Prebol?"

"Hit'd be friendly," Prebol admitted. "Yo' needn't to sit right
yeah----"

"I 'low I shall," Rasba nodded. "I got some readin' to do. I'll git my
book, an' come back an' set yeah!"

He brought his Bible, and looking up to bid the two good-night, he
smiled.

"Hit's considerable wrestle, readin' this yeah Book! I neveh did git to
understand hit, but likely I can git to know some more now. I've had
right smart of experiences, lately, to he'p me git to know."

CHAPTER XX

Terabon possessed a newspaper man's feeling of aloofness and detachment.
When he went afloat on the Mississippi at St. Louis he had no intention
of becoming a part of the river phenomena, and it did not occur to his
mind that his position might become that of a participator rather than
an observer.

The great river was interesting. It had come to his attention several
years before, when he read Parkman's "La Salle," and a little later
he had read almost a column account of a flood down the Mississippi.
The A. P. had collected items from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Memphis,
Cairo, Natchez, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, and fired
them into the aloof East. New York, Boston, Bangor, Utica, Albany, and
other important centres had learned for the first time that a
"levee"--whatever that might be--had suffered a cravasse; a steamboat
and some towbarges had been wrecked, that Cairo was registering 63.3 on
the gauge; that some Negroes had been drowned; that cattle thieves were
operating in the Overflow, and so on and so forth.

The combination of La Salle's last adventure and the Mississippi flood
caught the fancy of the newspaper man.

"Shall I ever get out there?" Terabon asked himself.

His dream was not of reporting wars, not of exploring Africa, not of
interviewing kings and making presidents in a national convention. Far
from it! His mind caught at the suggestion of singing birds in their
native trees, and he could without regret think of spending days with a
magnifying glass, considering the ant, or worshipping at the stalk of
the flowering lily.

He was astonished, one day, to discover that he had several hundred
dollars in the Chambers Street Savings Bank. It happened that the city
editor called him to the desk a few minutes later and said:

"Go see about this conference."

"You go to hell!" the reporter replied, smilingly, gently replacing the
slip on the greenish desk.

"T-t-t-t-t----" Mr. Dekod sputtered. Ther