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Buck turned away, bent and shivering. "I 'low I'll roast up them squirrels fo' dinner?" Slip suggested. "They'll shore go good!" Buck assented. "I'll mux around some hot-bread, an' some gravy." "I got to make some meat soup for that feller, too." "Huh! Jest Prebol's one of them damned fools what tried to forget a woman among women," Buck sneered.
"I've tripped down with all kinds," Prebol grinned as he spoke, "but this yeah's the firstest time I eveh did get to pilot a mission boat." "If you take it through in safety, do yo' reckon God will forget?" Rasba asked, and Prebol's jaw dropped. He didn't want to be reformed; he had no use for religion. He was very well satisfied with his own way of living.
What makes my heart rejoice is that there's so much goodness around that I bet 'most anybody's got a right smart chanct to get shut of slippin' down the claybanks into hell." "Jest Prebol?" someone asked, seeing Prebol's face in the window of the little red shanty-boat moored close by, where he, too, could listen. "Jest Prebol's been my guide down the riveh," the Prophet retorted.
His years, his life, had been wasted, just as this man Prebol's life was wasted, just as Slip's life was being wasted. Buck gave himself over to the exquisite torture of memories and reflections. He wondered what had become of the woman for love of whom he had let go all holds and degenerated to this heartless occupation of common gambler?
From sun-up till nearly noon, while he made and ate his breakfast, and while he turned to the Scriptures for some hint as to this river man's mind, his thoughts turned again and again to the pictures which Prebol's tales, boastings, whinings, and condition had inspired. He felt his own isolation, strangeness, and ignorance.
When in the full tide of the sunshine he awakened, he went about his menial tasks, attending Prebol, cleaning out the boats, shaking up the beds, hanging the bedclothes to air in the sun, and getting breakfast. On Prebol's suggestion he moved the fleet of boats out into the eddy, for the river was falling and they might ground.
"Why shouldn't I have?" Buck started up from shuffling and throwing a book of cards. "Look't me. If Jest Prebol's shot most daid by a woman, look't me. Do you know me where I come from, where the hell I'm goin'? Yo' bet you don't. I've been shanty-boatin' fifteen years, but I ain't always been a shanty-boater, no, I haven't. Talk to me about women. When I think what I've took from one woman Sho!"
The doctor said Prebol ought to go into the hospital for at least a week, and Terabon found Prebol's pirate friends, hidden up the slough on their boat, not venturing to go out except at night. They took the little red shanty-boat up the slough, and Prebol went to the hospital.
"Yas, suh the short eddy." "Much obliged, Doc. Co'se I'll pay yo' " "Your friend's paid!" "Yas, suh," Prebol whispered, sleepily, tired by the exertion and excitement. "Sleep'll do him good," the doctor said, and returned to his little motorboat. The young man went on board his own boat which was moored just below Prebol's.
Then Rasba cast off his tow lines, ran the launch back to the fleet, and made it fast to the port bow of the big boat, so that it was part of the fleet, with its power available to shove ahead or astern. A big oar on the mission boat's bow and another one out from Prebol's boat insured a short turn if it should be necessary to swing the boats around either way.
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