Crele, this is Frank Commer. His bo’t’s fo’ sale, an’ he’ll take $75 cash, for everything, ropes, anchor, stoves, a brass bedstead, an’ everything and I said hit’s reasonable. Hit’s a pine boat, built last fall, and the hull’s sound, with oak framing. Co’se, hit’s small, 22 foot long an’ 7 foot wide, but hit’s cheap.”

“I’ll take it, then,” Nelia nodded.

“You can come look it over,” the man declared. “Tight hull and tight roof. We built it ourselves. But we’re sick of the river, and we’ll sell cheap, right here.”

The three went down to the boat, and Nelia handed him seventy-five dollars in bills. He and his partner, who came down from the town a few minutes later, packed up their personal property in two trunks. They left the dishes and other outfit, including several blankets.

The four talked as the two packed up. One of them suddenly looked sharply at Nelia:

“You dropping down alone?” 20

She hesitated, and then laughed:

“Yes.”

“It’s none of my business,” the man said, doubtfully, “but it’s a mean old river, some ways. A lady alone might get into trouble. River pirates, you know.”

It was a challenge. He was a clear-eyed, honest man, hardly twenty-five years of age, and not an evil type at all. What he had to suggest he did boldly, sure of his right at such a time, under such circumstances, to do. He was entirely likeable. In spite of herself, Nelia wavered for a moment. She knew river people; the woman by her side would have said she would be safer with him than without his protection. There was only one reason why Nelia could not accept that protection.

“I’ll have to take care of myself,” she shook her head, without rebuke to the youth. “You see, I’m running away from a mean scoundrel.”

“Hit’s so,” the river woman approved, and the men took their departure without further comment.

The two women, disapproving the men’s housekeeping, scrubbed the boat and washed all the bedding. Nelia brought down her automobile and the two carried her own outfit on board. Then Nelia took the car back to the garage, and said that she would call for it in the morning.

“All right, Mrs. Carline,” the garage man replied, without suspicion.

Back at the landing, Nelia bade the river woman good-bye.

“I got to be going,” she said, “likely there’ll be a whole pack after me directly––”

“Got a gun?” the woman asked.

“Two,” Nelia smiled. “Bill gave me a goose rifle and Frank let me have this—he said it’s the Law down Old Mississip’!” 21

“The Law” was a 32-calibre automatic pistol in perfect condition.

“Them boys thought a heap of yo’, gal!” The river woman shook her head. “Frank’d sure made you a good man!”

“Oh, I know it,” replied Nelia, “but I’m sick of men—I hate men! I’m going to go droppin’ along, same’s the rest.”

“Don’t let go of that pistol. Theh’s mean, bad men down thisaway, Nelia!”

Nelia laughed, but harshly. “I don’t give a damn for anything now; I tell you that!”

“Don’t forget it. Shoot any man that comes.”

Nelia, who could row a skiff with any one, set her shanty-boat sweeps on their pins, coiled up the two bow lines by which the boat was moored to the bank, and which the river woman untied, then rowed out of the eddy and into the main current.

“It’s good floating right down,” Mrs. Tons called after her, “till yo’ git to Grand Tower Rock—thirty mile!”

The river rapidly widened below Chester, and the little houseboat swung out into mid-stream. Nelia knew the river a little from having been down on a steamer, and the misery she left behind was in contrast to the sense of freedom and independence which she now had.

Stillness, peace, the sense of vast motion in the river torrent comforted her. The moment of embarking alone on the river had been full of nervous tenseness and anxiety, but now those feelings were left behind and she could breathe deeply and confront the future with a calm spirit. The veil that the blue mist of distance left behind her was penetrable by memory, but the future was hidden from her gaze, as it was hidden from her imagination. 22

The determination to dwell in the immediate present caught up her soul with its grim, cold bonds, and as the sun was setting against the sky beyond the long, sky-line of limestone ledges, she entered the cabin, and looked about her with a feeling of home such as she had never had before.

“I’ll stand at the breech of my rifle, to defend it,” she whispered to herself. “Men are mean! I hate men!”

She found a flat book on a shelf which held a half hundred magazines. The book was bound in blue boards, and backed with yellow leather. When she opened it, out of curiosity, she discovered that it was full of maps.

“Those dear boys!” she whispered, almost regretfully. “They left this map book for me, because they knew I’d need it; knew everybody down thisaway needs a map!”

They had done more than that; they had left the equally indispensable “List of Post Lights,” and when dusk fell and she saw a pale yellow light revealed against a bank the little book named it “Wilkinson Island.” She pulled toward the east bank into the deadwater below Lacours Island, cast over her anchor, and came to rest in the dark of a starless night.

In mid-afternoon, the man who had so desperately and as a last resource tested the efficiency of moonshine whiskey as a palliative for mental misery awaked gradually, in confusion of mind and aching of body. Noises filled his ears, and streaking lights blurred the keenness of his eyes. Reason had but little to do with his first thoughts, and feelings had nearly everything. There did not seem to be any possible atonement for him to make. Too late, as it seemed, he realized the enormity of his offence and the bitterness of inevitable punishment.

There remained but one thing for him to do, and that was go away down the rivers and find the fugitive Jock Drones, whose mother feared for him. No other usefulness of purpose remained in his reach. If he stood up, now, before any congregation, the imps of Satan, the patrons of moonshiners, would leer up at him in his pulpit, reminding him that he, too, was one of them.

He went over to the corner of his cabin, raised some planks there and dug down into the earth till he found a jug. He dragged the jug into the cabin and out of it poured the Rasba patrimony, a hidden treasure of gold, which he put into a leather money belt and strapped on. There was not much in the cabin worth taking away, but he packed that little up and made ready for his departure.

It was but a few miles over to Tug River, and he readily engaged a wagon to carry him that far. On the wooded river bank he built a flatboat with his own hands, and covered one end of it with a poplar-wood cabin, purchased at a near-by sawmill. He floated out 24 of the eddy in his shack-boat and began his journey down the rivers to the Mississippi, where he would perform the one task that remained for him to do in the service of God. He would find Jock, give