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The springy, ten-foot gangplank bridged the gap to the shore. More than thirty shanty-boats and gasolene cruisers were moored along that bank, and from nearly every one peered sharp eyes, taking a look at the newcomers. "Hello, Terabon!" someone hailed, and the newspaper man turned, surprised.
Best of all now, in her great emergency, she knew shanty-boats, and as she gazed at the eddy and saw the fleet of houseboats there her heart leaped exultantly. No less than a score of boats were landed along the eddy bank, and instantly her eyes fell upon first one and then another that would serve her purpose. She walked down to the uppermost of the boats, and hailed from the bank: "U-whoo!"
Mature, now; fearless and, as the word romped through her mind in all its changes, free free! she played with her thoughts. But below Greenleaf Bend, as another day was lost in waning evening, she early sought a sandbar mooring at the foot of Missouri Sister Island, where there were two other shanty-boats, one of them with two children on the sand.
I saw one circus-boat with a ring twenty-five feet in diameter upon it, in which a troop of horsemen, acrobats, and flying trapze artists performed while their boat was tied to a landing. The occupants of the shanty-boats float upon the stream with the current, rarely doing any rowing with their heavy sweeps.
There's three months ahead of us, and scores of shanty-boats float down from Cincinnati to Orleans every fall and winter you know that. Gee! what fun we could have!" and the two boys started at each other for half a dozen seconds without saying a word; but those looks were more eloquent than all the language ever uttered. Then Maurice thrust out his hand impulsively. "Shake!
She saw some shanty-boats down the river; she saw some up the river; but there was none near her till just before dark a motor skiff came down in the day's gray gloom, and passed within a few yards of her. When she looked at the two men in the boats she learned to know what fear is river terror horror of mankind in its last extremities of depravity and heartlessness.
To avoid these rough characters, as well as the drunken crews of shanty-boats, it was necessary always to enter the night's camping- ground unobserved; but when once secreted on the wooded shore of some friendly creek, covered by the dusky shades of night, I felt perfectly safe, and had no fear of a night attack from any one.
In the morning there was a bright, warm sunrise, a breath of sweet, soft air, and unimaginable brightness and buoyancy, birds singing, squirrels barking, and all the dismal pangs banished. Shanty-boats shot out into the gay river and dotted the wide surface up and down the current for miles.
"Yes, I expect it would be an education, if you don't know the river." Doss smiled. They walked over to the river bank. An arc light cast its rays upon the end of the street, down the sloping bank, and in a light circle upon the rocking, muddy waters where the fish dock and several shanty-boats rested against the bank. Doss whistled a little tune as he rested on his cane.
He was wistful for human companionship, but as he looked at the distant shanty-boats, and passed a river town or two, he found himself diffident and shamed. He saw a woman in a blue mother-hubbard dress leaning against the cabin of her low, yellow shanty-boat, a cap a-rake on her head, one elbow resting on her palm, and in the other a long-stemmed Missouri meerschaum.
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