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 doc.u.ments 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sured 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 d.i.c.k 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.