"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 sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l. 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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!"

"Ya.s.suh," 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 partic.i.p.ator 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 crava.s.se; 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 gla.s.s, 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 h.e.l.l!" 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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.sured. 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 a.s.serting its weight. With the wind's help over the stern, Terabon swiftly pa.s.sed 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.