t, and they sat on
the stern deck, where they looked across the river and the levee to the
roofs of Caruthersville. If they looked at the horizon, their attention
was attracted and their gaze held by the swirling of the river current.
Their eyes could not be drawn away from that tremendous motion, the rush
of a thousand acres of surface; the senses were appalled by the
magnitude of its suggestion.

"Going to play to-night?" Grell asked, uneasily.

"No," Buck replied, instantly.

"So!" the doctor exclaimed.

"Slip's going up on the steamboat."

"For good?"

"So'm I!" Buck continued, breathlessly; "I'm quitting the riveh, too!
I've been down here a good many years. I've been thinking. I'm going
back. I'm going up the bank again."

"What'll you do with the boat?" Grell continued.

"Slip and I've been talking it all over. We're through with it. We
guessed the Prophet, here, could use it. We're going to give it to
him."

"Going to give hit to me!" Rasba started up and stared at the man.

"Yes, Parson; that poplar boat of yours isn't what you need down here."
Buck smiled. "This big pine boat's better; you could preach in this
boat."

Tears started in Rasba's eyes and dripped through his dark whiskers.
Buck and Jock had acted with the impulsiveness of gambling men.
Something in the fact that Rasba had come down those strange miles had
touched them, had given Drones courage to go back and face the music,
and to Buck the desire to return into his old life.

"We're going up on the _Kate_ to-morrow morning," Buck explained.
"Slip'd better show you how to run the gasolene boat if you don't know
how, Parson!"

Dazed by the access of fortune, Rasba spent the mid-afternoon learning
to run the 28-foot gasolene launch which was used to tow the big
houseboat which would make such a wonderful floating church. It was a
big boat only a little more than two years old. Buck had made it
himself, on the Upper Mississippi, for a gambling boat. The frame was
light, and the cabin was built with double boards, with building paper
between, to keep out the cold wintry winds.

"Gentlemen," Rasba choked, looking at the two donors of the gift, "I'm
going to be the best kind of a man I know how----"

"It's your job to be a parson," Buck laughed. "If it wasn't for men like
us, that need reforming, you'd be up against it for something to look
out for. You aren't much used to the river, and I'll suggest that when
you drop down you land