k," she had said, and while he
followed her on board the boat, with the two big black ducks to help
prepare, he wondered and remembered and, in spite of his life-long
avoidance of all appearance of evil, submitted to this irresistible
circumstance, wherever it might lead.

So he built the fire in her kitchen stove. She mixed up dressing and
seasoned the birds, made biscuit batter for hot-bread, brought out
stacks and stores of things to eat, or to eat with, and they set the
table, ground the coffee, and got the oven hot for the roasting and
baking.

One thing took the curse off their position: They had to have all the
windows and doors wide open so that they seemed fairly to be cooking on
an open sandbar at the edge of the river. Terabon took an inward
satisfaction in that fact. It is not possible to feel exceedingly wicked
or depraved when there is a mile-wide Mississippi on the one hand and a
mile-wide sandbar on the other side, and the sun is shining calmly upon
the bright and innocent waters.

As the ducks were young and tender, their cooking took but an hour, or a
little more, and the interim was occupied in the countless things that
must be done to prepare even a shanty-boat feast. He stirred some
cranberry sauce, and she had to baste the ducks, get the flour stirred
with water, and condensed cream for gravy, besides setting the table and
raising the biscuits, to have them ready for the ducks. She must needs
wonder if she'd forgotten the salt, and for ten minutes she was almost
in a panic at the thought, while he watched her in breathless
wonderment, and took covert glances up the Mississippi River, fearful
of, and yet almost wishing to see, that pursuing motorboat come into
view.

When at last the smoking viands were on the ample table and they sat
with their knees under it, and he began to carve the ducks and dish out
the unblessed meal, he glanced up stream through the cabin window on his
right. He caught a glimpse of a window pane flashing miles distant in
the light of the setting sun--the whiskey boat without doubt. He saw a
flock of ducks coming like a great serpent just above the river surface,
then a shadow lifted as out of the river, swept up the trees in the lost
section of Kentucky opposite, and from spattering gold the scene turned
to blue which rapidly became purple, darkening visibly.

Through the open doors and windows swept the chill of twilight, and
while she lighted the big lamp he did her