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While yet the question echoed in his expanding soul he hailed a passing skiff: "Strangeh! How fur now is it to the Mississippi River?" "Theh 'tis!" the man cried, pointing down the current. "Down by that air willer point!" Those first free days on the Mississippi River revealed to Nelia Crele a woman she had never known before.
"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.
"Say, boys, do you know if Terabon and Carline landed here to-night?" "We just landed in," one answered. "I don't know." "Going up town?" "Yes " "I want to know about them " "Hit's Nelia Crele!" one exclaimed. "That's right. Hello, boys Despard Jet Cope!" "Sure! When'd you land?" "Late this evening; I was up to Palura's when " "That ain't no place fo' a lady."
He had in play, in intellectual persiflage, and with some show of traditional reasonableness, called Nelia Crele "a river goddess." Lester Terabon accepted the possibility of river lore and proclaimed beliefs.
"Two ladies is mostly safe down thisaway." "My name's Nelia Crele. We used to live up by Gage, on the Bottoms " "Sho! Co'se I know Ole Jim Crele, an' his woman. My name's Mrs. Tons. We stopped in thah 'bout six weeks ago. I hearn say yo'd yo'd married right well!" "Umph!" Nelia shrugged her shoulders, "Liquor spoils many a home!"
For an hour he babbled and then, as precipitately as he had arrived, he took his departure. When he was gone, Nelia Crele turned to Terabon with helpless dismay. Augustus Carline was worthless; he had been faithless to her; he had inflicted sufferings beyond her power of punishment or forgiveness. "But he's looking for me!" she recapitulated, "and he doesn't know.
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.
Neither his Bible nor his hurried glances from book to book which Nelia Crele had given him brought any suggestion which seemed feasible. His father had always declared that a sermon, to be effective, "must have one bullet fired straight."
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?"
"Yes, and they scattered with my skiff, too, and probably robbed Carline of his boat " "Carline! You know him?" "I came down with him from Yankee Bar, and we went up to Palura's together. I lost him in the shuffle, when the big cop killed Palura." "And Mrs. Carline, Nelia Crele?" Rasba demanded. "Why I they said she'd landed in. She's gone, too " "You know her?" "Why, yes I "
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