s, and of a tumbling
waste of waters; and yet never had the solid body of the stream been so
awe-inspiring as in that hour of creeping and insinuating dawn.

He ran out into the main river again, and a wonderful prospect opened
before his eyes. Sandbars spread out for miles across the river and
lengthwise of the river; the bulk of the stream seemed broken up into
channels and chutes and wandering waterways. He saw column after column
of lines of spiles, like black teeth, through which the water broke with
protesting foam.

When he thought to reckon up, as he passed Osceola Bar, he found that he
had come ninety-five miles. Yankee Bar was only five or six miles below
him, and he eagerly pulled down to inspect the long beaches, the chutes
and channels, which the river pirates had used for not less than 150
years; where they still had their rendezvous.

Wild ducks and geese were there in many flocks. There were waters
sheltered from the wind by willow patches. The woods of Plum Point
Peninsula were heavy and dark. The river main current slashed down the
miles upon miles of Craighead Point, and shot across to impinge upon
Chickasaw Bluffs No. 1, where a made dirt bank was silhouetted against
the sky.

Not until his binoculars rested upon the bar at the foot of Fort Pillow
Bluff did Terabon's eyes discover any human beings, and then he saw a
white houseboat with a red hull. He headed toward it to ask the familiar
river question.

"No, suh!" the lank, sharp-eyed fisherman shook his head. "Theh's no
motorboat landed up theh, not this week. Who all mout you be?"

"Lester Terabon; I'm a newspaper writer; I live in New York; I came down
the Mississippi looking for things to tell about in the newspapers. You
see, lots of people hardly know there's a Mississippi River, and it's
the most interesting place I ever heard of."

"Terabon? I expect you all's the feller Whiskey Williams was tellin'
about; yo'n a feller name of Carline was up by No. 8. He said yo' had
one of them writin' machines right into a skift. Sho! An' yo' have! The
woman an' me'd jes' love to see yo' all use hit."

"You'll see me," Terabon laughed, "if you'll let me sit by your stove.
I've some writing I could do. Here's a goose for dinner, too."

"Sho! The woman shore will love to cook that goose! I'm a fisherman but
no hunter. 'Tain't of'en we git a roast bird!"

So Terabon sat by the stove, writing. He wrote for more than an
hour--everything he could re