ne suddenly sobered up
when the fact became assured that Nelia had gone and really meant to
remain away, perhaps forever.

The thing that startled him into certainty was the paper which he found
signed by himself, at the bank. He had forgotten all about signing the
papers that night when Nelia had shown herself to be the gayest sport of
them all. Now he found that he had signed away his stocks and bonds, and
that he had given over his cash account.

The amount was startling enough, but it did not include his real estate,
of which about two thirds of his fortune had been composed. If it had
been all stocks and bonds, he thought he would have been left with
nothing. He considered himself at once fortunate and unlucky.

"I never knew the old girl was as lively as that!" he told himself, and
having tasted a feast, he could not regard the Widow Plosell as more
than a lunch, and a light lunch, at that.

Nelia had been easily traced to Chester. Beyond Chester the trail seemed
to indicate that Dick Asunder had eloped with her, but ten days later
Asunder returned home with a bride whom he had married in St. Louis.

Beyond Chester Nelia had left no trace, and there was nothing even to
indicate whether she had taken the river steamer, the railroad train, or
gone into flight with someone who was unknown and unsuspected. When
Carline, sobered and regretful, began to make searching inquiries, he
learned that there were a score, or half a hundred men for whom Old
Crele had acted as a hunter's and fisher's guide. These sportsmen had
come from far and wide during many years, and both Crele and her wistful
mother admitted that many of them had shown signs of interest and even
indications of affection for the girl as a child and as a pretty maid,
daughter of a poor old ne'er-do-well.

"But she was good," Carline cried. "Didn't she tell you she was
going--or where she'd go?"

"Never a word!" the two denied.

"But where would she go?" the frantic husband demanded. "Did she never
talk about going anywhere?"

"Well-l," Old Crele meditated, "peahs like she used to go down an' watch
Ole Mississip' a heap. What'd she use to say, Old Woman? I disremember,
I 'clar I do."

"Why, she was always wishing she knowed where all that river come from
an' where all it'd be goin' to," Mrs. Crele at last recollected.

"But she wouldn't dare--She wouldn't go alone?" Carline choked.

"Prob'ly not, a gal favoured like her," Old Crele admitted, with