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Lester Terabon rowed down the rolling river waters in the dark night. He had, of course, looked out into the Mississippi shades from the security of landing, anchorage, and sandbar; he knew the looks of the night but not the activities of currents and bends when a gale is sweeping by and the air is, by turns, penetrated by the hissing of darting whitecaps and the roar of the blustering winds.
One never does get over that feeling of astonishment when, fifteen hundred miles or so from home, a familiar voice calls one's name in greeting. "Hello!" Terabon replied, heartily, and then shook hands with a market hunter he had met for an hour's gossip in the eddy at St. Louis. "Any luck, Bill? How's Frank?" "Averaging fine," was the answer. "Frank's up town. Going clear down after all, eh?"
She seemed to hear a voice, the river's voice, declare that this thing had happened to prevent her seeking to betray herself and Terabon, not to mention that other matter which did not affect her thought in the least, her husband's honour. The idea of her husband's honour made the thing absurd to her. There was no such thing as that honour.
In spite of Terabon being such a queer duck he made a good companion. He was a good cook, for one thing, and when they landed in below Hickman Bend, he went ashore and killed three squirrels and two black ducks in the woods and marsh beyond the new levee. When he returned, he found a skiff landed near by on the sandbar. Carline was talking to the man, who had just handed over a gallon jug.
She had plotted to get Carline out of the way now that she heard he was clear of the pirates. On second thought, she was sorry that she had been so hasty in returning to the boat, wishing that she had followed up Terabon. She walked out onto the bow deck, and standing in the dark, with her door closed, looked up and down the slough. A dozen boats were in sight.
They put him in his bunk, and Terabon, his skiff towing astern, steered out into the main current and soon faded down by Craighead Point Bar. "I knowed he'd be all right," Despard declared. "He'll take him down to Memphis, and out of our way. I'd 'a' hated to kill him; it ain't no use killin' a man less'n it's necessary. We got what we was after.
Terabon's friend the cotton broker fled with the rest, Carline disappeared, but Terabon went to headquarters, writing in his pocket notebook the details of this rare and wonderful tragedy. Policeman Laddam had single-handed charged and captured the last citadel of Mendova vice, and the other policemen, when they looked at him, wore expressions of wonder and bewilderment.
"Well, that's one way," Carline replied, doubtfully. "If I owned this old river, you could buy it for two cents." Terabon laughed, and after a minute Carline joined in, but he had told the truth. He hated the river, and he was cowed by it; yet he could not escape its clutches. "I fancy it hasn't always treated you right," Terabon remarked. "Treated me right!"
"We 'lowed we'd stop into Mendova. You stop in there an' see Palura; he'll treat you right. He was in the riveh hisse'f once. You talk to him " "What did Terabon and Mr. Carline go on in? What kind of a boat?" "A gasolene cruiser." "Did he say where he'd be?" "Terabon? No. Ask into Mendova or into Memphis. They can likely tell." "Thank you, boys!
The pirates awaited her pleasure, staring at her to their heart's content. They envied her husband and Terabon; they felt the strangeness of the situation. She was following those two men down. She was part of the river tide, drifting by; she had shot Prebol, their pal, and had cleverly ascertained their knowledge of him while insuring that they had fair warning.
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