ats there her heart leaped exultantly.

No less than a score of boats were landed along the eddy bank, and
instantly her eyes fell upon first one and then another that would serve
her purpose. She walked down to the uppermost of the boats, and hailed
from the bank:

"U-whoo!"

A lank, stoop-shouldered woman emerged from the craft and fixed the
well-favoured young woman with keen, bright eyes.

"You-all know if there's a shanty-boat here for sale--cheap?" Nelia
asked, without eagerness.

The woman looked at the bank, reflectively.

"I expect," she admitted at last. "This un yaint, but theh's two spo'ts
down b'low, that's quittin' the riveh, that blue boat theh, but theh's
spo'ts."

"I 'lowed they mout be," Nelia dropped into her childhood vernacular as
she looked down the bank, "Likely yo' mout he'p me bargain, er
somebody?"

"I 'low I could!" the river woman replied. "Me an' my ole man he'ped a
feller up to St. Louis, awhile back, who was green on the river, but he
let us kind of p'int out what he'd need fo' a skift trip down this away.
Real friendly feller, kind of city-like, an' sort of out'n the country,
too. 'Lowed he was a writin' feller, fer magazines an' books an'
histries an' them kind of things. Lawsy! He could ask questions, four
hundred kinds of questions, an' writin' hit all down into a writin'
machine onto paper. We shore told him a heap an' a passel, an' he writes
mornin' an' nights. Lots of curius fellers on Ole Mississip'. We'll sort
of look aroun'. Co'se, yo' got a man to go 'long?"

"No."

"Wha-a-t! Yo' ain' goin' to trip down alone?"

"I might's well."

"But, goodness, gracious sake, you're pretty, pretty as a picture! I
'lowed yo' had a man scoutin' aroun'. Why somethin' mout happen to a
lady, if she didn't have a man or know how to take cyar of herse'f."

Nelia shrugged her shoulders. Mrs. Tons, the river woman, gazed for a
minute at the pretty, partly averted face. It was almost desperate,
quite reckless, and by the expression, the river woman understood. She
thought in silence, for a minute, and then looked down the eddy at a
boat some distance away.

"Theh's a boat. Like the looks of it?"

"It's a fine boat, I 'low," Nelia said. "Fresh painted."

"Hit's new," the woman said.

"Is it for sale?"

"We'll jes walk down thataway," the river woman suggested. "Two ladies
is mostly safe down thisaway."

"My name's Nelia Crele. We used to live up by Gage, on the Bottoms----"

"