, 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 Terab