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"I thought perhaps you'd like to know that he's getting along all right." "I bet he learnt his lesson," Despard grimaced. "What? I don't just understand." "About bein' impudent to a lady that can shoot straight!" A flicker moved the woman's countenance, and she smiled, oddly. "Oh, any one is likely to make mistakes!" "Darn fools is, Miss Crele. And you Old Crele's girl! He might of knowed!"
Their sins were being visited upon the wicked, and Nelia Crele, since she had not sinned, could not thrill with quite the same terror and despair of the wretches who had sinned in spite of their consciences, instead of through ignorance or wantonness. She took her departure not quite able to understand why there had been so much furore because one man had been killed.
Having rid herself of the leering river rat, Nelia Crele trembled for a time in weak dismay, the reaction from her tense and fiery determination to protect herself at all costs.
She dropped into Cape Girardeau, and sought a man whom she had met at her husband's house. This was Duneau Menard, who had little interest in the Carlines, but who would be a safe counsellor for Nelia Crele. He greeted her with astonishment, and smiles, and told her what she needed to know. "I was just thinking of you, Nelia," he said, "Carline's sure raising a ruction trying to find you.
"Did I git to catch Missy Crele!" he repeated, dazed. "When yo' drapped out'n Wolf Island Chute, Parson, that night she pulled out alone?" "No'm; I lost her down by the Sucks, but she drapped in by Caruthersville an' give me books an' books all fo' my mission boat!" "That big boat yourn?" "Yeh." "Where all was hit built?" "I don' remembeh, but Buck done give hit to me, him an' Jock Drones."
These sportsmen had come from far and wide during many years, and both Crele and her wistful mother admitted that many of them had shown signs of interest and even indications of affection for the girl as a child and as a pretty maid, daughter of a poor old ne'er-do-well. "But she was good," Carline cried. "Didn't she tell you she was going or where she'd go?" "Never a word!" the two denied.
And you it was Crele, Darien Crele said that?" "That's the name Nelia, his daughter." "Yes, sir. I know. I guess I know! She's my wife she was It's her " "You're looking for?" "Yes, sir; she ran away and left me. She came down here." "Kind of a careless girl, I imagine?" "Careless! God, no! The finest woman you ever saw. It was me I was to blame. I never knew, I never knew!"
Ducks in great flocks look like sea serpents when flying close to the water; like islands on it wary birds. That was above the part of the river which she knew; she turned to Kaskaskia, and read facts familiar to her: I met Crele, an old hunter-trapper, in a slough below St. Genevieve. He was talkative, and said he had the prettiest girl on a hundred miles of river.
Of course, taking care of two children on a shanty-boat was a good deal of work and some worry, for one or the other was always falling overboard, but since they had learned to swim it hadn't been so bad, and they could take care of themselves. "You all alone?" Mrs. Disbon asked. "I'm alone," Nelia admitted, having told her name as Nelia Crele. "Well, I don't know as I blame you," Mrs.
I can tell a man by hisns walk half a mile." In surprise she stared at the boat as it came nearer, and then walked down to the edge of the bar to greet the newcomer. "Why, I jes' knowed I'd seen yo' somers! How's yer maw?" she greeted. "Ho law! An' yo's come tripping down Ole Mississip'! I 'clare, now, I'd seen yo', an' I knowed hit, an' hyar yo' be, Nelia Crele.
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