her eyes narrowing. Brankeau from the
wideness of his experience, laughed. She, an instant later, laughed,
too.

"So you settled the question between you?" he suggested, "I thought from
the newspapers he hadn't suspicioned--this paper--um-m!"

"It's not a forgery, Mr. Brankeau," she assured him. "He was one of
those gay sports, you know, and, for a change, he sported around with
me, once. I came away between days. You know his failing."

"Several of them, especially drink," the man nodded "It's in cash?"

"Every dollar, taken through his own banks, on his own orders."

"And you want?"

"Railroads, and some good industrial or two. Here's the amount----"

She handed him a neatly written note. He took out a little green covered
book, showing lists of stocks, range of prices, condition of companies,
and, together, they made out a list. When they had finished it, he read
it into the telephone.

Within an hour the stocks had been purchased, and a week later, he
handed her the certificates. She rented a safe deposit box and put them
into it, subject only to her own use and purposes.

"Thank you, Mr. Brankeau," she said, and turned to leave.

"Where are you stopping?" he asked.

"I'm a shanty-boater."

"You mean it? Not alone?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"I wish I were twenty years younger," he mourned.

"Do you, why?" she looked at him, and, turning, fled.

He caught up his top-coat and hat, but he went to the Ohio River,
instead of to the Mississippi, where Nelia stood doubtfully staring down
at her boat from the top of the big city levee.

At last, she cast off her lines and dropped on down into The Forks.

She sat on the bow deck of her boat, looking at the place where the
pale, greenish Ohio waters mingled with the tawny Missouri flood.

A gleam of gold drew her attention, as she glanced downward and she was
startled to see her wedding ring, with its guard ring, still on her left
hand; it had never been off since the day her husband placed it there.

For a minute she looked at it, and then deliberately, with sustained
calmness, removed the thin guard, and slipped the ring from its place.
She put it upon the same finger of her right hand, where it was snug and
the guard was not necessary.

CHAPTER IX

A whisper, that became a rumour, which became a report, reached Gage and
found the ears of Augustus Carline, whose wife had disappeared sometime
previously. After two wild days of drinking Carli