. Dobstan an' her two
darters, an' this is Mr. Falteau, who's French and married May, there,
an' this feller--say, mister, what is yo' name?"

"Rasba, Elijah Rasba."

"Mr. Rasba, he's a parson, out'n the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy, comin'
down. Miss Nelia Crele, suh. I disremember the name of that feller yo'
married, Nelia."

"It doesn't matter," Nelia turned to the mountain man, her face
flushing. "A preacher down this river?"

"I'm looking for a man," Rasba replied, gazing at her, "the son of a
widow woman, and she's afraid for him. She's afraid he'll go wrong."

"And you came clear down here to look for him--a thousand, two thousand
miles?" she continued, quickly.

"I had nothing else to do--but that!" he shook his head. "You see,
missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!"

He turned and walked away with bowed head. They all watched him with
quick comprehension and real sympathy.

CHAPTER XI

Jest Prebol, sore and sick with his bullet wound, but more alarmed on
account of having sworn so much while a parson was dressing his injury,
could not sleep, and as he thought it over he determined at last to cut
loose and drop on down the river and land in somewhere among friends, or
where he could find a doctor. But the practised hand of Rasba had
apparently left little to do, and it was superstitious dread that
worried Prebol.

So the river rat crept out on the sandbar, cast off the lines, and with
a pole in one hand, succeeded in pushing out into the eddy where the
shanty-boat drifted into the main current. Prebol, faint and weary with
his exertions, fell upon his bunk. There in anguish, delirious at
intervals, and weak with misery, he floated down reach, crossing, and
bend, without light or signal. In olden days that would have been
suicide. Now the river was deserted and no steamers passed him up or
down. His cabin-boat, but a rectangular shade amidst the river shadows,
drifted like a leaf or chip, with no sound except when a coiling jet
from the bottom suckled around the corners or rippled along the sides.

The current carried him nearly six miles an hour, but two or three times
his boat ran out of the channel and circled around in an eddy, and then
dropped on down again. Morning found him in mid-stream, between two
wooded banks, as wild as primeval wilderness, apparently. The sun, which
rose in a white mist, struck through at last, and the soft light poured
in first on one side then on the other as the boat swirl