uch about doin' good, an' missionaryin', an' River
Prophetin'."

When Prebol's voice showed the strain of talking Rasba bade him rest.
Then he went over to the big boat, a gift that would have sold for
$1,000. He looked at the crap table, the little poker tables with the
brass-slot kitties; he stared at the cabinet of cards and dice.

"All mine!" he said.

He walked out on the deck where he could commune with the river, using
his eyes, his ears, and the feeling that the warm afternoon gave him.
The sun shone upon him, and made a narrow pathway across the rushing
torrent. The sky was blue and cloudless. Of the cold, the wind, the sea
of liquid mud, not one trace remained.

He looked down and up the river, and his eyes caught a flicker which
became a flutter, like the agitation of a duck preening its feathers on
a smooth surface.

He watched it for a long time. He did not know what it was. As a river
man, his curiosity was excited, but there was something more than mere
curiosity; the river instinct that the inexplicable and unknown should
be watched and inquired into moved him almost unconsciously to watch
that distant agitation which became a dot afloat in a mirage of light. A
little later a sudden flash along the river surface disclosed that the
thing was a shanty-boat turning in the coiling currents at the bend.

The sun drew nearer the tree tops. The little cabin-boat was seeking a
place to land or anchor for the night. If it was an old river man, the
boat would drop into some little eddy at Caruthersville or down below;
but a stranger on the river would likely shoot across into the gamblers'
eddy tempted, perhaps, by the three boats already there.

The boat drew swiftly near, and as it ran down, the navigator rowed to
make the shanty-boat eddy. Parson Rasba discovered that it was a woman
at the sweeps, and a few strokes later he knew that it was a slim, young
woman. When she coasted down outside the eddy, to swing in at the foot,
and arrived opposite him, he recognized her.

"God he'p me!" he choked, "hit's Missy Nelia. Hit's Missy Nelia! An'
she's a runned away married woman--an' theh's the man she shot!"

"Hello-o, Parson!" she hailed him, "did you see a skiff with a reporter
man drop by?"

"No, missy!" he shook his head, his heart giving a painful thump

"I'm a-landing in, Parson!" she cried. "I want to talk with you!"

With that she leaned forward, drove the sweeps deep, and her boat
started in lik