n their way, having promised
Nelia that they would see and tell Terabon, on the quiet, that she had
come into the slough, and that she wanted to see him.

She waited for some time, hoping that Terabon would come, but finally
went to sleep. She was tired, and excitement had deserted her. She slept
more soundly than in some time.

Once she partly awakened, and thought that some drift log had bumped
into her boat; then she felt a gentle undulation, as of the waves of a
passing steamer, but she was too sleepy to contemplate that phenomenon
in a rather narrow water channel around a bend from the main current.

It was not till she had slept long and well that she began to dream
vividly. She was impatient with dreams; they were always full of
disappointment.

Daylight came, and sunshine penetrated the window under which she slept.
The bright rays fell upon her closed eyes and stung her cheeks. She
awakened with difficulty, and looked around wonderingly. She saw the
sunlight move along the wall and then drift back again. She felt the
boat teetering and swaggering. She looked out of the window and saw a
distant wood across the familiar, glassy yellow surface of the
Mississippi. With a low whisper of dismay she started out to look
around, and found that she was really adrift in mid-river.

On the opposite side of the boat she saw the blank side of a boat
against her cabin window. As she stood there, she heard or felt a motion
on the boat alongside. Someone stepped, or rather jumped heavily, onto
the bow deck of her boat and flung the cabin door open.

She sprang to get her pistol, and stood ready, as the figure of a man
stumbled drunkenly into her presence.

CHAPTER XXIX

Parson Elijah Rasba, the River Prophet, could not think what he would
say to these river people who had determined to have a sermon for their
Sabbath entertainment. Neither his Bible nor his hurried glances from
book to book which Nelia Crele had given him brought any suggestion
which seemed feasible. His father had always declared that a sermon, to
be effective, "must have one bullet fired straight."

What bullet would reach the souls of these river people who sang ribald
songs, danced to lively music, and lived clear of all laws except the
one they called "The Law," a deadly, large-calibre revolver or automatic
pistol?

"I 'low I just got to talk to them like folks," he decided at last, and
with that comforting decision went to sleep.

Th