"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 h.e.l.l of a while," a man jeered, facetiously.

"Suttingly. An' when hit's through, yo'll think of h.e.l.l jes' as long,"

Rasba retorted, with asperity, and his wit turned the laugh into a cheer.

The fleet anch.o.r.ed 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sailed 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 sh.o.r.e.

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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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.

"h.e.l.lo!" 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?"