was passing; most of the birds had speeded south when the wild
geese brought the alarm that a cold norther was coming. When the storm
had gone by, shanty-boaters, having shivered with the cold, determined
not to be caught again. The sunshine of the evening, when the wind died,
saw boats drifting out for the all-night run. Dawn, calm and serene,
found boats moving out into mid-channel more or less in haste.

So they floated down, sometimes within a few hundred feet of other
boats, sometimes in merry fleets tied together by ropes and common
joyousness, sometimes alone in the midst of the vacant waters. The
migration of the shanty-boaters was watched with mingled hate, envy, and
admiration by Up-the-Bank folks, who pretend to despise those who live
as they please.

And Nelia Carline pulled out into the current and followed her river
friend, Lester Terabon, who had gone on ahead to save her husband from
the river pirates. She despised her husband more as she let her mind
dwell on the man who had shown no common frailties while he did enjoy a
comradeship which included the charm of a pretty woman, recognizing her
equality, and not permitting her to forget for a moment that he knew she
was lovely, as well as intelligent.

She had not noticed that fact so much at the time, as afterward, when
she subjected him to the merciless scrutiny of a woman who has
heretofore discovered in men only depravity, ignorance, selfishness, or
brutality. Her first thought had been to use Terabon, play with him,
and, if she could, hurt him. She knew that there were men who go about
plaguing women, and as she subjected herself to grim analysis, she
realized that in her disappointment and humiliation she would have hurt,
while she hated, men.

The long hours down the river, in pleasant sunshine, with only an
occasional stroke of the oar to set the boat around broadside to the
current, enabled her to sit on the bow of her boat and have it out with
herself. She had never had time to think. Things crowded her
Up-the-Bank. Now she had all the time in the world, and she used that
time. She brought out her familiar books and compared the masters with
her own mind. She could do it--there.

"Ruskin, Carlyle, Old Mississip', Plato, Plutarch, Thoreau, the Bible,
Shelley, Byron, and I, all together, dropping down," she chuckled,
catching her breath. "I'm tripping down in that company. And there's
Terabon. He's a good sport, too, and he'll be better when I