that she was
afraid--and that she hated fear.

Her pistol was sign of her bravado, and her shots were the indication of
her desperation. The memory of the wan face of Prebol brought down by
her bullet was now an accusation, not a pride.

Old Mississip' had received her gently in her most furious mood, but now
that immense, active calm of vast power was working on the untamed soul
which she owned. The river swept along, and its majesty no longer gave
her the feeling that nothing mattered. Far from it! Though she rebelled
against the idea, her mind knew that she was in rebellion, that she was
going against the current. And the river's mood was dangerous, now, to
the wanton feelings to which she had desperately yielded but
unsuccessfully.

The old, familiar, sharp division between right and wrong was presented
to her gaze as if the river itself were calling her attention to it. She
could not escape the necessity of a choice, with evil so persuasive and
delightful and virtue so depressing and necessary.

She investigated Terabon's outfit with curiosity and questioning. His
typewriter, his maps, his few books, his stack of notes neatly compiled
in loose-leaf files, were the materials which caught and held her fancy.
She took them on board her shanty-boat and read the record which he had
made, from day to day, from his inspection of Commission records at St.
Louis to the purchase of his boat in shanty-boat town, and his departure
down the river.

His words were intimate and revealing:

Oct. 5; In mid-stream among a lot of islands; rafts of ducks; a
dull, blue day, still those great limestone hills, with hollows
through which the wind comes when opposite--coolies?----; in the far
distance a rowboat. On the Missouri side, the hills; on the other
the flats, with landing sheds. Ducks in great flocks--look like sea
serpents when flying close to the water; like islands on it--wary
birds.

That was above the part of the river which she knew; she turned to
Kaskaskia, and read facts familiar to her:

I met Crele, an old hunter-trapper, in a slough below St. Genevieve.
He was talkative, and said he had the prettiest girl on a hundred
miles of river. She had married a man of the name of Carline, real
rich and a big bug. "But my gal's got the looks, yes, indeed!" If I
find her, I must be sure and tell her to write to her folks--river
romance!

Nelia's face warmed as she read those phrases as well it