lling words, with
sentences like hammer blows, with paragraphs that marched like music,
with thoughts that had the gay abandon of a bird in song. And the things
he learned!

When night fell he was dismayed by his weariness, and could not
understand it. For a little while he ransacked his dulled wits to find
the explanation, and when he had fixed Prebol for the night, with
medicine, water, and a lamp handy to matches, he told the patient:

"Seems like the gimp's kind of took out of me. My eyes are sore, an' I
doubt am I quite well."

"Likely yo' didn't sleep well," Prebol suggested. "A man cayn't sleep
days if he ain't used to hit."

"Sleep days?" Rasba looked wildly about him.

"Sho! When did I git to sleep, why, I ain't slept--I----Lawse!"

Prebol laughed aloud.

"Yo' see, Parson, yo' all cayn't set up all night with a pretty gal an'
not sleep hit off. Yo' shore'll git tired, sportin' aroun'."

"Sho!" Rasba snapped, and then a smile broke across his countenance. He
cried out with laughter, and admitted: "Hit's seo, Prebol! I neveh set
up with a gal befo' I come down the riveh. Lawse! I plumb forgot."

"I don't wonder," Prebol replied, gravely. "She'd make any man forget.
She sung me to sleep, an' I slept like I neveh slept befo'."

Rasba went on board his boat and, after a light supper, turned in. For
a minute he saw in retrospect the most wonderful day in his life, a day
which a kindly Providence had drawn through thirty or forty hours of
unforgettable exaltation. Then he settled into the blank, deep sleep of
a soul at peace and at rest.

When in the full tide of the sunshine he awakened, he went about his
menial tasks, attending Prebol, cleaning out the boats, shaking up the
beds, hanging the bedclothes to air in the sun, and getting breakfast.
On Prebol's suggestion he moved the fleet of boats out into the eddy,
for the river was falling and they might ground. He went over to
Caruthersville and bought some supplies, brought Doctor Grell over to
examine the patient to make sure all was well, killed several squirrels
and three ducks back in the brakes, and, all the while, thought what
duties he should enter upon.

Doctor Grell advised that Prebol go down to Memphis, to the hospital, so
as to have an X-ray examination, and any special treatment which might
be necessary. The wound was healing nicely, but it would be better to
make sure.

Rasba took counsel of Prebol. The river man knew the needs of the