"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 n.o.body."

"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 c.r.a.p table in his cabin and stood them in rows with their lettered backs up. He read their t.i.tles, 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 t.i.tles.

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 h.e.l.l 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 c.r.a.p 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' sh.o.r.e'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.