out
shame. "I 'low if she was a-picking, she'd 'a' had the pick."

Cold rage alternated with hot fear in the mind of Gus Carline. If she
had gone alone, he might yet overtake her; on the other hand, if she had
gone with some man, he was in honour bound to kill that man. He was
sensitive, now, on points of honour. The Widow Plosell, having succeeded
in creating a favourable condition, from her viewpoint, sought to take
advantage of it. She was, however, obliged to go seeking her recent
admirer, only to discover that he blamed her--as men do--for his
trouble. She consulted a lawyer to see if she could not obtain financial
redress for her unhappy position, only to learn of her own financial
danger should Mrs. Carline determine upon legal revenge.

Carline, between trying to convince himself that he was the victim of
fate and the innocent sufferer from a domestic tragedy brought upon
himself by events over which he had no control, fell to hating liquor as
the chief cause of his discomfiture.

Then a whisper that became a rumour, which at last seemed to be a fact,
said that Nelia Carline was somewhere down Old Mississip'. Someone who
knew her by sight was reported to have seen her in Cape Girardeau, and
the husband raced down there in his automobile to see if he could not
learn something about the missing woman, whose absence now proved what a
place she had filled in his heart.

There was no doubt of it. Nelia had been there, but no one had happened
to think to tell Carline about it. She had landed in a pretty
shanty-boat, the wharf-master said, and had pulled out just before a
river man in a brick-red cabin-boat of small size had left the eddy. The
river man had dropped in just behind her, and, according to the
wharf-master:

"I shore kept my eyes on that man, for he was a riveh rat!"

The thought was sickening to Carline. His wife floating down the river
with a river rat close behind presented but two explanations: she was
being followed for crime, or the two were just flirting on the river,
together.

He bought a pretty 28-foot motorboat, 22-inch draft with a 7-foot beam
and a raised deck cabin. Having stocked up with supplies, he started
down the Ohio to find his woman.

He could not tell what his intention was, not even to himself; his mind,
long weakened and depraved by liquor, lacked clarity of thought and
distinctiveness of purpose. One hour he raged with anger, and murder
blackened his heart; another minut