in eddies sheltered from the west and south
winds. They sure do tear things up sometimes. I've had the roof tore off
a boat I was in, and I saw sixty-three boats sunk at Cairo's Kentucky
shanty-boat town one morning after a big wind."

"I'll keep a-lookin'," Rasba assured him, "but I've kind-a lost the
which-way down heah. One day I had the sun ahead, behind, and both
sides----"

"There's maps in that pile of stuff in the corner," Buck said, going to
the duffle. "You're on Sheet 4 now. Here's Caruthersville."

"Yas, suh. Those red lines?"

"The new survey. You see, that sandbar up in Little Prairie Bend has cut
loose from Island No. 15, and moved down three miles, and we're at the
foot of this bar, here. That's moved down, too, and that big bar down
there was made between the surveys. You see, they had to move the levee
back, and Caruthersville moved over the new levee----"

"Sho!" Rasba gasped. "What ails this old riveh?"

"She jes' wriggles, same's water into a muddy road downhill," Kippy
laughed. "Up there in Little Prairie Bend hit's caved right through the
old levee, and they had to loop around. Now they've reveted it."

"Reveted?"

"They've woven a willow mattress and weighted it down with broken rock
from up the river--more than a mile of it, now, and they'll have to put
down another mile before they can head the river off there."

"Put a carpet down. How wide?"

"Four hundred feet probably----"

"An' a mile long!" Rasba whispered, awed. "Every thing's big on the
riveh!"

"Yes, sir--that's it--big!" Buck laughed.

Thus the four gossiped, and when Doctor Grell had taken his departure
the three talked together about the river and its wonders. At intervals
they went over to look after Prebol whose chief requirement was quiet,
meat broths, and his medicines.

As night drew down Drones turned to Buck:

"It's goin' to be hard leaving the riveh! I neveh will forget, Buck. If
I'm sent to jail for all my life, I'll have something to remember. If
they hang me, I shore will come back to walk with those that walk in the
middle of the river."

"What's that?" Rasba turned and demanded.

"Riveh folks believe that thousands of people who died down thisaway,
sunk in snagged steamers, caught in burned-up boats, blown to kingdom
come in boiler explosions, those that have been murdered, and who died
along the banks, keep a-goin' up and down."

"Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "Yo' b'lieve that?"

"A man believes a he