ught you off of Columbus bluffs, and you
drifted in yeah; jes' keep a-floatin' an' d'rectly you'll see Old
Mississip' down thataway."

"It's near night," Rasba remarked, looking at the sun through the trees.
"I'm a stranger down thisaway; mout I get to stay theh?"

"Yo' can land anywhere's," the man said. "No man can stop you all!"

"But a woman mout!" Rasba exclaimed, with sudden humour. "Yistehd'y
evenin', up yonway, by the Ohio River, I found a man shot through into
his shanty-boat. He said he 'lowed to land along of the same eddy with a
woman, an' she shot him almost daid!"

"Ho law!" the fisherman cried, and another man and three or four women
drew near to hear the rest of the narrative. "How come hit?"

Rasba stood there talking to them, a speaker to an audience. He told of
his floating down into the Mississippi, and of his surprise at finding
the river so large, so without end. He said he kind of wanted to ask the
way of a shanty-boat, for a poor sinner must needs inquire of those he
finds in the wilderness, and he heard a groan and a weak cry for help.

"I cyard for him, and he thanked me kindly; he said a woman had shot him
when he was trying to be friendly; a pretty woman, young and alone.
Co'rse, I washed his wound and I linimented it, and I cut the bullet out
of his back; law me, but that man swore! Come night, an' he heard say I
was a parson, he apologized because he cursed, and this mo'nin' he'd
done lit out, yas, suh! Neveh no good-bye. Scairt, likely, hearin' me
pray theh because I needed he'p, an' 'count of me being glad of the
chanct to he'p any man in trouble."

"Sho! Who all mout that man be, Parson?"

"He said his name were Jest Prebol----"

"Ho law! Somebody done plugged Jest Prebol!" one of the women cried out,
laughing. "That scoundrel's be'n layin' off to git shot this long time,
an' so he's got hit. I bet he won't think he's so winnin' of purty women
no more! He's bad, that man, gamblin' an' shootin' craps an' workin' the
banks. Served him right, yes, indeedy. But he'd shore hate to know a
parson hearn him cussin' an' swearin' around. Hit don't bring a gambler
any luck, bein' heard swearin', no."

"Nor if any one else hears him; not if he thinks swearin' in hisn's
heart!" Rasba shook his head gravely. "How come hit yo' know that man?"

"He's used down this riveh ten-fifteen years; besides, he married my
sister what's Mrs. Dollis now. Hit were a long time ago, though, 'fore
anybody k