poised ready to plunge on the left bank, and then down the baffling
crossing at Point Pleasant and through the sunny breadths up to
Tiptonville, half sunk in the river, only to fall away toward Little
Cypress--and still no sight of the lost cabin-boat.

In mid-afternoon, weary and worn by sleeplessness and expectancy, he
pulled his boat into the deadwater at the foot of an eddy and having
thrown over his stone anchor, sadly entered his cabin and, without
prayer, subsided into sleep.

If he dreamed he was not awakened to consciousness by his visions. He
slept on in the deep weariness which followed the wakefulness that had
continued through a night of undiminished anxiety into a day of doubt
and increasing despair. It had not occurred to him, in his simplicity,
that the young woman would escape from him. The shadow and the gloom
next to the bank on either side had not suggested his passing by the
object of his intention. His thought was that she must have gone right
on down stream, though he might have divined from his own condition that
she, too, long since must have been weary.

He awakened some time in the morning, after twelve hours or so of
uninterrupted slumber. He turned out into the fascinating darkness of
early morning on the Mississippi. A gust of chill wind swept down out of
the sky, rippling the surface and roaring through the woods up the bank.
The gust was followed by a raw calm and further blanketing of the few
stars that penetrated the veil of mist.

He had in mind the further pursuit of Nelia, and hauling in his anchor
he pulled out into mid-current and then by lamp-light prepared his
breakfast. While he worked, he discovered that dawn was near, and at
lengthening intervals he went out to look ahead, hoping to see the
object of his pursuit. Perhaps he would have gone on down to New
Orleans, only it is not written in Mississippi weather prophecies that
the tenor of one's way shall be even.

He heard wind blowing, and felt his boat bobbing about inexplicably. He
went out to look about him, and in the morning twilight he discovered
that the whole aspect of the Mississippi had changed. With the invisible
sunrise had come an awe-inspiring spectacle which excited in his mind
forebodings and dismay.

First, there was the cold wind which penetrated his clothes and
shrivelled the very meat of his bones. The river's surface, which he had
come to regard as a shimmering, polished floor, was now rumpled and
br