would remain as a "river goddess" in his +imagination. He had been heart-free, a bystander in the world's affairs. +Now he knew what it was to see the memory of a woman rise unbidden to +disturb his calculations; more than that, too, he was a part of the +affairs of the River People. + +As a reporter "back home" he had never been able quite to reconcile +himself to his constant position as a spectator, a neutral observer, +obliged to write news without feeling and impartially. A politician +could look him in the eye and tell him any smooth lie, and he could not, +with white heat, deny the statement. He could not rise with his own +strength to champion the cause of what he knew to be right against +wrong; he could not elaborate on the details of things that he felt most +interested in, but must consult the fancies of a not-particularly +discriminating public, whose average intelligence, according to some +learned students, must be placed at seventeen-years plus. As he was +twenty-four plus, Terabon was immensely discouraged with the public when +he had set forth down the Mississippi. + +Now he was on the way from a river goddess to interfere with the +infamous plans of river pirates, through a dry gale out of the north, on +the winding course of the Mississippi, a transition which troubled the +self-possession while it awakened the spirit of the young man. + +Dawn broke on the troubled river, and the prospect was enchanting to the +heroic in the mind of the skiff-tripper. He could not be sure which was +east or west, for the gray light appeared on all sides, in spots and +patches of varying size. No gleam reflected from the yellow clay of the +tumbling and tortured waters. As far as he could see there was light, +but not a bright light. Dull purples, muddy waters, gray tree trunks, +black limbs against dark clouds; Terabon felt the weariness of a desert, +the melancholy of a wet, dripping-tree wilderness, and of a tumbling +waste of waters; and yet never had the solid body of the stream been so +awe-inspiring as in that hour of creeping and insinuating dawn. + +He ran out into the main river again, and a wonderful prospect opened +before his eyes. Sandbars spread out for miles across the river and +lengthwise of the river; the bulk of the stream seemed broken up into +channels and chutes and wandering waterways. He saw column after column +of lines of spiles, like black teeth, through which the water broke with +protesting foam. + +When he thought to reckon up, as he passed Osceola Bar, he found that he +had come ninety-five miles. Yankee Bar was only five or six miles below +him, and he eagerly pulled down to inspect the long beaches, the chutes +and channels, which the river pirates had used for not less than 150 +years; where they still had their rendezvous. + +Wild ducks and geese were there in many flocks. There were waters +sheltered from the wind by willow patches. The woods of Plum Point +Peninsula were heavy and dark. The river main current slashed down the +miles upon miles of Craighead Point, and shot across to impinge upon +Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1, where a made dirt bank was silhouetted against +the sky. + +Not until his binoculars rested upon the bar at the foot of Fort Pillow +Bluff did Terabon's eyes discover any human beings, and then he saw a +white houseboat with a red hull. He headed toward it to ask the familiar +river question. + +"No, suh!" the lank, sharp-eyed fisherman shook his head. "Theh's no +motorboat landed up theh, not this week. Who all mout you be?" + +"Lester Terabon; I'm a newspaper writer; I live in New York; I came down +the Mississippi looking for things to tell about in the newspapers. You +see, lots of people hardly know there's a Mississippi River, and it's +the most interesting place I ever heard of." + +"Terabon? I expect you all's the feller Whiskey Williams was tellin' +about; yo'n a feller name of Carline was up by No. 8. He said yo' had +one of them writin' machines right into a skift. Sho! An' yo' have! The +woman an' me'd jes' love to see yo' all use hit." + +"You'll see me," Terabon laughed, "if you'll let me sit by your stove. +I've some writing I could do. Here's a goose for dinner, too." + +"Sho! The woman shore will love to cook that goose! I'm a fisherman but +no hunter. 'Tain't of'en we git a roast bird!" + +So Terabon sat by the stove, writing. He wrote for more than an +hour--everything he could remember, with the aid of his pencilled +midnight notes, about that long run down. With his maps before him he +recognized the bends and reaches, the sandbars and islands which had +loomed up in the dark. Of all the parts of the river, the hundred miles +from Island No. 10 down to Fort Pillow became the most familiar to his +thoughts, black though the night had been. Even each government light +began to have characteristics, and the sky-line of levee, wilderness, +sandbar, and caving bank grew more and more defined. + +Having written his notes, and Jeff Slamey having fingered the nine +loose-leaf sheets with exclamatory interest and delight, Terabon said he +must go rest awhile. + +"Yas, suh," the fisherman cried, "when a man's pulled a hundred mile he +shore needs sleep. When the woman's got that goose cooked, I bet yo'll +be ready to eat, too." + +So Terabon turned in to sleep. He was awakened at last by the sizzling +of a goose getting its final basting. He started up, and Slamey said: + +"Hit's ready. I bet yo' feel betteh, now; six hours asleep!" + +It didn't seem like six minutes of dreamless recreation. + +With night the wind fell. The flood of sunset brilliance spread down the +radiant sandbars and the bright waterways. The trees were plated with +silver and gold, and the sweep of the caving bend was a dark shadow +against which the river current swept with ceaseless attack. + +For hours that night Terabon amused his host with his adventures, except +that he made but most casual mention of the woman whom Carline was +seeking. He was cautious, too, about the motorboat and the companion +who had taken Carline down the river, till Slamey burst out: + +"I know that feller. He's a bad man; he's a river rat. If he don't kill +Gus Carline, I don't know these yeah riveh fellers. They use down +thisaway every winter. I know; I know them all. I leave them alone, an' +they leave me alone. I knew they was comin'. They got three four boats +now. One feller, name of Prebol--he's bad, too--was shot by a lady above +Cairo. He's with a coupla gamblers to Caruthersville now. Everybody +stops yeah; I know everybody; everybody knows me." + +The next day was calm all day long, and Terabon went up the bank to +shoot squirrels or other woods game; he went almost up to the Plum +Point, killed several head of game, and rejoiced in the bayous and +sloughs and chutes of a changing land. + +The following morning he was hailed by Slamey: + +"Hi--i, Terabon! Theh's a shanty-boat up the head of Flower Island Bar +jes' drappin' in. They've floated down all night!" + +Through his glasses Terabon saw two men walking a shanty-boat across the +dead water below Yankee Lower Bar to the mainland. + +They were too far away for him to distinguish their personalities, but +one was a tall, active man, the other obviously chunky, and when they +ran their lines out and made fast to half-buried snags, it was with the +quick decision of men used to work against currents and to unison of +effort. There was something suggestive in their bearing, their scrutiny +up and down the river, their standing close to each other as they +talked. If Terabon had not suspected them of being pirates, their +attitude and actions would have betrayed them. + +Terabon, after a little while, pulled up the eddy toward them; he was +willing to take a long chance. Few men resent a newspaper man's +presence. The worst of them like to put themselves, their ideas, right +with the world. Terabon risked their knavery to win their approbation. +Come what might, he would seek to save Augustus Carline from the +consequences of his ignorance, money, folly, and remorse. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +The flow of the Mississippi River is down stream--a perfectly absurd and +trite statement at first thought. On second thought, one reverts to the +people who are always trying to fight their way up that adverse current, +with the thrust of two miles perpendicular descent and the body of a +thousand storms in its rush. + +There are steamers which endeavour to stem the current, but they make +scant headway; sometimes a fugitive afraid of the rails will pull up +stream; the birds do fly with the spring winds against the retreat of +winter; but all these things are trifles, and merely accentuate the fact +that everything goes down. + +The sandbars are not fixed, they are literally rivers of sand flowing +down, tormenting the current, and keeping human beings speculating on +their probable course and the effect, when after a few years on a point, +they disappear under the water. Later they will lunge up and out into +the wind again, gallumphing along, some coarse gravel bars, some yellow +sand, some white sand, some fine quicksand, some gritty mud, and others +of mud almost fit to use in polishing silver. + +Thousands of people in shanty-boats, skiff's, fancy little yachts, and +jon-boats, rag-shacks on rafts, and serviceable cruisers drift down with +the flood, and are a part of it. + +Autumn was passing; most of the birds had speeded south when the wild +geese brought the alarm that a cold norther was coming. When the storm +had gone by, shanty-boaters, having shivered with the cold, determined +not to be caught again. The sunshine of the evening, when the wind died, +saw boats drifting out for the all-night run. Dawn, calm and serene, +found boats moving out into mid-channel more or less in haste. + +So they floated down, sometimes within a few hundred feet of other +boats, sometimes in merry fleets tied together by ropes and common +joyousness, sometimes alone in the midst of the vacant waters. The +migration of the shanty-boaters was watched with mingled hate, envy, and +admiration by Up-the-Bank folks, who pretend to despise those who live +as they please. + +And Nelia Carline pulled out into the current and followed her river +friend, Lester Terabon, who had gone on ahead to save her husband from +the river pirates. She despised her husband more as she let her mind +dwell on the man who had shown no common frailties while he did enjoy a +comradeship which included the charm of a pretty woman, recognizing her +equality, and not permitting her to forget for a moment that he knew she +was lovely, as well as intelligent. + +She had not noticed that fact so much at the time, as afterward, when +she subjected him to the merciless scrutiny of a woman who has +heretofore discovered in men only depravity, ignorance, selfishness, or +brutality. Her first thought had been to use Terabon, play with him, +and, if she could, hurt him. She knew that there were men who go about +plaguing women, and as she subjected herself to grim analysis, she +realized that in her disappointment and humiliation she would have hurt, +while she hated, men. + +The long hours down the river, in pleasant sunshine, with only an +occasional stroke of the oar to set the boat around broadside to the +current, enabled her to sit on the bow of her boat and have it out with +herself. She had never had time to think. Things crowded her +Up-the-Bank. Now she had all the time in the world, and she used that +time. She brought out her familiar books and compared the masters with +her own mind. She could do it--there. + +"Ruskin, Carlyle, Old Mississip', Plato, Plutarch, Thoreau, the Bible, +Shelley, Byron, and I, all together, dropping down," she chuckled, +catching her breath. "I'm tripping down in that company. And there's +Terabon. He's a good sport, too, and he'll be better when I've--when +I've caught him." + +Terabon was just a raw young man as regards women. He might flatter +himself that he knew her sex, and that he could maintain a pose of +writing her into his notebooks, but she knew. She had seen stunned and +helpless youth as she brought into play those subtle arts which had +wrenched from his reluctant and fearful soul the kiss which he thought +he had asked for, and the phrase of the river goddess, which he thought +he had invented. She laughed, for she had realized, as she acted, that +he would put into words the subtle name for which she had played. + +It all seemed so easy now that she considered the sequence of her +inspired moves. Drifting near another shanty-boat, she passed the time +of day with a runaway couple who had come down the Ohio. They had dinner +together on their boat. A solitaire and an unscarred wedding ring +attested to the respectability of the association. + +"Larry's a river drifter," the girl explained, "and Daddy's one of those +set old fellows who hate the river. But Mamma knew it was all right. +Larry's saved $7,000 in three years. He'd never tell me that till I +married him, but I knew. We're going clear down to N'Orleans. Are you?" + +"Probably." + +"And all alone--aren't you afraid?" + +"Oh, I'll be all right, won't I?" She looked at the stern-featured +youth. + +"If you can shoot and don't care," Larry replied without a smile. + +"I can shoot," Nelia said, showing her pistol. + +"That's river Law!" Larry cried, smiling. "That's Law. You came out the +Upper River?" + +"Yes," she nodded. + +"Then I bet----" the girl-wife started to speak, but stopped, blushing. + +"Yes," Nelia smiled a hard smile. "I'm the woman who shot Prebol above +Buffalo Island--I had to." + +"You did right; men always respect a lady if she don't care who she +shoots," Larry cried, enthusiastically. "Wish you'd get my wife to learn +how to shoot. She's gun shy!" + +So Nelia coaxed the little wife to shoot, first the 22-calibre repeating +rifle and then the pistol. When Nelia had to go down they parted good +friends and Larry thanked her, saying that probably they would meet down +below somewhere. + +"You'll make Caruthersville," Larry told her. "There's a good eddy on +the east side across from the town. There's likely some boats in there. +They'll know, perhaps, if the folks you are looking for are around. +There's an old river man there now, name of Buck. He's a gambler, but +he's all right, and he'll treat you all right. He's from up in our +country, on the Ohio. Hardly anybody knows about him. He was always a +dandy fellow, but he married a woman that wasn't fit to drink his +coffee. She bothered the life out of him, and--well, he squared up. He +gave her to the other fellow with a double-barrelled shotgun." + +When Nelia ran down to the gambling boat and found Parson Rasba there, +she enjoyed the idea. Certainly the River Prophet and the river gambler +were an interesting combination. She was not prepared to find that Buck +had taken his departure and that Parson Rasba was converting the +gambling hell into a mission boat. Least of all was she prepared when +Parson Rasba said with an unsteady voice: + +"Theh's a man sick in that other boat, and likely he'd like to see +somebody." + +"Oh, if there's anything I can do!" she exclaimed, as a woman does. + +He led the way to the brick-red little boat, the like of which could be +found in a thousand river eddies. She followed him on board and over to +the bed. There she looked into the wan countenance and startled eyes of +Jest Prebol. + +"Hit's Mister Prebol," Rasba said. "I know you have no hard feelings +against him, and I know he has none against you, Missy Carline!" + +An introduction to a contrite river pirate, whom she had shot, for the +moment rendered the young woman speechless. Prebol was less at loss for +words. + +"I'm glad to git to see yo'," he said, feebly. "If I'd knowed yo', I +shore would have minded my own business. I'm bad, Missy Carline, but I +ain' mean--not much. Leastwise, not about women. I reckon the boys shore +will let yo' be now. I made a mistake, an' I 'low to 'pologise to yo'." + +"I was--I was scairt to death," she cried, sitting in a chair. "I was +all alone. I was afraid--the river was so big that night. I was so far +away. I should have given you fair warning. I'm sorry, too, Jest." + +"Lawse!" Prebol choked. "Say hit thataway ag'in----" + +"I'm sorry, too, Jest!" + +"I cayn't thank yo' all enough," the man-whispered. "I've got friends +along down the riveh. I'll send word along to them, they'll shore treat +yo' nice. Treat friends of yourn nice, too. Huh! 'Pologizin' to me afteh +what I 'lowed to do!" + +"We'll be good friends, Jest. The Prophet here and I are good friends, +too. Aren't we, Parson?" + +"I hearn say, Missy," the Prophet said, slowly, picking his words, "I +hearn say you've a power and a heap of book learning! Books on yo' boat, +all kinds. What favoured yo' thataway?" + +"Oh, I read lots!" she exclaimed, surprised by the sudden shift of +thought. "Somehow, I've read lots!" + +"In my house I had a Bible, an almanac, and the 'Resources of +Tennessee,' Yo' have that many books?" + +"Why, I've a hundred--more than a hundred books!" she answered. + +"A Bible?" + +"Yes." + +"Would you mind, Missy, comin' on board this boat to-night, an' tellin' +us about these books you have? I'm not educated; my daddy an' I read the +Bible, an' tried to understand hit. Seems like we neveh did git to know +the biggest and bestest of the words." + +"You had a dictionary?" + +"A which?" + +"A dictionary, a book that explains the meaning of all the words!" + +"Ho law! A book that tells what words mean, Missy. Where all kin a man +git to find one of them books?" + +"Why, I've got----I'm hungry, Mr. Rasba, I must get something to eat. +After supper we'll bring some books over here and talk about them!" + +"My supper is all ready, keeping warm in the oven," Rasba said. "I +always cook enough for one more than there is. Yo' know, a vacant chair +at the table for the Stranger." + +"And I came?" she laughed. + +"An' yo' came, Missy!" he replied. + +"Parson," Prebol pleaded, "I'm alone mos' the time. Mout yo' two eat +hyar on my bo't? The table--hit'd be comp'ny." + +"Certainly we'll come," Nelia promised, "if he'd just soon." + +"I'd rather," Rasba assented, and at his tone Nelia felt a curious +sensation of pity and mischievousness. At the same time, she recovered +her self-possession. She demanded that Rasba let her help him bring over +the supper, add a feminine relish, and set the table with a daintiness +which was an addition to the fascination of her presence. Gaily she fed +Prebol the delicate things which he was permitted to eat, then sat down +with Rasba, her face to the light, and Prebol could watch her bantering, +teasing, teaching Parson Rasba things he had never known he lacked. + +After supper she brought over a basket full of books, twenty volumes. +She dumped them onto the table, leather, cloth, and board covers, of +red, blue, gray, brown, and other gay colours. Parson Rasba had seen +government documents and even some magazines with picture covers, but in +the mountains where he had ridden his Big Circuit with such a disastrous +end he had never seen such books. He hesitated to touch one; he cried +out when three or four slipped off the pile onto the floor. + +"Missy, won't they git muddied up!" + +"They're to read!" she told him. "Listen," and she began to +read--poetry, prose at random. + +The Prophet did not know, he had never been trained to know--as few men +ever are trained--how to combat feminine malice and spoiled power. He +listened, but not with averted eyes. Prebol, himself a spectator at a +scene different from any he had ever witnessed, was still enough more +sophisticated to know what she was doing, and he was delighted. + +By and by the injured man drifted into slumber, but Rasba gave no sign +of flagging interest, no traces of a mind astray from the subject at +hand. He felt that he must make the most of this revelation, which came +after the countless revelations which he had had since arriving down the +river. There was a fear clutching at his heart that it might end; that +in a moment this woman might depart and leave him unenlightened, and +unable ever to find for himself the unimaginable world of words which +she plucked out of those books and pinned into the great vacant spaces +of his mind which he had kept empty all these years--not knowing that he +was waiting for this night, when he should have the Mississippi bring +into his eddy, alongside his own mission boat, what he most needed. + +He sat there, a great, pathetic figure, shaggy, his heart thumping, +taking from this trim, neat, beautiful woman the riches which she so +casually, almost wantonly, threw to him in passing. + +The corridors of his mind echoed to the tread of hosts; he heard the +rumblings of history, the songs of poets whose words are pitched to the +music of the skies, and he hung word pictures which Ruskin had painted +in his imagination. + +Fate had waited long to give him this night. It had waited till the man +was ready, then with a lavish hand the storehouses of the master +intellects of the world were opened to him, for him to help himself. +Nelia suddenly started up from her chair and looked around, herself the +victim of her own raillery, which had grown to be an understanding of +the pathetic hunger of the man for these things. + +It was daylight, and the flood of the sunrise was at hand. + +"Parson," she said, "do you like these things--these books?" + +"Missy," he whispered, "I could near repeat, word for word, all those +things you've said and read to me to-night." + +"There are lots more," she laughed. "I want to do something for your +mission boat, will you let me?" + +"Lawse! Yo've he'ped me now more'n yo' know!" + +She smiled the smile that women have had from all the ages, for she knew +a thousand times more than even the Prophet. + +"I'll give you a set of all these books!" she said; "all the books that +I have. Not these, my old pals--yes, these books, Mr. Rasba. If you'll +take them? I'll get another lot down below." + +"Lawd God! Give me yo' books!" + +"Oh, they're not expensive--they're----" + +"They're yours. Cayn't yo' see? It's your own books, an' hit's fo' my +work. I neveh knowed how good men could be, an' they give me that boat +fo' a mission boat. Now--now--missy--I cayn't tell yo'--I've no +words----" + +And with gratitude, with the simplicity of a mountain parson, he dropped +on his knees and thanked God. As he told his humility, Prebol wakened +from a deep and restful sleep to listen in amazement. + +When at last Rasba looked up Nelia was gone. The books were on the table +and he found another stack heaped up on the deck of the mission boat. +But the woman was gone, and when he looked down the river he saw +something flicker and vanish in the distance. + +He stared, hurt; he choked, for a minute, in protest, then carried that +immeasurable treasure into his cabin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Renn Doss, the false friend, saw the danger of the recognition of the +firearms by Carline. The savage swing of a half pound of fine shot +braided up in a rawhide bag, and a good aim, reduced Carline to an inert +figure of a man. "Renn Doss" was Hilt Despard, pirate captain, whose +instantaneous action always had served him well in moments of peril. + +The three men carried Carline to a bunk and dropped him on it. They +covered him up and emptied a cupful of whiskey on his pillow and +clothes. They even poured a few spoonfuls down his throat. They thus +changed him to what might be called a "natural condition." + +Then, sitting around the stove, they whispered among themselves, +discussing what they had better do. Half a hundred possibilities +occurred to their fertile fancies and replete memories. Men and women +who have always led sheltered lives can little understand or know what a +pirate must understand and know even to live let alone be successful. + +"What's Terabon up to?" Despard demanded. "Here he is, drappin' down by +Fort Pillow Landing, running around. Where's that girl he had up above +New Madrid? What's his game? Coming up here and talking to us? Asking us +all about the river and things--writin' it for the newspapers?" + +"That woman's this Carline's wife!" Jet sneered. + +"Sure! An' here's Terabon an' here's Carline. Terabon don't talk none +about that woman--nor about Carline," Dock grumbled. + +"I bet Terabon would be sorry none if Carline hyar dropped out. Y' know +she's Old Crele's gal," Jet said. "Crele's a good feller. Sent word +down to have us take cyar of her, an' Prebol, the fool, didn't know 'er, +hadn't heard. Look what she give him, bang in the shoulder! That old +Prophet'll take cyar of him, course. See how hit works out. She shined +up to Terabon, all right." + +"I 'low I better talk to him," Despard suggested. "Terabon's a good +sport. He said, you' know, that graftin' and whiskey boatin', an' +robbin' the bank wa'n't none of his business. He said, course, he could +write it down in his notes, but without names, 'count of somebody might +read somethin' in them an' get some good friend of his in Dutch. He said +it wouldn't be right for him to know about somebody robbin' a +commissary, or a bank, or killin' somebody, because if somebody like a +sheriff or detective got onto it, they might blame him, or somethin'." + +"I like that Terabon!" Jet declared. "Y'see how he is. He says he's +satisfied, makin' a fair living, gettin' notes so's he can write them +magazine stories, an' if he was to try to rob the banks, he'd have to +learn how, same's writin' for newspapers. An' probably he wouldn't have +the nerve to do it really, 'count of his maw and paw bein' the kind they +was. He told me hisself that they made him go to Sunday school when he +was a kid, an' things like that spoil a man for graftin'. Stands to +reason, all right, the way he talks. I like him; he knows enough to mind +his own business." + +"He's comin' up to-night to go after geese on the bar. We'll talk to +him. He'll look that business over, level-headed. That motorboat any +good?" + +"Nothin' extra. He's got ready money, though, I forgot that," Despard +grinned, walking over to the hapless victim of his black-jack skill. + +The three divided nearly thirteen hundred dollars among them. The money +made them good humoured and they had some compassion for their prisoner. +One of them noticed that a skiff was coming up from Fort Pillow Landing, +and fifteen minutes later Terabon was talking to Despard on the snag to +one prong of which was fastened the line of Carline's motorboat. + +"I was wondering where I'd see you again," Terabon said. "Didn't have a +chance at New Madrid, saw you was in business, so I didn't follow up +none." + +"I was wondering if you had a line on that," Despard said, doubtfully. +"Y'know that woman you was staying with up on Island Ten Bar? Well, we +got her man in here full's a fish. Lookin' for his woman, an' he's no +good. Fell off the cabin, hit a spark in the back of the head when the +water sucked when that steamboat went by this morning. He'd ought to go +down to Memphis hospital, but--Well, we can't take 'im. You know how +that is." + +"Be glad to help you boys out any way I can," Terabon said. "I'll run +him down." + +"Say, would you? We don't want him on our hands," the pirate explained. +"We'd get to see you down b'low some'rs." + +"Sure, I would," Terabon exclaimed. "Fact is, the woman said it'd be a +favour to her, too, if I'd get him home. She'll be dropping down likely. +Darn nice girl, but quick tempered." + +"That's right; quick ain't no name for it. She plugged a friend of mine +up by Buffalo Island----" + +"Prebol? I heard about him. She was scairt." + +"She needn't be, never again!" Despard grinned. "When a lady can handle +a river Law like she does, us bad uns are real nice!" + +Terabon laughed, and the two went into the cabin-boat where Carline lay +on the bunk. Terabon ran his hand around the man's head and neck, found +the lump near the base of the skull, found that the neck wasn't broken, +and made sure that the heart was beating--things a reporter naturally +learns to do in police-station and hospital experience. + +Jet brought the motorboat down to the stern of the cabin-boat, and the +four carried Carline on board. They put him in his bunk, and Terabon, +his skiff towing astern, steered out into the main current and soon +faded down by Craighead Point Bar. + +"I knowed he'd be all right," Despard declared. "He'll take him down to +Memphis, and out of our way. I'd 'a' hated to kill him; it ain't no use +killin' a man less'n it's necessary. We got what we was after. Course, +if we'd rewarded him, likely we'd got a lot, but it ain't safe, holdin' +a man for rewards ain't." + +"That boat'd been a good one to travel in," Jet suggested. + +"Everybody'd knowed it was Carline's, an' it wa'n't worth fixing over. +Hull not much good, and the motor's been abused some. We'll do better'n +that." + +They had rid themselves of an incumbrance. They had made an acquaintance +who was making himself useful. They were considerably richer than they +had been for some time. + +"I'd like to drap into Mendova," Jet mused. "We ain't had what you'd +call a time----" + +"Let's kill some birds first," Gaspard suggested. "I got a hunch that +Yankee Bar's a good bet for us for a little while. We dassn't look into +Memphis, 'count of last trip down. Mendova's all right, but wait'll +we've hunted Yankee Bar." + +The money burned in their pockets, but as they stood looking out at the +long, beautiful Yankee Bar its appeal went home. For more than a hundred +years generations of pirates had used there, and no one knows how many +tragedies have left their stain in the great band around from Gold Dust +Landing to Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1. + +After dark they rowed over to the point and put out their decoys, dug +their pits, screened them, and brushed over their tracks in the sand. +Then they played cards till midnight, turned in for a little sleep, and +turned out again in the black morning to go to their places with +repeating shotguns and cripple-killer rifles in their hands. + +When they were in their places, and the river silence prevailed, they +saw the stars overhead, the reflections on sand and water around them, +and the quivering change as air currents moved in the dark--the things +that walk in the night. They heard, at intervals, many voices. Some they +knew as the fluent music of migrant geese flying over on long laps of +their fall flight, but some they did not know, except that they were +river voices. + +Ducks flew by no higher than the tops of the willow trees up the bar, +their wings whistling and their voices eager in the dark. The lurkers +saw these birds darting by like black streaks, tempting vain shots, but +they were old hunters, and knew they wanted at least a little light. +Over on the mainland they heard the noises of wilderness animals, and +away off yonder a mule's "he-haw" reverberated through the bottoms and +over bars and river. + +For these things, if the pirates had only known it, they found the world +endurable. Each in his own pit, given over to his own thoughts, they +thrilled to the joy of living. All they wanted, really, was this kind of +thing; hunting in fall and winter, fishing in the summer, and occasional +visits to town for another kind of thrill, another sort of excitement. +But their boyhood had been passed in privation, their youth amid +temptations of appetite and vice, and now they were hopelessly mixed as +to what they liked, what they didn't like, what the world would do for +them, and what they would do to the world. Weaklings, uneducated, +without balance; habit-ridden, yet with all that miserable inheritance +from the world, they waited there rigid, motionless, their hearts +thrilling to the increasing music of the march of dawn across the +bottoms of the Mississippi. + +False dawn flushed and faded almost like a deliberate lightning flash. +Then dawn appeared, marking down the gray lines of the wilderness trees +with one stroke, sweeping out all the stars with another brush, +revealing the flocks of birds glistening against the sky while yet the +earth was in shade. The watchers spied a score of birds, great geese far +to the northward, coming right in line with them. They waited for a few +seconds--ages long. Then one of the men cried: + +"They're stoopin', boys! They're comin'!" + +The wild geese, coming down a magnificent slant from a mile height, +headed straight for Yankee Bar. Will birds never learn? They ploughed +down with their wings folding, and poised. Their voices grew louder and +louder as they approached. + +With a hissing roar of their wings they pounded down out of the great, +safe heights and circled around and inward. With a shout the three men +started up through their masks and with levelled guns opened fire. + +Too late the old gander at the point of the "V" began to climb; too late +the older birds in the point screamed and gathered their strength. The +river men turned their black muzzles against the necks of the young tail +birds of the feathered procession and brought them tumbling down out of +the line to the ground, where on the hard sand two of them split their +breasts and exposed thick layers of fat dripping with oil. + +The cries of the fleeing birds, the echoes of the barking guns, died +away. The men shouted their joy in their success, gathered up their +victims, scurried pack to cover, brushing over their tracks, and +crouched down again, to await another flock. + +Hunger drove them to their cabin-boat within an hour. They had thought +they wanted to get some more birds, but in fact they knew they had +enough. They went over to their boat, cooked up a big breakfast, and sat +around the fire smoking and talking it over. They chattered like boys. +They were gleeful, innocent, harmless! But only for a time. Then the +hunted feeling returned to them. Once more they had a back track to +watch and ambushes to be wary of. They wanted to go to Mendova, but +again they didn't want to go there. They didn't know but what Mendova +might be watching for them, the same as Memphis was. Certainly, they +determined, they must go to Mendova after dark, and see a friend who +would put them wise to actual conditions around town. + +They took catnaps, having had too little sleep, and yet they could not +sleep deeply. They watched the shanty-boats which dropped down the river +at intervals, most of them in the main current close to the far bank, +and often hardly visible against the mottled background of caving earth, +fallen trees, and flickering mirage. Their restlessness was silent, +morose, and one of them was always on the lookout. + +Despard himself was on watch in the afternoon. He sat just inside the +kitchen door, out of the sunshine, in a comfortable rocking chair. Two +windows and the stern door gave him a wide view of the river, sandbars +and eddy. It seemed but a minute, but he had fallen into a doze, when +the splash of a shanty-boat sweeps awakened all the crew with a sudden, +frightened start. Whispers, hardly audible, hailed in alarm. The three, +crouching in involuntary doubt and dismay, glared at the newcomer. + +It was a woman drifting in. Apparently she intended to land there, and +the three men stared at her. + +"His wife!" Despard said with soundless lips. The others nodded their +recognition. + +Mrs. Carline had run into the great dead eddy at the foot of Yankee +Lower Bar, turned up in the slow reverse eddy of the chute, and was +coming by their boat at the slowest possible speed. + +Despard pulled his soft shirt collar, straightened his tie, hitched his +suspenders, put on his coat, walked out on the stern deck, and, after a +glance around, seemed suddenly to discover the stranger. + +"Howdy!" he nodded, touching his cap respectfully, and gazing with +flickering eyes at the woman whose marksmanship entitled her to the +greatest respect. + +"Howdy!" she nodded, scrutinizing him with level eyes. "Where am I?" + +"Yankee Bar. Them's Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1." + +"Do you know Jest Prebol?" + +"Yessum." Despard's head bobbed in alarmed, unwilling assent. + +"I thought perhaps you'd like to know that he's getting along all +right." + +"I bet he learnt his lesson," Despard grimaced. + +"What? I don't just understand." + +"About bein' impudent to a lady that can shoot--straight!" + +A flicker moved the woman's countenance, and she smiled, oddly. + +"Oh, any one is likely to make mistakes!" + +"Darn fools is, Miss Crele. And you Old Crele's girl! He might of +knowed!" + +The other two stepped out to help enjoy the conversation and the +scenery. + +"You know me?" she demanded. + +"Yessum, we shore do. My name's Despard--Jet here and Cope." + +She acknowledged the introductions. + +"I've friends down here," she said, with a little catch of her breath. +"I was wondering if you--any of you gentlemen had seen them?" + +"Your man, Gus Carline an' that writin' feller, Terabon?" Jet asked, +without delicacy. Her cheeks flamed. + +"Yes!" she whispered. + +"Terabon took him down to Mendova or Memphis," Despard said. "Carline +was--was on the cabin and the boat lurched when the steamboat passing +drawed. He drapped over and hit a spark plug on the head!" + +"Was he badly hurt?" + +"Not much--kind of a lump, that's all." + +She looked down at Fort Pillow Bluff. The pirates awaited her pleasure, +staring at her to their heart's content. They envied her husband and +Terabon; they felt the strangeness of the situation. She was following +those two men down. She was part of the river tide, drifting by; she had +shot Prebol, their pal, and had cleverly ascertained their knowledge of +him while insuring that they had fair warning. + +Her boat drifted down till it was opposite them, and then, with quick +decision, she caught up a handy line, and said: + +"I'm going to tie in a little while. I've been alone clear down from +Caruthersville; I want to talk to somebody!" + +She threw the rope, and they caught and made it fast. They swung her +boat in, ran a plank from stern to bow, and Despard gave her his hand. +She came on board, and they sat on the stern deck to talk. Only one kind +of woman could have done that with safety, but she was that kind. She +had shot a man down for a look. + +The three pirates took one of the fat young geese, plucked and dressed +it, and baked it in a hot oven, with dressing, sweet potatoes, +hot-bread, and a pudding which she mixed up herself. + +For three hours they gossiped, and before she knew it, she had told them +about Prebol, about Parson Rasba introducing them. The pirates shouted +when she told of Jest's apology. With river frankness, they said they +thought a heap of Terabon, who minded his own business so cleverly. + +"I like him, too," she admitted. "I was afraid you boys might make +trouble for Carline, though. He don't know much about people, treating +them right." + +"He's one of those ignorant Up-the-Bankers," Despard said. + +"Oh, I know him." She shrugged her shoulders a little bitterly. + +As they ate the goose in camaraderie, the pirates took to warning and +advising her about the Lower River; they told her who would treat her +right, and who wouldn't. They especially warned her against stopping +anywhere near Island 37. + +"They're bad there--and mean." Despard shook his head, gravely. + +"I won't stop in there," Nelia promised. "River folks anybody can get +along with, but those Up-the-Bankers!" + +"Hit's seo," Jet cried. "They don't have no feelings for nobody." + +"You'll be dropping on down?" Nelia asked. + +"D'rectly!" Cope admitted. "We 'lowed we'd stop into Mendova. You stop +in there an' see Palura; he'll treat you right. He was in the riveh +hisse'f once. You talk to him----" + +"What did Terabon and Mr. Carline go on in? What kind of a boat?" + +"A gasolene cruiser." + +"Did he say where he'd be?" + +"Terabon? No. Ask into Mendova or into Memphis. They can likely tell." + +"Thank you, boys! I'm awful glad you've no hard feelings on account of +my shooting your partner; I couldn't know what good fellows you are. +We'll see you later." + +Her smile bewitched them; she went aboard her boat, pulled over into the +main current, and floated away in the sunset--her favourite river hour. + +After hours of argument, debate, doubts, they, too, pulled out and +floated past Fort Pillow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Parson Rasba piled the books on the crap table in his cabin and stood +them in rows with their lettered backs up. He read their titles, which +were fascinating: "Arabian Nights," "Representative Men," "Plutarch's +Lives," "Modern Painters," "Romany Rye"--a name that made him shudder, +for it meant some terrible kind of whiskey to his mind--"Lavengro," a +foreign thing, "Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases," "The Stem +Dictionary," "Working Principles of Rhetoric"--he wondered what rhetoric +meant--"The Fur Buyers' Guide," "Stones of Venice," "The French +Revolution," "Sartor Resartus," "Poe's Works," "Balzac's Tales," and +scores of other titles. + +All at once the Mississippi had brought down to him these treasures and +a fair woman with blue eyes and a smile of understanding and sympathy, +who had handed them to him, saying: + +"I want to do something for your mission boat; will you let me?" + +No fairyland, no enchantment, no translation from poverty and sorrow to +a realm of wealth and happiness could have caught the soul of the +Prophet Rasba as this revelation of unimagined, undreamed-of riches as +he plucked the fruits of learning and enjoyed their luxuries. He had +descended in his humility to the last, least task for which he felt +himself worthy. He had humbly been grateful for even that one thing left +for him to do: find Jock Drones for his mother. + +He had found Jock, and there had been no wrestling with an obdurate +spirit to send him back home, like a man, to face the law and accept the +penalty. There had been nothing to it. Jock had seen the light +instantly, and with relief. His partner had also turned back after a +decade of doubt and misery, to live a man's part "back home." The two of +them had handed him a floating Bethel, turning their gambling hell over +to him as though it were a night's lodging, or a snack, or a handful of +hickory nuts. The temple of his fathers had been no better for its +purpose than this beautiful, floating boat. + +Then a woman had come floating down, a beautiful strange woman whose +voice had clutched at his heart, whose smile had deprived him of reason, +whose eyes had searched his soul. With tears on her lashes she had flung +to him that treasure-store of learning, and gone on her way, leaving him +strength and consolation. + +He left his treasure and went out to look at the river. Everybody leaves +everything to look at the river! There is nothing in the world that will +prevent it. He saw, in the bright morning, that Prebol had raised his +curtain, and was looking at the river, too, though the effort must have +caused excruciating pain in his wounded shoulder. Day was growing; from +end to end of that vast, flowing sheet of water thousands upon thousands +of old river people were taking a look at the Mississippi. + +Rasba carried a good broth over to Prebol for breakfast, and then +returned to his cabin, having made Prebol comfortable and put a dozen of +the wonderful books within his reach. Then the River Prophet sat down to +read his treasures, any and all of them, his lap piled up, three or four +books in one hand and trying to turn the pages of another in his other +hand by unskilful manipulation of his thumb. He was literally starving +for the contents of those books. + +He was afraid that his treasure would escape from him; he kept glancing +from his printed page to the serried ranks on the crap table, and his +hands unconsciously felt around to make sure that the weight on his lap +and in his grasp was substantial and real, and not a dream or vision of +delight. + +He forgot to eat; he forgot that he had not slept; he sat oblivious of +time and river, the past or the future; he grappled with pages of print, +with broadsides of pictures, with new and thrilling words, with +sentences like hammer blows, with paragraphs that marched like music, +with thoughts that had the gay abandon of a bird in song. And the things +he learned! + +When night fell he was dismayed by his weariness, and could not +understand it. For a little while he ransacked his dulled wits to find +the explanation, and when he had fixed Prebol for the night, with +medicine, water, and a lamp handy to matches, he told the patient: + +"Seems like the gimp's kind of took out of me. My eyes are sore, an' I +doubt am I quite well." + +"Likely yo' didn't sleep well," Prebol suggested. "A man cayn't sleep +days if he ain't used to hit." + +"Sleep days?" Rasba looked wildly about him. + +"Sho! When did I git to sleep, why, I ain't slept--I----Lawse!" + +Prebol laughed aloud. + +"Yo' see, Parson, yo' all cayn't set up all night with a pretty gal an' +not sleep hit off. Yo' shore'll git tired, sportin' aroun'." + +"Sho!" Rasba snapped, and then a smile broke across his countenance. He +cried out with laughter, and admitted: "Hit's seo, Prebol! I neveh set +up with a gal befo' I come down the riveh. Lawse! I plumb forgot." + +"I don't wonder," Prebol replied, gravely. "She'd make any man forget. +She sung me to sleep, an' I slept like I neveh slept befo'." + +Rasba went on board his boat and, after a light supper, turned in. For +a minute he saw in retrospect the most wonderful day in his life, a day +which a kindly Providence had drawn through thirty or forty hours of +unforgettable exaltation. Then he settled into the blank, deep sleep of +a soul at peace and at rest. + +When in the full tide of the sunshine he awakened, he went about his +menial tasks, attending Prebol, cleaning out the boats, shaking up the +beds, hanging the bedclothes to air in the sun, and getting breakfast. +On Prebol's suggestion he moved the fleet of boats out into the eddy, +for the river was falling and they might ground. He went over to +Caruthersville and bought some supplies, brought Doctor Grell over to +examine the patient to make sure all was well, killed several squirrels +and three ducks back in the brakes, and, all the while, thought what +duties he should enter upon. + +Doctor Grell advised that Prebol go down to Memphis, to the hospital, so +as to have an X-ray examination, and any special treatment which might +be necessary. The wound was healing nicely, but it would be better to +make sure. + +Rasba took counsel of Prebol. The river man knew the needs of the +occasion, and he agreed that he had better drop down to Memphis or +Mendova, preferring the latter place, for he knew people there. He told +Rasba to line the two small shanty-boats beside the big mission boat, +and fend them off with wood chunks. The skiffs could float on lines +alongside or at the stern. The power boat could tow the fleet out into +the current, and hold it off sandbars or flank the bends. + +Rasba did as he was bid, and lashed the boats together with mooring +lines, pin-head to towing bits, and side to side. Then he floated the +boats all on one anchor line, and ran the launch up to the bow. He +hoisted in the anchor, rowed in a skiff out to the motorboat, and swung +wide in the eddy to run out to the river current. There was a good deal +of work to the task, and it was afternoon before the fleet reached the +main stream. + +Then Rasba cast off his tow lines, ran the launch back to the fleet, and +made it fast to the port bow of the big boat, so that it was part of the +fleet, with its power available to shove ahead or astern. A big oar on +the mission boat's bow and another one out from Prebol's boat insured a +short turn if it should be necessary to swing the boats around either +way. + +Rasba carried Prebol on his cot up to the bow of the big boat, and put +him down where he could help watch the river, and they cast off. Prebol +knew the bends and reaches, and named most of the landings; they +gossiped about the people and the places. Prebol told how river rats +sometimes stole hogs or cattle for food, and Rasba learned for the first +time of organized piracy, of river men who were banded together for +stealing what they could, raiding river towns, attacking "sports," +tripping the river, and even more desperate enterprises. + +While he talked, Prebol slyly watched his listener and thought for a +long time that Rasba was merely dumbfounded by the atrocities, but at +last the Prophet grinned: + +"An' yo's a riveh rat. Ho law!" + +"Why, I didn't say----" Prebol began, but his words faltered. + +"Yo' know right smart about such things," Rasba reminded him. "I 'low +hit were about time somebody shot yo' easy, so's to give yo' repentance +a chance to catch up with yo' wickedness. Don't yo'?" + +Prebol glared at the accusation, but Rasba pretended not to notice. + +"Yo' see, Prebol, this world is jes' the hounds a-chasin' the rabbits, +er the rabbits a-gittin' out the way. The good that's into a man keeps +a-runnin', to git shut of the sin that's in him, an' theh's a heap of +wrestlin' when one an' tother catches holt an' fights." + +"Hit's seo!" Prebol admitted, reluctantly. He didn't have much use for +religious arguments. "I wisht yo'd read them books to me, Parson. I +ain't neveh had much eddycation. I'll watch the riveh, an' warn ye, 'gin +we make the crossin's." + +Nothing suited them better. Rasba read aloud, stabbing each word with +his finger while he sought the range and rhythm of the sentences, and, +as they happened to strike a book of fables, their minds could grasp the +stories and the morals at least sufficiently to entertain and hold their +attention. + +Prebol said, warningly, after a time: + +"Betteh hit that sweep a lick, Parson, she's a-swingin' in onto that bar +p'int." + +A few leisurely strokes, the boats drifted away into deep water, and +Rasba expressed his admiration. + +"Sho, Prebol! Yo' seen that bar a mile up. We'd run down onto hit." + +"Yas, suh," the wounded man grinned. "Three-four licks on the oars up +theh, and down yeah yo' save pullin' yo' livin' daylights out, to keep +from goin' onto a sandbar or into a dryin'-up chute." + +"How's that?" Rasba cocked his ear. "Say hit oveh--slow!" + +"Why, if yo's into the set of the current up theh, hit ain't strong; yo' +jes' give two-three licks an' yo' send out clear. Down theh on the bar +she draws yo' right into shallow water, an' yo' hang up." + +Rasba looked up the river; he looked down at the nearing sandbar, and as +they passed the rippling head in safety he turned a grave face toward +the pilot. + +"Up theh, theh wasn't much suck to hit, but down yeah, afteh yo've +drawed into the current, theh's a strong drag an' bad shoals?" + +"Jes' so!" + +"Hit's easy to git shut of sin, away long in the beginnin'," Rasba bit +his words out, "but when yo' git a long ways down into hit--Ho law!" + +Prebol started, caught by surprise. Then both laughed together. They +could understand each other better and if Prebol felt himself being +drawn in spite of his own reluctance by a new current in his life, Rasba +did not fail to gratify the river man's pride by turning always to him +for advice about the river, its currents and its jeopardies. + +"I've tripped down with all kinds," Prebol grinned as he spoke, "but +this yeah's the firstest time I eveh did get to pilot a mission boat." + +"If you take it through in safety, do yo' reckon God will forget?" Rasba +asked, and Prebol's jaw dropped. He didn't want to be reformed; he had +no use for religion. He was very well satisfied with his own way of +living. He objected to being prayed over and the good of his soul +inquired into--but this Parson Rasba was making the idea interesting. + +They anchored for the night in the eddy at the head of Needham's Cut-Off +Bar, and Prebol was soon asleep, but Rasba sat under the big lamp and +read. He could read with continuity now; dread that the dream would +vanish no longer afflicted him. He could read a book without having more +than two or three other books in his lap. + +Sometimes it was almost as though Nelia were speaking the very words he +read; sometimes he seemed to catch her frown of disapproval. The books, +more precious than any other treasure could have been, seemed living +things because she had owned them, because her pencil had marked them, +and because she had given them all to his service, to fill the barren +and hungry places in the long-empty halls of his mind. + +He would stop his reading to think, and thinking, he would take up a +book to discover better how to think. He found that his reading and +thinking worked together for his own information. + +He was musing, his mind enjoying the novelty of so many different images +and ideas and facts, when something trickled among his senses and +stirred his consciousness into alert expectancy. For a little he was +curious, and then touched by dismay, for it was music which had roused +him--music out of the black river night. People about to die sometimes +hear music, and Parson Rasba unconsciously braced himself for the +shock. + +It grew louder, however, more distinct, and the sound was too gay and +lively to fit in with his dreams of a heavenly choir. He caught the +shout of a human voice and he knew that dancers were somewhere, perhaps +dancers damned to eternal mirth. He went out on the deck and closed the +door on the light behind him; at first he could see nothing but black +night. A little later he discovered boats coming down the river, eight +or nine gleaming windows, and a swinging light hung on a flag staff or +shanty-boat mast. + +As they drew nearer, someone shouted across the night: + +"Goo-o-o-d wa-a-a-ter thar?" + +"Ya-s-su-uh!" Rasba called back. + +"Where'll we come in?" + +"Anywhere's b'low me fo' a hundred yards!" + +"Thank-e-e!" + +Three or four sweeps began to beat the water, and a whole fleet of +shanty-boats drifted in slowly. They began to turn like a wheel as part +of them ran into the eddy while the current carried the others down, but +old river men were at the sweeps, and one of them called the orders: + +"Raunch 'er, boys! Raunch 'er! Raunchin's what she needs!" + +They floated out of the current into the slow reverse eddy, and coming +up close to Rasba's fleet, talked back and forth with him till a gleam +of light through a window struck him clearly out of the dark. + +"Hue-e-e!" a shrill woman's voice laughed. "Hit's Rasba, the Riveh +Prophet Rasba! Did yo' all git to catch Nelia Crele, Parson?" + +"Did I git to catch Missy Crele!" he repeated, dazed. + +"When yo' drapped out'n Wolf Island Chute, Parson, that night she pulled +out alone?" + +"No'm; I lost her down by the Sucks, but she drapped in by +Caruthersville an' give me books an' books--all fo' my mission boat!" + +"That big boat yourn?" + +"Yeh." + +"Where all was hit built?" + +"I don' remembeh, but Buck done give hit to me, him an' Jock Drones." + +"Hi-i-i! Yo' all found the man yo' come a-lookin' fo'. Ho law!" + +"Hit's the Riveh Prophet," someone replied to a hail from within, the +dance ending. + +A crowd came tumbling out onto the deck of the big boat of the dance +hall, everyone talking, laughing, catching their breaths. + +"Hi-i! Likely he'll preach to-morrow," a woman cried. "To-morrow's +Sunday." + +"Sunday?" Rasba gasped. "Sunday--I plumb lost track of the days." + +"You'll preach, won't yo', Parson? I yain't hearn a sermon in a hell of +a while," a man jeered, facetiously. + +"Suttingly. An' when hit's through, yo'll think of hell jes' as long," +Rasba retorted, with asperity, and his wit turned the laugh into a +cheer. + +The fleet anchored a hundred yards up the eddy, and Rasba heard a woman +say it was after midnight and she'd be blanked if she ever did or would +dance on Sunday. The dance broke up, the noise of voices lessened, one +by one the lights went out, and the eddy was still again. But the +feeling of loneliness was changed. + +"Lord God, what'll I preach to them about?" Rasba whispered. "I neveh +'lowed I'd be called to preach ag'in. Lawse! Lawse! What'll I say?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Carline ascended into the world again. It was a painful ascent, and when +he looked around him, he recognized the interior of his motorboat cabin, +heard and felt the throbbing of his motor, and discovered aches and +pains that made his extremities tingle. He sat up, but the blackness +that seemed to rise around him caused him to fall hastily back upon the +stateroom bunk. + +He remembered his discovery of his own firearms on the shanty-boat, and +fear assailed him. He remembered his folly in crying out that those were +his guns. He might have known he had fallen among thieves. He cursed +himself, and dread of what might yet follow his indiscretion made him +whimper with terror. A most disgusting odour of whiskey was in his +nostrils, and his throat was like a corrugated iron pipe partly filled +with soot. + +The door of the tiny stateroom was closed, but the two ports were open +to let the air in. It occurred to him that he might be a captive, and +would be held for ransom. Perhaps the pirates would bleed him for +$50,000; perhaps they would take all his fortune! He began to cry and +sob. They might cut his throat, and not give him any chance of escape. +He had heard of men having had their throats cut down the river. + +He tried to sit up again, and succeeded without undue faintness. He +could not wait, but must know his fate immediately. He found the door +was unlocked, and when he slipped out into the cabin, he found that +there was only one man on board, the steersman, who was sitting in the +engine pit, and steering with the rail wheel instead of the bow-cabin +one. + +He peered out, and found that it was Terabon, who discovered him and +hailed him, cheerily: + +"How are you feeling?" + +"Tough--my head!" + +"You're lucky to be alive!" Terabon said. "You got in with a crew of +river pirates, but they let me have you. Did they leave you anything?" + +"Leave me anything!" Carline repeated, feeling in his pockets. "I've got +my watch, and here's----" + +He opened up his change pocketbook. There were six or seven dollars in +change and two or three wadded bills. When he looked for his main +supply, however, there was a difference. The money was all gone. He was +stripped to the last dollar in his money belt and of his hidden +resources. + +"They did me!" he choked. "They got all I had!" + +"They didn't kill you," Terabon said. "You're lucky. How did they bang +you and knock you out?" + +"Why, I found they had my guns on board----" + +"And you accused them?" + +"No! I just said they were mine, I was surprised!" + +"Then?" + +"My light went out." + +"When did they get your guns?" + +"I woke up, up there, and you were gone. My guns and pocket money were +gone, too. I thought----" + +"You thought I'd robbed you?" + +"Ye----Well, I didn't know!" + +"This is a devil of a river, old man!" said Terabon. "I guess you +travelled with the real thing out of New Madrid----" + +"Doss, Renald Doss. He said he was a sportsman----" + +"Oh, he is, all right, he's a familiar type here on the river. He's the +kind of a sport who hunts men, Up-the-Bankers and game of that kind. +He's a very successful hunter, too----" + +"He said we'd hunt wild geese. We went up Obion River, and had lots of +fun, and he said he'd help--he'd help----" + +"Find your wife?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Carline was abject. Terabon, however, was caught wordless. This man was +the husband of the woman for whose sake he had ventured among the +desperate river rats, and now he realized that he had succeeded in the +task she had set him. Looking back, he was surprised at the ease of its +accomplishment, but he was under no illusions regarding the jeopardy he +had run. He had trusted to his aloofness, his place as a newspaper man, +and his frankness, to rescue Carline, and he had brought him away. + +"You're all righ now," Terabon suggested. "I guess you've had your +lesson." + +"A whole book full of them!" Carline cried. "I owe you something--an +apology, and my thanks! Where are we going?" + +"I was taking you down to a Memphis hospital, or to Mendova----" + +"I don't need any hospital. I'm broke; I must get some money. We'll go +to Mendova. I know some people there. I've heard it was a great old +town, too! I always wanted to see it." + +Terabon looked at him; Carline had learned nothing. For a minute remorse +and comprehension had flickered in his mind, now he looked ahead to a +good time in Mendova, to sight-seeing, sporting around, genial friends, +and all the rest. Argument would do no good, and Terabon retreated from +his position as friend and helper to that of an observer and a recorder +of facts. Whatever pity he might feel, he could not help but perceive +that there was no use trying to help fools. + +It was just dusk when they ran into Mendova. The city lights sparkled as +they turned in the eddy and ran up to the shanty-boat town. They dropped +an anchor into the deep water and held the boat off the bank by the +stern while they ran a line up to a six-inch willow to keep the bow to +the bank. The springy, ten-foot gangplank bridged the gap to the shore. + +More than thirty shanty-boats and gasolene cruisers were moored along +that bank, and from nearly every one peered sharp eyes, taking a look at +the newcomers. + +"Hello, Terabon!" someone hailed, and the newspaper man turned, +surprised. One never does get over that feeling of astonishment when, +fifteen hundred miles or so from home, a familiar voice calls one's name +in greeting. + +"Hello!" Terabon replied, heartily, and then shook hands with a market +hunter he had met for an hour's gossip in the eddy at St. Louis. "Any +luck, Bill? How's Frank?" + +"Averaging fine," was the answer. "Frank's up town. Going clear down +after all, eh?" + +"Probably." + +"Any birds on Yankee Bar?" + +"I saw some geese there--hunters stopped in, too. How is the flight?" + +"We're near the tail of it; mostly they've all gone down. We're going to +drive for it, and put out our decoys down around Big Island and below." + +"Then I'll likely see you down there." + +"Sure thing; here's Frank." + +Terabon shook hands with the two, introduced Carline, and then the +hunters cast off and steered away down the stream. They had come more +than a thousand miles with the migrating ducks and geese, intercepting +them at resting or feeding places. That touch and go impressed Terabon +as much as anything he had ever experienced. + +He went up town with Carline, who found a cotton broker, a timber +merchant, and others who knew him. It was easy to draw a check, have it +cashed, and Carline once more had ready money. Nothing would do but they +must go around to Palura's to see Mendova's great attraction for +travellers. + +Palura supplied entertainment and excitement for the whole community, +and this happened to be one of his nights of special effort. Personally, +Palura was in a temper. Captain Dalkard, of the Mendova Police, had been +caught between the Citizens' Committee and Palura's frequenters. There +were 100 citizens in the committee, and Palura's frequenters were +unnamed, but familiar enough in local affairs. + +The cotton broker thought it was a good joke, and he explained the whole +situation to Terabon and Carline for their entertainment. + +"Dalkard called in Policeman Laddam and told him to stand in front of +Palura's, and tell people to watch out. You see, there's been a lot of +complaints about people being short changed, having their pockets +picked, and getting doped there, and some people think it doesn't do the +town any good. Some think we got to have Palura's for the sake of the +town's business. I'm neutral, but I like to watch the fun. We'll go down +there and look in to-night." + +They had dinner, and about 9 o'clock they went around to Palura's. It +was an old market building made over into a pleasure resort, and it +filled 300 feet front on Jimpson Street and 160 feet on the flanking +side streets. A bright electric sign covered the front with a flare of +yellow lights and there was one entrance, under the sign. + +As Terabon, Carline, and the cotton broker came along, they saw a tall, +broad-shouldered, smooth-shaven policeman in uniform standing where the +lights showed him up. + +"Watch your pocketbooks!" the policeman called softly to the patrons. +"Watch your change; pickpockets, short-changers, and card-stackers work +the unwary here! Keep sober--look out for knock-out drops!" + +He said it over and over again, in a purring, jeering tone, and Terabon +noticed that he was poised and tense. In the shadows on both sides of +the policeman Terabon detected figures lurking and he was thrilled by +the evident fact that one brave policeman had been sent alone into that +deadly peril to confront a desperate gang of crooks, and that the lone +policeman gloried to be there. + +The cotton broker, neutral that he was, whispered as they disregarded +the warnings: "Laddam cleaned up Front Street in six months; the mob has +all come up here, and this is their last stand. It'll hurt business if +they close this joint up, because the town'll be dead, but I wish +Palura'd kind of ease down a bit. He's getting rough." + +Little hallways and corridors led into dark recesses on either side of +the building, and faint lights of different colours showed the way to +certain things. Terabon saw a wonderfully beautiful woman, in furs, with +sparkling diamonds, and of inimitable grace waiting in a little +half-curtained cubby hole; he heard a man ask for "Pete," and caught the +word "game" twice. The sounds were muffled, and a sense of repression +and expectancy permeated the whole establishment. + +They entered a reception room, with little tables around the sides, +music blaring and blatant, a wide dancing floor, and a scurrying throng. +All kinds were there: spectators who were sight-seeing; participants who +were sporting around; men, women, and scoundrels; thugs and their +prospective victims; people of supposed allurement; and sports of +insipid, silly pose and tricked-up conspicuousness. + +Terabon's gaze swept the throng. Noise and merriment were increasing. +Liquor was working on the patrons. The life of Mendova was stirring to +blaring music. The big hall was bare, rough, and gaunt. Dusty flags and +cobwebs dangled from the rafters and hog-chain braces. A few hard, white +lights cast a blinding glare straight down on the heads of the dancers +and drinkers and onlookers. + +Business was brisk, and shouts of "Want the waiter!" indicated the +insistence with which trade was encouraged and even insisted upon. No +sooner had Terabon and his companions seated themselves than a burly +flat-face with a stained white apron came and inflicted his determined +gaze upon them. He sniffed when Terabon ordered plain soda. + +"We got a man's drink." + +"I'm on the water wagon for awhile," Terabon smiled, and the waiter +nodded, sympathetically. A tip of a quarter mollified his air of surly +expectancy completely, and as he put the glasses down he said: + +"The Boss is sick the way he's bein' treated. They ain't goin' to git +away wit' stickin' a bull in front of his door like he was a crook." + +Terabon heard a woman at a near-by table making her protest against the +policeman out in front. No other topic was more than mentioned, and the +buzz and burr of voices vied with the sound of the band till it ended. +Then there was a hush. + +"Palura!" a whisper rippled in all directions. + +Terabon saw a man about 5 feet 10 inches tall, compactly built, square +shouldered, and just a trifle pursy at the waist line, approaching along +the dancing floor. He was light on his small feet, his shoulders worked +with feline grace, but his face was a face as hard as limestone and of +about the same colour--bluish gray. His eyes were the colour of ice, +with a greenish tinge. Smooth-shaven cheeks, close-cropped hair, +wing-like ears, and a little round head were details of a figure that +might have been heroic--for his jaw was square, his nose large, and his +forehead straight and broad. + +Everyone knew he was going out to throw the policeman, Laddam, into the +street. The policeman had not hurt business a pennyworth as yet, but +Palura felt the insult. Palura knew the consequences of failing to meet +the challenge. + +"Give 'im hell!" someone called. + +Palura turned and nodded, and a little yelping cheer went up, which +ceased instantly. Terabon, observing details, saw that Palura's coat +sagged on the near side--in the shape of an automatic pistol. He saw, +too, that the man's left sleeve sagged round and hard--a slingshot or +black-jack. + +There was no delay; Palura went straight through to his purpose. He +disappeared in the dark and narrow entrance way and not a sound was +audible except the scuffling of feet. + +"Palura's killed four men," the cotton broker whispered to Terabon, +under his breath. + +What seemed an age passed. The lights flickered. Terabon looked about in +alarm lest that gang---- + +A crash outside brought all to their feet, and the whole crowd fell back +against the walls. Out of the corridor surged a mass of men, and among +them stalked a stalwart giant of a man draped with the remnants of a +policeman's uniform. He had in his right hand a club which he was +swinging about him, and every six feet a man dropped upon the floor. + +Terabon saw Palura writhing, twisting, and working his way among the +fighting mass. He heard a sharp bark: + +"Back, boys!" + +Four or five men stumbled back and two rolled out of the way of the feet +of the policeman. It flashed to Terabon what had been done. They had +succeeded in getting the policeman into the huge den of vice, where he +could not legally be without a warrant, where Palura could kill him and +escape once more on the specious plea of self-defence. Terabon saw the +grin of perfect hate on Palura's face as both his hands came up with +automatics in them--a two-handed gunman with his prey. + +This would teach the policemen of Mendova to mind their own business! +Suddenly Policeman Laddam threw his night stick backhanded at the +infamous scoundrel, and Palura dodged, but not quite quickly nor quite +far enough. The club whacked noisily against his right elbow and Palura +uttered a cry of pain as one pistol fell to the floor. + +Then Laddam snatched out his own automatic, a 45-calibre gun, three +pounds or more in weight, and began to shoot, calmly, deliberately, and +with the artistic appreciation of doing a good job thoroughly. + +His first bullet drove Palura straight up, erect; his next carried the +bully back three steps; his next whirled him around in a sagging spiral, +and the fourth dropped the dive keeper like a bag of loose potatoes. + +Laddam looked around curiously. He had never been there before. Lined up +on all sides of him were the waiters, bouncers, men of prey, their +faces ghastly, and three or four of them sick. The silent throng around +the walls stared at the scene from the partial shadows; no one seemed +even to be breathing. Then Palura made a horrible gulping sound, and +writhed as he gave up his last gasp of life. + +"Now then!" Laddam looked about him, and his voice was the low roar of a +man at his kill. "You men pick them up, pack them outside there, and up +to headquarters. March!" + +As one man, the men who had been Palura's marched. They gathered up the +remains of Palura and the men with broken skulls, and carried them out +into the street. The crowd followed, men and women both. But outside, +the hundreds scurried away in all directions, men afraid and women +choking with horror. Terabon's friend the cotton broker fled with the +rest, Carline disappeared, but Terabon went to headquarters, writing in +his pocket notebook the details of this rare and wonderful tragedy. + +Policeman Laddam had single-handed charged and captured the last citadel +of Mendova vice, and the other policemen, when they looked at him, wore +expressions of wonder and bewilderment. They knew the Committee of 100 +would make him their next chief and a man under whom it would be a +credit to be a cop. + +Terabon, just before dawn, returned toward Mousa Slough. As he did so, +from a dull corner a whisper greeted him: + +"Say, Terabon, is it straight, Palura killed up?" + +"Sure thing!" + +"Then Mendova's sure gone to hell!" Hilt Despard the river pirate cried. +"Say, Terabon, there's a lady down by the slough wants to get to talk to +you." + +"Who----?" + +"She just dropped in to-night, Nelia Crele! She's into her boat down at +the head of the sandbar, facing the switch willows. There's a little +gasolene sternwheeler next below her boat." + +"She's dropped in? All right, boys, much obliged!" + +They separated. + +But when Terabon searched along the slough for Nelia's boat he did not +find it, and to his amazed anger he found that the gasolene boat in +which he had arrived was also gone, as well as his own skiff and all his +outfit. + +"Darn this river!" he choked. "But that's a great story I sent of the +killing of Palura!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Nelia Crele had laughed in her heart at Elijah Rasba as he sat there +listening to her reading. She knew what she was doing to the mountain +parson! She played with his feelings, touched strings of his heart that +had never been touched before, teased his eyes with a picture of +feminine grace, stirred his mind with the sense of a woman who was +bright and who knew so much that he had never known. At the same time, +there was no malice in it--just the delight in making a strong man +discover a strength beyond his own, and in humbling a masculine pride by +the sheer superiority of a woman who had neglected no opportunity to +satisfy a hunger to know. + +She knew the power of a single impression and a clear, quick getaway. +She left him dazed by the fortune which heaped upon him literary +classics in a dozen forms--fiction, essays, history, poetry, short +stories, criticism, fable, and the like; she laughed at her own quick +liking for the serious-minded, self-deprecatory, old-young man whose big +innocent eyes displayed a soul enamoured by the spirited intelligence of +an experienced and rather disillusioned young woman who had fled from +him partly because she did know what a sting it would give him. + +So with light heart and singing tongue she floated away on the river, +not without a qualm at leaving those books with Rasba; she loved them +too much, but the sacrifice was so necessary--for his work! The river +needed him as a missionary. He could help ease the way of the old +sinners, and perhaps by and by he would reform her, and paint her again +with goodness where she was weather-beaten. + +It is easy to go wrong on the Mississippi--just as easy, or easier, than +elsewhere in the world. The student of astronomy, gazing into the vast +spaces of the skies, feels his own insignificance increasing, while the +magnitude of the constellations grows upon him. What can it matter what +such a trifling thing, such a mere atom, as himself does when he is to +the worlds of less size than the smallest of living organisms in a drop +of water? + +Nelia Crele looked around as she left the eddy and saw that her +houseboat was but a trifle upon a surface containing hundreds of square +miles. A human being opposite her on the bank was less in proportion +than a fly on the cabin window pane. Then what could it matter what she +did? Why shouldn't she be reckless, abandoned, and live in the gaiety of +ages? + +She had read thousands of pages of all kinds with no guide posts or +moral landmarks. A picture of dangerous delights had come into her +imagination. Having read and understood so much, she had not failed to +discover the inevitable Nemesis on the trail of wrongdoing, as well as +the inevitableness of reward for steadfastness in virtues--but she +wondered doubtfully what virtue really was, whether she was not absolved +from many rigid commandments by the failure of the world to keep faith +with her and reward her for her own patience and atone for her own +sufferings. + +It was easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to +be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one's affair but her +own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her +determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced newspaper +man whose ambitions pleased her fancy and whose innocence delighted her +own mood. + +He was down the river somewhere, and when she landed in at Mendova in +the late twilight she saw his skiff swinging from the stern of a +motorboat. Having made fast near it, she quickly learned that he had +gone up town, and that someone had heard him say that he was going to +Palura's. + +Palura's! Nelia had heard the fascination of that den's ill-fame. She +laughed to herself when she thought that Terabon would excuse his going +there on the ground of its being right in his line of work, that he must +see that place because otherwise he would not know how to describe it. + +"If I can catch him there!" she thought to herself. + +She went to Palura's, and Old Mississippi seemed to favour her. She +found another woman who knew the ropes there and who was glad to help +her play the game. From a distance Nelia Crele discovered that Terabon +was with Carline, her own husband. She dismissed him with a shrug of her +shoulders, and told her companion to take care of him. + +Nelia, having plagued the soul of the River Prophet, Rasba, now with +equal zest turned to seize Terabon, careless of where the game ended if +only she could begin it and carry it on to her own music and in her own +measure. + +They had it all determined: Carline was to be wedged away with his +friend, a cotton broker that Daisy--Nelia's newfound accomplice--knew, +and Terabon was to be tempted to "do the Palace," and he was to be +caught unaware, by Nelia, who wanted to dance with him, dine with him +under bright lights, and drink dangerous drinks with him. She knew him +sober and industrious, good and faithful, a decent, reputable working +man--she wanted to see him waked up and boisterous, careless for her +sake and because of her desires. + +She just felt wicked, wanted to be wicked, and didn't care how wicked +she might be. She counted, however, without the bonds which the +Mississippi River seems at times to cast around its favourites--the +Spirit of the river which looks after his own. + +She had not even seen Policeman Laddam standing at the main entrance of +the notorious resort, for Daisy had taken her through another door. She +went to the exclusive "Third," and from there emerged onto the dancing +floor just as Palura ostentatiously went forth to drive Laddam away, or +to kill him. + +Daisy checked her, for the minute or two of suspense, and then the whole +scene, the tragedy, was enacted before her gaze. She was not frightened; +she was not even excited; the thing was so astonishing that she did not +quite grasp its full import till she saw Palura stumbling back, shot +again and again. Daisy caught her arm and clutched it in dumb panic, and +when the policeman calmly bent the cohorts of the dead man to his will +and carried away his victims, Daisy dragged Nelia away. + +Then Daisy disappeared and Nelia was left to her own devices. + +She was vexed and disappointed. She knew nothing of the war in Mendova. +Politics had never engaged her attention, and the significance of the +artistic killing of Palura did not appear to her mind. She was simply +possessed by an indignant feminine impatience to think that Terabon had +escaped, and she was angry when she had only that glimpse of him, as +with his notebook in hand he raced his pencil across the blank pages, +jotting down the details and the hasty, essential impressions as he +caught them. + +She heard the exodus. She heard women sobbing and men gasping as they +swore and fled. She gathered up her own cloak and left with reluctant +footsteps. + +She realized that she had arrived there just one day too late to "do" +Palura's. The fugitives, as they scurried by, reminded her of some +description which she had read of the Sack of Rome; or was it the Fall +of Babylon? Their sins were being visited upon the wicked, and Nelia +Crele, since she had not sinned, could not thrill with quite the same +terror and despair of the wretches who had sinned in spite of their +consciences, instead of through ignorance or wantonness. She took her +departure not quite able to understand why there had been so much furore +because one man had been killed. + +She was among the last to leave the accursed place, and she saw the +flight of the ones who had delayed, perhaps to loot, perhaps having just +awakened to the fact of the tragedy. She turned toward Mousa Slough, and +her little shanty-boat seemed very cool and bare that late evening. The +bookshelves were all empty, and she was just a little too tired to +sleep, just a little too stung by reaction to be happy, and rather too +much out of temper to be able to think straight and clearly on the +disappointment. + +Mendova had been familiar in her ears since childhood; she had heard +stories of its wildness, its gayeties, its recklessness. Impression had +been made upon impression, so that when she had found herself nearing +the place of her dreams, she was in the mood to enter into its wildest +and gayest activities; she had expected to, and she had known in her own +mind that when she met Terabon she would be irresistible. + +At last she shuddered. She seemed to hear a voice, the river's voice, +declare that this thing had happened to prevent her seeking to betray +herself and Terabon, not to mention that other matter which did not +affect her thought in the least, her husband's honour. + +The idea of her husband's honour made the thing absurd to her. There was +no such thing as that honour. She had plotted to get Carline out of the +way now that she heard he was clear of the pirates. On second thought, +she was sorry that she had been so hasty in returning to the boat, +wishing that she had followed up Terabon. + +She walked out onto the bow deck, and standing in the dark, with her +door closed, looked up and down the slough. A dozen boats were in sight. +She heard a number of men and women talking in near-by boats, and the +few words she heard indicated that the river people had a pretty morsel +of gossip in the killing of Palura. + +She heard men rustling through the weeds and switch willows of the +boatmen's pathway, and she hailed; she was now a true river woman, +though she did not know it. + +"Say, boys, do you know if Terabon and Carline landed here to-night?" + +"We just landed in," one answered. "I don't know." + +"Going up town?" + +"Yes----" + +"I want to know about them----" + +"Hit's Nelia Crele!" one exclaimed. + +"That's right. Hello, boys--Despard--Jet--Cope!" + +"Sure! When'd you land?" + +"Late this evening; I was up to Palura's when----" + +"That ain't no place fo' a lady." + +She laughed aloud, as she added, "I was there when Palura was killed by +the policeman." + +"Palura killed a policeman!" Despard said. "He's killed----" + +"No, Palura was killed by a policeman. Shot him dead right on the +dance-hall floor." + +The pirates choked. The thing was unbelievable. They came down to the +boat and she described the affair briefly, and they demanded details. + +They felt that it would vitally affect Mendova. They whispered among +themselves as to what it meant. They learned that a policeman had been +stationed in front of the notorious resort and that that policeman had +done the shooting during a fight with waiters and bouncers and with +Palura himself. + +"We hadn't better get to go up town," Jet whimpered. "Hit don't sound +right!" + +They argued and debated, and finally went on their way, having promised +Nelia that they would see and tell Terabon, on the quiet, that she had +come into the slough, and that she wanted to see him. + +She waited for some time, hoping that Terabon would come, but finally +went to sleep. She was tired, and excitement had deserted her. She slept +more soundly than in some time. + +Once she partly awakened, and thought that some drift log had bumped +into her boat; then she felt a gentle undulation, as of the waves of a +passing steamer, but she was too sleepy to contemplate that phenomenon +in a rather narrow water channel around a bend from the main current. + +It was not till she had slept long and well that she began to dream +vividly. She was impatient with dreams; they were always full of +disappointment. + +Daylight came, and sunshine penetrated the window under which she slept. +The bright rays fell upon her closed eyes and stung her cheeks. She +awakened with difficulty, and looked around wonderingly. She saw the +sunlight move along the wall and then drift back again. She felt the +boat teetering and swaggering. She looked out of the window and saw a +distant wood across the familiar, glassy yellow surface of the +Mississippi. With a low whisper of dismay she started out to look +around, and found that she was really adrift in mid-river. + +On the opposite side of the boat she saw the blank side of a boat +against her cabin window. As she stood there, she heard or felt a motion +on the boat alongside. Someone stepped, or rather jumped heavily, onto +the bow deck of her boat and flung the cabin door open. + +She sprang to get her pistol, and stood ready, as the figure of a man +stumbled drunkenly into her presence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Parson Elijah Rasba, the River Prophet, could not think what he would +say to these river people who had determined to have a sermon for their +Sabbath entertainment. Neither his Bible nor his hurried glances from +book to book which Nelia Crele had given him brought any suggestion +which seemed feasible. His father had always declared that a sermon, to +be effective, "must have one bullet fired straight." + +What bullet would reach the souls of these river people who sang ribald +songs, danced to lively music, and lived clear of all laws except the +one they called "The Law," a deadly, large-calibre revolver or automatic +pistol? + +"I 'low I just got to talk to them like folks," he decided at last, and +with that comforting decision went to sleep. + +The first thing, after dawn, when he looked out upon the river in all +the glory of sunshine and soft atmosphere and young birds, he heard a +hail: + +"Eh, Prophet! What time yo' all goin' to hold the meeting?" + +"Round 10 or 11 o'clock," he replied. + +Rasba went to one of the boats for breakfast, and he was surprised when +Mamie Caope asked him to invoke a blessing on their humble meal of +hot-bread, sorghum, fried pork chops, oatmeal, fried spuds, percolator +coffee, condensed cream, nine-inch perch caught that morning, and some +odds and ends of what she called "leavings." + +Then the women all went over on his big mission boat and cleaned things +up, declaring that men folks didn't know how to keep their own faces +clean, let alone houseboats. They scrubbed and mopped and re-arranged, +and every time Rasba appeared they splashed so much that he was obliged +to escape. + +When at last he was allowed to return he found the boat all cleaned up +like a honey-comb. He found that the gambling apparatus had been taken +away, except the heavy crap table, which was made over into a pulpit, +and that chairs and benches had been arranged into seats for a +congregation. A store-boat man climbed to the boat's roof at 10:30, with +a Texas steer's horn nearly three feet long, and began to blow. + +The blast reverberated across the river, and echoed back from the shore +opposite; it rolled through the woods and along the sandbars; and the +Prophet, listening, recalled the tales of trumpets which he had read in +the Bible. At intervals of ten minutes old Jodun filled his great lungs, +pursed his lips, and swelled his cheeks to wind his great horn, and the +summons carried for miles. People appeared up the bank, swamp angels +from the timber brakes who strolled over to see what the river people +were up to, and skiffs sculled over to bring them to the river meeting. +The long bend opposite, and up and down stream, where no sign of life +had been, suddenly disgorged skiffs and little motorboats of people +whose floating homes were hidden in tiny bays, or covered by neutral +colours against their backgrounds. + +The women hid Rasba away, like a bridegroom, to wait the moment of his +appearance, and when at last he was permitted to walk out into the +pulpit he nearly broke down with emotion. There were more than a hundred +men and women, with a few children, waiting eagerly for him. He was a +good old fellow; he meant all right; he'd taken care of Jest Prebol, who +had deserved to be shot; he was pretty ignorant of river ways, but he +wanted to learn about them; he hadn't hurt their feelings, for he minded +his own business, saying not a word about their good times, even if he +wouldn't dance himself. They could do no better than let him know that +they hadn't any hard feelings against him, even if he was a parson, for +he didn't let on that they were sinners. Anyway, they wanted to hear him +hit it up! + +"I came down here to find a son whose mother was worrited about him," +Rasba began at the beginning. "I 'lowed likely if I could find Jock it'd +please his mammy, an' perhaps make her a little happier. And Jock 'lowed +he'd better go back, and stand trial, even if it was a hanging matter. + +"You see, I didn't expect you'd get to learn very much from me, and I +haven't been disappointed. I'm the one that's learning, and when I think +what you've done for me, and when I see what Old Mississip' does, +friendlying for all of us, tripping us along----" + +They understood. He looked at the boat, at them, and through the +wide-open windows at the sun-rippled water. + +"Now for religion. Seems like I'm impudent, telling you kindly souls +about being good to one another, having no hard, mean feelings against +anybody, and living like you ought to live. We're all sinners! Time and +again hit's ag'in the grain to do what's right, and if we taste a taste +of white liquor, or if hit's stained with burnt sugar to make hit red, +why----" + +"Sho!" someone grinned. "Parson Rasba knows!" + +The preacher joined the laughter. + +"Yas, suh!" he admitted, more gravely, "I know. I 'lowed, one time, that +I'd git to know this yeah happiness that comes of liquor, an' I shore +took one awful gulp. Three nights an' three days I neveh slept a wink, +an' me settin' theh by the fireplace, waitin' to be lit up an' +jubulutin', but hit didn't come. I've be'n happier, jes' a-settin' an' +lookin' at that old riveh, hearin' the wild geese flocking by! + +"That old riveh--Lawse! If the Mississippi brings you fish and game; if +it gives you sheltered eddies to anchor in, and good banks or sandbars +to tie against; if this great river out here does all that for you, what +do you reckon the Father of that river, of all the world, of all the +skies would do, He being so much friendlier and powerfuller? + +"Hit's easy to forget the good that's done to you. Lots an' lots of +times, I bet you've not even thought of the good you've had from the +river, from the sunshine, from the winds, plenty to eat and warm of +nights on your boats and in your cabins. It's easy to remember the +little evil things, the punishments that are visited upon us for our +sins or because we're ignorant and don't know; but reckon up the +happiness you have, the times you are blessed with riches of comfort and +pleasure, and you'll find yourself so much happier than you are sad that +you'll know how well you are cared for. + +"I cayn't preach no reg'lar sermon, with text-tes and singing and all +that. Seems like I jes' want to talk along rambling like, and tell you +how happy you are all, for I don't reckon you're much wickeder than you +are friendly on the average. I keep a-hearing about murdering and +stealing and whiskey boating and such things. They're signs of the +world's sinfulness. We talk a heap about such things; they're real, of +course, and we cayn't escape them. At the same time, look at me! + +"I came down here, sorry with myse'f, and you make me glad, not asking +if I'd done meanness or if I'd betrayed my friends. You 'lowed I was +jes' a man, same's you. I couldn't tell you how to be good, because I +wasn't no great shakes myse'f, and the worse I was the better you got. +Buck an' Jock gives me this boat for a mission boat; I'm ignorant, an' a +woman gives me----" + +He choked up. What the woman had given him was too immeasurable and too +wonderful for mere words to express his gratitude. + +"I'm just one of those shoutin', ignorant mountain parsons. I could +out-whoop most of them up yonder. But down yeah, Old Mississip' don't +let a man shout out. When yo' play dance music, hit's softer and sweeter +than some of those awful mountain hymns in which we condemn lost souls +to the fire. Course, the wicked goes to hell, but somehow I cayn't git +up much enthusiasm about that down yeah. What makes my heart rejoice is +that there's so much goodness around that I bet 'most anybody's got a +right smart chanct to get shut of slippin' down the claybanks into +hell." + +"Jest Prebol?" someone asked, seeing Prebol's face in the window of the +little red shanty-boat moored close by, where he, too, could listen. + +"Jest Prebol's been my guide down the riveh," the Prophet retorted. "I +can say that I only wish I could be as good a pilot for poor souls and +sinners toward heaven as Jest is a river pilot for a wandering old +mountain parson on the Mississippi----" + +"Hi-i-i!" a score of voices laughed, and someone shouted, "So row me +down the Jordan!" + +They all knew the old religious song which fitted so nicely into the +conditions on the Mississippi. Somebody called to someone else, and the +musicians in the congregation slipped away to return with their +violins, banjos, accordions, guitars, and other familiar instruments. +Before the preacher knew it, he had more music in the church than he had +ever heard in a church before--and they knew what to play and what to +sing. + +The sermon became a jubilee, and he would talk along awhile till +something he said struck a tuneful suggestion, and the singing would +begin again; and when at last he brought the service to an end, he was +astonished to find that he had preached and they had sung for more than +two hours. + +Then there was scurrying about, and from all sides the calm airs of the +sunny Sabbath were permeated with the odours of roasts and fried things, +coffee and sauces. A score wanted Rasba to dine out, but Mrs. Caope +claimed first and personal acquaintance, and her claim was acknowledged. +The people from far boats and tents returned to their own homes. Two or +three boats of the fleet, in a hurry to make some place down stream, +dropped out in mid-afternoon, and the little shanty-boat town was +already breaking up, having lasted but a day, but one which would long +be remembered and talked about. It was more interesting than murder, for +murders were common, and the circumstances and place were so remarkable +that even a burning steamboat would have had less attention and +discussion. + +The following morning Mrs. Caope offered Rasba $55 for his old poplar +boat, and he accepted it gladly. She said she had a speculation in mind, +and before nightfall she had sold it for $75 to two men who were going +pearling up the St. Francis, and who thought that a boat a parson had +tripped down in would bring them good luck. + +The dancers of Saturday night, the congregation of Sunday, on Monday +afternoon were scattered. Mrs. Caope's and another boat dropped off the +river to visit friends, and mid-afternoon found Parson Rasba and Prebol +alone again, drawing down toward Mendova. + +Prebol knew that town, and he told Rasba about it. He promised that they +would see something of it, but they could not make it that evening, so +they landed in Sandbar Reach for the night. Just after dawn, while the +rising sun was flashing through the tree tops from east to west, a +motorboat driving up stream hailed as it passed. + +"Ai-i-i, Prebol! Palura's killed up!" + +Prebol shouted out for details, and the passer-by, slowing down, gave a +few more: + +"Had trouble with the police, an' they shot him daid into his own dance +floor--and Mendova's no good no more!" + +"Now what the boys goin' to do when they make a haul?" Prebol demanded +in great disgust of Parson Rasba. "Fust the planters shot up whiskey +boats; then the towns went dry, an' now they closed up Palura's an' shot +him daid. Wouldn't hit make yo' sick, Parson! They ain't no fun left +nowheres for good sports." + +Rasba could not make any comment. He was far from sure of his +understanding. He felt as though his own life had been sheltered, remote +from these wild doings of murders and shanty-boat-fleet dances and a +congregation assembling in a gambling boat handed to him for a mission! +He could not quite get his bearings, but the books blessed him with +their viewpoints, as numerous as the points of the compass. He could not +turn a page or a chapter without finding something that gave him a +different outlook or a novel idea. + +They landed in late on Monday at Mendova bar, just above the wharf. Up +the slough were many shanty-boats, and gaunt dogs and floppy buzzards +fed along the bar and down the wharf. + +Groups of men and women were scattered along both the slough and the +river banks, talking earnestly and seriously. Rasba, bound up town to +buy supplies, heard the name of Palura on many lips; the policemen on +their beats waltzed their heavy sticks about in debonair skilfulness; +and stooped, rat-like men passing by, touched their hats nervously to +the august bluecoats. + +When Rasba returned to the boat, he found a man waiting for him. + +"My name is Lester Terabon," the man said. "I landed in Saturday, and +went up town. When I returned, my skiff and outfit were all +gone--somebody stole them." + +"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "I've heard of you. You write for newspapers?" + +"Yes, sir, and I'm some chump, being caught that way." + +"They meant to rob you?" Rasba asked. + +"Why, of----I don't know!" Terabon saw a new outlook on the question. + +"Did they go down?" + +"Yes, sir, I heard so. I don't care about my boat, typewriter, and +duffle; what bothers me is my notebooks. Months of work are in them. If +I could get them back!" + +"What can I do for you?" + +"I don't know--I'm going down stream; it's down below, somewhere." + +"I need someone to help me," Rasba said. "I've a wounded man here who +has a doctor with him. If he goes up to the hospital or stays with us, +I'll be glad to have you for your help and company." + +"I'm in luck." Terabon laughed with relief. + +Just that way the Mississippi River's narrow channel brought the River +Prophet and the river reporter together. Terabon went up town and bought +some clothes, some writing paper, a big blank notebook, and a bottle of +fountain-pen ink. With that outfit he returned on board, and a delivery +car brought down his share of things to eat. + +The doctor said Prebol ought to go into the hospital for at least a +week, and Terabon found Prebol's pirate friends, hidden up the slough on +their boat, not venturing to go out except at night. They took the +little red shanty-boat up the slough, and Prebol went to the hospital. + +Rasba, frankly curious about the man who wrote for newspapers for a +living, listened to accounts of an odd and entertaining occupation. He +asked about the Palura shooting which everyone was talking about, and +when Terabon described it as he had witnessed it, Rasba shook his head. + +"Now they'll close up that big market of sin?" he asked. "They've all +scattered around." + +"Yes, and they scattered with my skiff, too, and probably robbed Carline +of his boat----" + +"Carline! You know him?" + +"I came down with him from Yankee Bar, and we went up to Palura's +together. I lost him in the shuffle, when the big cop killed Palura." + +"And Mrs. Carline, Nelia Crele?" Rasba demanded. + +"Why--I--they said she'd landed in. She's gone, too----" + +"You know her?" + +"Why, yes--I----" + +"So do I. Those books," he waved his hand toward the loaded shelves, +"she gave them all to me for my mission boat!" + +Terabon stared. He went to the shelves and looked at the volumes. In +each one he found the little bookmark which she had used in cataloguing +them: + + Nelia Carline, + A Loved Book. + No. 87 + +A jealous pang seized him, in spite of his reportorial knowledge that +jealousy is vanity for a literary person. + +"I 'low we mout 's well drop out," Rasba suggested. "Missy Crele's down +below some'rs. Her boat floated out to'd mornin', one of the boys +said." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Carline had discovered his wife in the excitement at Palura's, and with +the cunning of a drunken man had shadowed her. He followed her down to +Mousa Bayou, and saw her go on board her cabin-boat. He watched, with +more cunning, to see for whom she was waiting. He had in his pocket a +heavy automatic pistol with which to do murder. + +He had seen killing done, and the thing was fascinating; some +consciousness that the policeman had done the right thing seemed now to +justify his own intention of killing a man, or somebody. + +Disappointment lingered in his mind when the lights went out on board +Nelia's boat, and for a long time he meditated as to what he should do. +He saw skiffs, motorboats, shanty-boats pulling hastily down the slough +into the Mississippi. It was the Exodus of Sin. Mendova's rectitude had +asserted its strength and power, and now the exits of the city were +flickering with the shadows of departing hordes of the night and of the +dark, all of whom had two fears: one of daylight, the other of sudden +death. + +Their departure before his eyes, with darkened boats, gave Carline +an idea at last. He wanted to get away off somewhere, where he could +be alone, without any interruption. Bitter anger surged in his +breast because his wife had shamed him, left him, led him this +any-thing-but-merry chase down the Mississippi. A proud Carline had +no call to be treated thataway by any woman, especially by the +daughter of an old ne'er-do-well whom he had condescended to marry. + +He had always been a hunter and outdoor man, and it was no particular +trick for him to cast off the lines of Nelia's boat and push it out +into the sluggish current, and it was as easy for him to take his own +boat and drop down into the river. He brought the two boats quietly +together and lashed them fast with rope fenders to prevent rubbing and +bumping--did it with surprising skill. + +The Mississippi carried them down the reach into the crossing, and +around a bend out of sight of even the glow of the Mendova lights. Here +was one of those lonesome stretches of the winding Mississippi, with +wooded bank, sandbar, sky-high and river-deep loneliness. + +Carline, with alcoholic persistency, held to his scheme. He drank the +liquor which he had salvaged in the riotous night. He thought he knew +how to bring people to time, especially women. He had seen a big +policeman set the pace, and the sound of the club breaking skull bones +was still a shock in his brain, oft repeated. + +The sudden dawn caught him by surprise, and he stared rather nonplussed +by the sunrise, but when he looked around and saw that he was in +mid-stream and miles from anywhere and from any one, he knew that there +was no better place in the world for taming one's wife, and extorting +from her the apologies which seemed to Carline appropriate, all things +considered, for the occasion. + +The time had arrived for action. He rose with dignity and buttoned up +his waistcoat; he pulled down his coat and gave his cravat a hitch; he +rubbed a tentative hand on the lump where the pirates had bumped him; he +scrambled over the side onto the cabin-boat deck, and entered upon the +scene of his conquest. + +He found himself confronted by Nelia in a white-faced, low-voiced fury +instead of in the mood he had expected. She wasn't sorry; she wasn't +apologetic; she wasn't even amiable or conciliatory. + +"Gus Carline! Drunk, as usual. What do you mean by this?" + +"S'all right!" he assured her, flapping his hands. "Y're m'wife; I'm +your husban'! S'all right!" + +She drew her pistol and fired a bullet past him. + +"Go!" she cried. + +Before he knew what had happened he had backed out upon the bow deck, +and she bundled him up onto his own craft. She cast off the bow line and +ran to the stern to cast off the line there. As she did so, she +discovered Terabon's skiff around at the far side where Carline could +not see it. + +Her husband was still shaking his fist in her direction, but the two +boats were well apart as she rowed away with her sweeps. He stood there, +undecided. He had not expected the sudden and effective resistance. +Before he knew it, she was lost in a whole fleet of little houseboats +which were, to his eyes, both in the sky, underwater, and scattered all +over the tip-tilting surfaces. + +The current, under the impulse of her rowing, carried Nelia into an eddy +and she saw the cruiser rocking down a crossing into the mirage of the +distance. She sat on the bow deck while her boat made a long swing in +the eddy. Things did not happen down the river as she planned or +expected. She regarded the previous night's entertainment with less +indifference now; something about the calm of that broad river affected +her. She realized that watching the killing of Palura had given her a +shock so deep that now she was trembling with the weakness of horror. + +She had seen Gus Carline stumble into her cabin, and with angry defiance +she had acted with the intention of doing to him what she had done to +Prebol--but she had missed deliberately when she shot. When she recalled +the matter, she saw that for weeks she had been living in a false frame +of mind; that she was desperate, and not contented; that she was +afraid--and that she hated fear. + +Her pistol was sign of her bravado, and her shots were the indication of +her desperation. The memory of the wan face of Prebol brought down by +her bullet was now an accusation, not a pride. + +Old Mississip' had received her gently in her most furious mood, but now +that immense, active calm of vast power was working on the untamed soul +which she owned. The river swept along, and its majesty no longer gave +her the feeling that nothing mattered. Far from it! Though she rebelled +against the idea, her mind knew that she was in rebellion, that she was +going against the current. And the river's mood was dangerous, now, to +the wanton feelings to which she had desperately yielded but +unsuccessfully. + +The old, familiar, sharp division between right and wrong was presented +to her gaze as if the river itself were calling her attention to it. She +could not escape the necessity of a choice, with evil so persuasive and +delightful and virtue so depressing and necessary. + +She investigated Terabon's outfit with curiosity and questioning. His +typewriter, his maps, his few books, his stack of notes neatly compiled +in loose-leaf files, were the materials which caught and held her fancy. +She took them on board her shanty-boat and read the record which he had +made, from day to day, from his inspection of Commission records at St. +Louis to the purchase of his boat in shanty-boat town, and his departure +down the river. + +His words were intimate and revealing: + + Oct. 5; In mid-stream among a lot of islands; rafts of ducks; a + dull, blue day, still those great limestone hills, with hollows + through which the wind comes when opposite--coolies?----; in the far + distance a rowboat. On the Missouri side, the hills; on the other + the flats, with landing sheds. Ducks in great flocks--look like sea + serpents when flying close to the water; like islands on it--wary + birds. + +That was above the part of the river which she knew; she turned to +Kaskaskia, and read facts familiar to her: + + I met Crele, an old hunter-trapper, in a slough below St. Genevieve. + He was talkative, and said he had the prettiest girl on a hundred + miles of river. She had married a man of the name of Carline, real + rich and a big bug. "But my gal's got the looks, yes, indeed!" If I + find her, I must be sure and tell her to write to her folks--river + romance! + +Nelia's face warmed as she read those phrases as well it might. She +wondered what other things he had written in his book of notes, and her +eye caught a page: + + House boatmen are a bad lot. Once a young man came to work for a + farmer back on the hills. He'd been there a month, when one night he + disappeared; a set of double harness went with him. Another man hung + around a week, and raided a grocery store, filling washtubs with + groceries, cloth, and shoes--went away in a skiff. + +She turned to where he travelled down the Mississippi with her husband +and read the description of Gus Carline's whiskey skiff man, his +purchase of a gallon of whiskey; the result, which her imagination +needed but few words to visualize; then Terabon's drifting away down +stream, leaving the sot to his own insensibilities. + +Breathlessly she read his snatching sentences from bend to shoal, from +reach to reach, until he described her red-hull, white cabin-boat, +described the "young river woman" who occupied it; and then, page after +page of memoranda, telling almost her own words, and his own words, as +he had remembered them. What he wrote here had not been intended for her +eyes. + + She's dropping down this river all alone; pirates nor scoundrels nor + river storms nor jeopardies seem to disturb her in the least. She + even welcomes me, as an interesting sort of intellectual specimen, + who can talk about books and birds and a multitude of things. She + may well rest assured that none of us river rats have any designs, + whatever, on a lady who shoots quick, shoots straight, and dropped + Prebol at thirty yards off-hand with an automatic! + +She read the paragraph with interest and then with care; she did not +know whether to be pleased or not by that brutally frank statement that +he was afraid of her--suppose he hadn't been afraid? Then, of what was +he really afraid--not of her pistol! She read on through the pages of +notes. The description of the walk with her up the sandbar and back, +there at Island No. 10, thrilled her, for it told the apparently +trifling details--the different kinds of sands, the sounds, the night +gloom, the quick sense of the river presence, the glow of distant New +Madrid. He had lived it, and he wrote it in terms that she realized were +the words she might have used to describe her own observations and +sensations. + +She searched through his notes in vain for any suggestion of the +emotions which she had felt. She shrugged her shoulders, because he had +not written anything to indicate that he had discovered her allurement. +He had written in bald words the fact of her sending him on the errand +of rescue, to save her husband--and she was obliged to digest in her +mind the bare but significant phrase: + + And, because she has sent me, I am glad to go! + +His notes made her understand him better, but they did not reveal all +his own feelings. He wrote her down as an object of curiosity, as he +spoke of the sour face and similitude of good humour in the whiskey +boater's expression. In the same painstaking way he described her own +friendliness for a passing skiff boater. The impersonality of his +remarks about himself surprised while it perplexed her. + +The mass of material which he had gathered for making articles and +stories amazed her. The stack of pages, closely typewritten, was more +than two inches thick. A few pages disclosed consecutive paragraphs with +subjects, predicates, and complete sense, but other pages showed only +disjointed phrases, words, and flashes of ideas. + +The changing notes, the questioning, the observations, the minute +recording were fascinating to her. It revealed a phase of writers' lives +of which she had known nothing--the gathering of myriads of details, in +order to free the mind for accurate rendering of pictures and +conditions. She wished she could see some of the finished product of +Terabon's use of these notes, and the wish revealed a chasm, an abyss +that confronted her. She felt deserted, as though she had need of +Terabon to give her a view of his own life, that she might be diverted +into something not sordid, and decidedly not according to Augustus +Carline's ideals! + +After a time, seeing that Carline's boat had disappeared down river, she +threw over her anchor, and rested in the eddy. It was on the west side, +with a chute entrance through a sandbar and willow-grown island points +opposite. She brought out her map book to see if she could learn where +she was anchored, but the printed map, with the bright red lines of +recent surveys, helped her not at all. She turned from sheet to sheet +down to Memphis, without finding what she wanted to know. + +She saw some shanty-boats down the river; she saw some up the river; but +there was none near her till just before dark a motor skiff came down in +the day's gray gloom, and passed within a few yards of her. When she +looked at the two men in the boats she learned to know what fear +is--river terror--horror of mankind in its last extremities of depravity +and heartlessness. + +She saw men stooped and slinking, whose glance was sidelong and whose +expression was venomous, casting covert looks toward her as they passed +by into the gray mist of falling night. They entered a narrow waterway +among the sandbars, and left behind the feeling that along that waterway +was the abiding place of lost souls. She wanted to take up the anchor +and flee out onto the river, but when she looked into the darkening +breadths, she felt the menace of the miles, of the mists, of the wooded +shores. Foreboding was in her tired soul. + +She examined her pistol, to make sure that it was ready to use; she +locked the stern door, and drew the curtains; she went to the bow and +looked carefully at the anchor-line fastenings. With no light on board +to blind her gaze, she scrutinized all the surroundings, to make sure of +her locality. In that blank gloom she was dubious but brave. Not a thing +visible, not a sound audible, nothing but her remote and little +understood sensation of premonitory dread explained her perturbation. +She entered the cabin, locked the door, set the window catches and +sticks, lighted the lamp, and sat down to--think. Her bookshelves were +empty, and she was glad that she had emptied them in a good cause. It +occurred to her that she ought to make up another list for her own +service, and with pencil and paper she began that most fascinating +work, the compilation of one's own library. As she made her selections, +she forgot the menace which she had observed. + +In the stillness she thought her own ears were ringing and paid no +attention to the humming that increased in volume moment by moment. It +was a flash of lightning without thunder that stirred her senses. She +looked up from her absorption. + +She heard a distant rumble, a near-by stirring. The wavelets along the +side of the boat were noisy; they rattled like paper. Something fell +clattering on the roof of the cabin, and a tearing, ripping, crashing +struck the boat and fairly tossed it skipping along the surface of the +water. The lamp blew out as a window pane broke, and the woman was +thrown to the floor in a confusion of chairs, table, and other loose +objects. Happily, the stove was screwed fast to the floor. The anchor +line broke with a loud twang, and the black confusion was lighted with +flares and flashes of gray-blue glaring. + +The river had made Nelia Crele believe that she was in jeopardy from +man; but it was a little hurricane, or, as the river people call them, +cyclones, that menaced. Dire as was the confusion and imminent as was +the peril, Nelia felt a sense of relief from what would have been harder +to bear--an attack by men. She had searched the map for information, but +it was the river which inspired her to understand that the hurricane was +her deliverance rather than her assailant. + +She did not know whether she would live or die during those seconds when +the gale crashed like maul blows and wind and rain poured and whistled +in at the broken window pane. She laughed at her predicament, tumbling +in dishevelment around the bouncing cabin floor, and when the suck and +send of the storm crater passed by, leaving a driving wind, she stepped +out on the bows, and caught up her sweeps to ride the waves and face the +gale that set steadily in from the north. + +It was gray, impenetrable black--that night. She could see nothing, +neither the waves nor the sky nor the river banks; but singing aloud, +she steadied the boat, bow to the wind, holding it to the gale by +dipping the sweeps deep and strong. + +Beaten steadily back, unable to know how far or in what direction, she +found her soul, serenely above the mere physical danger, loving that +vast torrent more than ever. + +The Mississippi trains its own to be brave. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Parson Rasba and Terabon floated out into the main river current and ran +with the stream. They were passing through the famous, changeable +channels among the great sandbars from Island No. 34 down to Hopefield +Bend. They rounded Dean Island Bend in the darkness, for they had +floated all day and far into the night, driven by an anxiety which was +inexplicable. + +They wanted to be going; they felt an urge which they commented upon; it +was a voice in their hearts, and not audible in their ears. Yet when +they stood nervously at the great sweeps of the mission boat, to pull +the occasional strokes necessary to clear a bar or flank a bend, they +could almost declare that the river was talking. + +They strained their ears in vain, trying to distinguish the meanings of +the distant murmurings. Terabon, now well familiar with the river, could +easily believe that he was listening to the River Spirit, and his +feelings were melancholy. + +For months he had strained every power of his mind to record the exact +facts about the Mississippi, and he put down tens of thousands of words +describing and stating what he saw, heard, and knew. With one stroke he +had been separated from his work, and he feared that he had lost his +precious notes for all time. + +Either Carline or river pirates had carried them away. He hoped, he +believed, that he would find them, but there was an uncertainty. He +shivered apprehensively when he recalled with what frankness he had put +down details, names, acts, rumours, reports--all the countless things +which go to make up the "histories" of a voyage down from St. Louis in +skiff, shanty-boat, and launch. What would they say if they read his +notes? + +He had notepaper, blank books, and ink, and he set about the weary task +of keeping up his records, and putting down all that he could recall of +the contents of his lost loose-leaf system. It was a staggering task. + +In one record he wrote the habitual hour-to-hour description, comment, +talk, and fact; in his "memory journal" he put down all the things he +could recall about the contents of his lost record. He had written the +things down to save him the difficulty of trying to remember, but now he +discovered that he had remembered. A thousand times faster than he could +write the countless scenes and things he had witnessed flocked back into +the consciousness of his mind, pressing for recognition and another +chance to go down in black and white. + +As he wrote, Parson Rasba, in the intervals of navigating the big +mission boat, would stand by gazing at the furious energy of his +companion. Rasba had seized upon a few great facts of life, and dwelt in +silent contemplation of them, until a young woman with a library +disturbed the echoing halls of his mind, and brought into them the +bric-a-brac of the thought of the ages. Now, from that brief experience, +he could gaze with nearer understanding at this young man who regarded +the pathway of the moon reflecting in a narrow line across a sandbar and +in a wide dancing of cold blue flames upon the waters, as an important +thing to remember; who recorded the wavering flight of the nigger geese, +or cormorants, as compared to the magnificent V-figure, straight drive +of the Canadians and the other huge water fowl; who paused to seize such +simple terms as "jump line," "dough-bait," "snag line," "reef line," as +though his life might depend on his verbal accuracy. + +The Prophet pondered. The Mississippi had taught him many lessons. He +was beginning to look for the lesson in casual phenomena, and when he +said so to Terabon, the writer stared at him with open mouth. + +"Why--that explains!" Terabon gasped. + +"Explains what?" + +"The heathen who was awed by the myriad impressions of Nature, and who +learned, by hard experience, that he must not neglect even the +apparently trivial things lest he suffer disaster." + +Then Terabon fell to writing even more furiously in his day-by-day +journal, for that was something of this moment, although he has just +jotted down the renewed impression of coming into the bottoms at Cape +Girardeau. Rasba took up the pages of the notes which Terabon was +rewriting. Happily, Terabon's writing was like copper-plate script, +however fast he wrote, and the mountain man read: + + Big hickory tree grove--Columbus Hickories--Largest cane in some + bend down below Helena--Spanish Moss bend--famous river + bend--Fisherman at Brickey's Mill told of hoop nets, trammels, + seines (stillwater bayous), jump, hand, snag, reef, lines----Jugging + for catfish down the crossings, half pound pork, or meat, for bait, + also called "blocking" for catfish. + +"What will you do with all this?" Rasba asked. + +"Why, I'll----" Terabon hesitated, and then continued: "It's like +building a house. I gather all this material: lumber, stone, logs, +cement, shingles, lathes, quick-lime, bricks, and everything. I store it +all up in this notebook; that's my lumber yard. Then when I dig the +foundation, I'll come in here and I'll find the things I need to build +my house, or mansion. Of course, to start with, I'll just build little +shacks and cabins. See what I mean? I am going to write articles first +and they're kind of like barns and shacks, and even mere fences. But by +and by I'll write fiction stories, and they will be like the mansions, +and the material will all fit in: all about a fisherman, all about a +market hunter, all about a drifter, all about a river----" + +"All about a river woman?" Rasba asked, as he hesitated. + +"I wasn't thinking that." Terabon shook his head, his colour coming a +little. "I had in mind, all about a River Prophet!" + +"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "What could you all find to write about a Riveh +Prophet?" + +Terabon looked at the stern, kindly, friendly, picturesque mountaineer +who had come so far to find one man, for that man's mother, and he +rejoiced in his heart to think that the parson did not know, could never +know, because of the honest simplicity of his heart, how extraordinarily +interesting he was. + +So they drifted with the current, absorbed in their immediate present. +It seemed as though they found their comprehension expanding and +widening till it encompassed the answers to a thousand questions. Rasba, +dazed by his own accretion of new interests, discovery of undreamed-of +powers, seizure of opportunities never known before, could but gaze with +awe and thankfulness at the evidences of his great good fortune, the +blessings that were his in spite of his wondering why one of so little +desert had received such bountiful favour. Terabon, remembering what he +feared was irrevocably lost, knew that he had escaped disaster, and that +the pile of notes which he had made only to be deprived of them were +after all of less importance than that he should have suffered the deep +emotion of seeing so much of his toil and time vanish. + +Here it was again--Rasba might well wonder at that gathering and +hoarding of trifles. They were not the important things, those minute +words and facts and points; no, indeed. + +At last Terabon knew that most important fact of all that it was the +emotions that counted. As a mere spectator, he could never hope to know +the Mississippi, to describe and write it truly; the river had forced +him into the activities of the river life, and had done him by that act +its finest service. + +He was in the fervour of his most recent discovery when Rasba went out +on the bow deck and looked into the night. He called Terabon a minute +later, and the two looked at a phenomenon. The west was aglow, like a +sunset, but with flarings and flashings instead of slowly changing +lights and hues. The light under the clouds at the horizon extended +through 90 degrees of the compass, and in the centre of the bright +greenish flare there was a compact, black, apparently solid mass from +which streaks of lightning constantly exuded on all sides. + +For a minute Terabon stared, cold chills goose-pimpling his flesh. Then +he cried: + +"Cyclone, Parson! Get ready!" + +They were opposite the head of a long bend near the end of a big +sandbar, and skirting the edge of an eddy, near its foot. Terabon sprang +into the gasolene launch, started the motor, and steered for the shelter +of the west bank. In the quiet he and Rasba told each other what to do. + +Rasba ran out two big anchors with big mooring lines tied to them. He +closed the bow door but opened all the windows and other doors. Then, as +they heard the storm coming, they covered the launch with the heavy +canvas, heaved over the anchors into a fathom of water, let out long +lines, and played the launch out over the stern on a heavy line fast to +towing bits. + +A sweep of hail and rain was followed by a moment of calm. Then a blast +of wind, which scraped over the cabin roof, was succeeded by the suck of +the tornado, which swept, a waterspout, across the river a quarter of a +mile down stream, struck a sandbar, and carried up a golden yellow cloud +of dust, which disappeared in the gray blackness of a terrific downpour +of rain. + +They stretched out on their anchor lines till the whole fabric of the +cabin hummed and crackled with the strain, but the lines held, and the +windows being open, prevented the semi-vacuum created by the storm's +passing from "exploding" the boat, and tearing off the cabin, or the +roof. + +After the varying gusts and blasts the wind settled down, colder by +forty degrees, and with the steady white of a norther. It meant days and +nights of waiting while the storm blew itself out. And when the danger +had passed and the boats were safe against the lines, the two men turned +in to sleep, more tired after their adventures than they remembered ever +being before. + +In the morning rain was falling intermittently with some sleet, but +toward afternoon there was just a cold wind. They built hot fires in +their heater, burning coal with which the gamblers had filled bow and +stern bins from coal barges somewhere up the river. Having plenty to eat +on board, there was nothing to worry them. + +Terabon, his fountain pen racing, wrote for his own distant Sunday +Editor a narrative which excited the compiler of the Magazine Supplement +to deep oaths of admiration for the fertile, prolific imagination of +the wandering writer--for who would believe in a romance ready made? + +The night of the big wind was followed by a day and a night of gusts of +wind and sleety rain; then followed a day and a night of rising clouds, +then a day when the clouds were scattered and the sun was cold. That day +the sunset was grim, white, and freezing cold. + +In the morning there was a bright, warm sunrise, a breath of sweet, soft +air, and unimaginable brightness and buoyancy, birds singing, squirrels +barking, and all the dismal pangs banished. + +Shanty-boats shot out into the gay river and dotted the wide surface up +and down the current for miles. The ears of the parson and the writer, +keener with the acuteness of distant sounds, could hear music from a +boat so far away that they could not see it, a wonderfully enchanting +experience. + +They, too, ran out into the flood of sunshine to float down with the +rest. + +At the foot of Brandywine Bar a little cabin-boat suddenly rowed out +into the current and signalled them; somebody recognized and wanted to +speak to the mission boat. They were rapidly sucking down the swift +chute current, but Terabon turned over the motor, and flanked the big +houseboat across the current so that the hail could be answered. + +The little cabin-boat, almost lost to view astern, rapidly gained, and +as they ran down Beef Island chute, where the current is slow, they were +overtaken. + +"Sho!" Parson Rasba cried aloud, "hit's Missy Carline, Missy Nelia, +shore as I'm borned!" + +Terabon had known it for half an hour. He had been noticing river +details, and he could not fail to recognize that little boat. His hands +trembled as he steered the launch to take advantage of slack current and +dead water, and his throat choked with an emotion which he controlled +with difficulty. He looked fearfully at the gaunt River Prophet whose +own cheeks were staining with warm blood, and whose eyes gazed so keenly +at the young woman who was coming, leaning to her sweeps with Viking +grace and abandon. + +She was coming to _them_, with the fatalistic certainty that is so +astonishing to the student observer. Carried away by her sottish +husband; threatened by the tornado; rescued, perhaps, by the storm from +worse jeopardy, caught in safety under an island sandbar; her eyes, +sweeping the lonesome breadths of the flowing river-sea, had seen and +recognized her friend's boat, the floating mission, and pulled to join +safe company. + +She rowed up, with her eyes on the Prophet. He stood there in his +majesty while Terabon stooped unnoticed in the engine pit of the +motorboat. Not till she had run down near enough to throw a line did she +take her eyes off the mountain parson, and then she turned and looked +into the eyes, dumb with misery, of the other man, Terabon. + +Her cheeks, red with her exertions, turned white. Three days she had +read that heap of notes in loose-leaf file which Terabon had written. +She had read the lines and between the lines, facts and ideas, +descriptions and reminiscence, dialogue and history, statistics and +appreciation of a thousand river things, all viewpoints, including her +own. + +She knew, now, how wicked she was. She knew, now, the wilfulness of her +sins, and the merciful interposition of the river's inviolable strength. +Her sight of the mission boat had awakened in her soul the knowledge +that she must go out and talk to the good man on board, confess her +naughtiness, and beg the Prophet for instruction. Woman-like, she knew +what the outcome would be. + +He would take her, protect her, and there would be some way out of the +predicament in which they both found themselves. But again she reckoned +without the river. How could she know that Terabon and he had come down +the Mississippi together? + +But there he was, chauffeuring for the Prophet! + +She threw the line, Rasba caught it, drew the two boats together and +made them fast. He welcomed her as a father might have welcomed a +favourite child. He threw over the anchor, and Terabon dropped the +launch back to the stern, and hung it there on a light line. + +When he entered the big cabin Nelia was sitting beside a table, and +Rasba was leaning against the shelves which he had put up for the books. +Nelia, dumbfounded, had said little or nothing. When she glanced up at +Terabon, she looked away again, quickly, flushing. + +She was lost now. That was her feeling. Her defiance and her courage +seemed to have utterly left her, and in those bitter days of cold wind +and clammy rain, sleet and discomfort had changed the outlook of +everything. + +Married, without a husband; capable of great love, and yet sure that she +must never love; two lovers and an unhappy marriage between her and +happiness; a mind made up to sin, wantonly, and a soul that taunted her +with a life-time of struggle against sordidness. The two men saw her +burst into tears and cry out in an agony of spirit. + +Dumbly they stood there, man-like, not knowing what to do, or what +thought was in the woman's mind. The Prophet Rasba, his face full of +compassion, turned from her and went aft through the alley into the +kitchen, closing the doors behind him. He knew, and with knowledge he +accepted the river fate. + +Terabon went to her, and gave her comfort. He talked to her as a lover +should when his sweetheart is in misery, her heart breaking. And she +accepted his gentleness, and sobbed out the impossibility of everything, +while she clung to him. + +Within the hour they had plighted troth, regardless. She confessed to +her lover, instead of to the Prophet. He said he didn't care, and she +said she didn't care, either--which was mutually satisfactory. + +When they went out to Parson Rasba, they found him calmly reading one of +the books which she had given him. He looked up at their red faces and +smiled with indulgence. They would never know what went on inside his +heart, what was in his mind behind that kindly smile. That he knew and +understood everything was clear to them, but they did not and would not +have believed that he had, for a minute, hated Terabon as standing +between him and happiness. + +"What are we going to do?" Terabon cried, when he had told the Parson +that they loved each other, that they would complete the voyage down the +river together, that her husband still lived, and that they could get a +$17.50 divorce at Memphis. + +"Hit wouldn't be no 'count, that divorce." The Prophet shrugged his +shoulders, and the two hung their heads. They knew it, and yet they had +been willing to plead ignorance as an excuse for sin. + +He seemed to close the incident by suggesting that it was time to eat +something, and the three turned to getting a square meal. They cooked a +bountiful dinner, and sat down to it, the Prophet asking a blessing that +seared the hearts of the two because of its fervour. + +Rasba asked her to read to them after they had cleared up the dishes, +and she took down the familiar volumes and read. Rasba sat with his eyes +closed, listening. Terabon watched her face. She seemed to choose the +pages at random, and read haphazardly, but it was all delight and all +poetry. + +She was reading, which was strange, the Humphrey-Abbott book about the +Mississippi River levees, the classic report on river facts, all +fascinating to the mind that grasps with pleasure any river fact. When +Rasba looked up and smiled, the two were absorbed in their occupations, +one reading, the other watching her read. She stopped in conscious +confusion. + +"Yas, suh!" he smiled aloud. "I 'low we uns can leave hit to Old +Mississip', these yeah things that trouble us: I, my triflin' doubts, +and you children yo' own don't-know-yets." + +What made him say that, if he wasn't a River Prophet? Who told him, what +voice informed him, at that moment? Who can say? + +The following morning the big mission boat and Missy Nelia's boat landed +in at Memphis wharf, and the three went up town to buy groceries, +newspapers and magazines to read, and to help Nelia choose another set +of books from the shelves of local book stores. Old Rasba had never been +in a book store before, and he stared at the hundreds of feet of +shelves, with books of all sizes, kinds, and makes. + +"Sho!" he cried aloud, and then, again, "Sho! Sho!" + +It was fairyland for him, a land of enchantment, of impossible +satisfaction and glory-be! Terabon and Nelia saw that they had given him +another pleasure, and Rasba was happy to know that he would always be +able to visit such places, and add to his own store of literature, when +he had read the books which he had, as he would do, page by page, and +word by word, his dictionary at hand. + +Magazines and newspapers had little interest for him. Nelia and Terabon +could not help but wish to keep closer in touch with the world. They +picked up a copy of the _Trade-Appealer_, and then a copy of the +_Evening Battle Ax_, just out. + +They read one headline: + + UNKNOWN DROWNS IN CRUISER + +It was a brutally frank description of a motorboat cruiser which had +floated down Hopefield Bend, awash and waterlogged, but held afloat by +air-tight tanks: + + In the cabin was the body of a man, apparently about 30 years of + age, with a whiskey jug clasped in one hand by the handle. He was + face downward, and had been dead two or three days. It is supposed + he was caught in the heavy wind-storm of Wednesday night and + drowned. + +The river had planned again. The river had acted again. They went to +look at the boat, which was pumped out and in Ash Slough. It was +Carline's cruiser. Then they went to the morgue, and it was Carline's +body. + +Nelia broke down and cried. After all, one's husband is one's husband. +She did the right thing. She owned him, now, and she carried his remains +back home to Gage, and there she buried him, and wept on his grave. + +She put on widow's weeds for him, and though she might have claimed his +property, she ignored the will which left her all of it, and gave to his +relatives and to her own poor people what was theirs. She gave Parson +Rasba, whom she had brought home with her to bury her husband, $5,000 +for his services. + +Then, after the estate was all settled up, she returned to Memphis, and +Terabon met her at the Union Station, dutifully, as she had told him to +do. Together they went to the City Clerk's and obtained a marriage +license, and the River Prophet, Rasba, with firm voice and unflinching +gaze, united them in wedlock. + +They went aboard their own little shanty-boat, and while the rice and +old shoes of a host of river people rattled and clattered on their +cabin, they drifted out into the current and rapidly slipped away toward +President's Island. Parson Rasba, as they drifted clear, said to them: + +"I 'lowed we uns could leave hit to Old Mississip'!" + +THE END + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS +GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The River Prophet, by Raymond S. 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