things which gave even the name Cairo, at the foot
of the long, last reach of the Upper Mississippi, a significance of far
lands and Egyptian mysteries. Gratefully she understood that the
Mississippi was summoning ideals which ought to have been called upon
long since when in the longings of her girlhood she had been circumspect
and patient, keeping her soul satisfied with dreams of fairies playing
among the petals of hill-side flowers, or gnomes wandering among the
stalks of toll-yielding cornfields.

Mature, now; fearless--and, as the word romped through her mind in all
its changes, free--free!--she played with her thoughts. But below
Greenleaf Bend, as another day was lost in waning evening, she early
sought a sandbar mooring at the foot of Missouri Sister Island, where
there were two other shanty-boats, one of them with two children on the
sand. She need not dread a boat where children were found. Possibly she
would be able to talk to another woman, which would be a welcome change,
having had so much of her own thoughts!

This other woman was Mrs. Disbon, out of the Missouri. She and her
husband had been five years coming down from the Yellowstone, and they
had fished, trapped, and enjoyed themselves in their 35-foot cabin-boat
home. Of course, taking care of two children on a shanty-boat was a good
deal of work and some worry, for one or the other was always falling
overboard, but since they had learned to swim it hadn't been so bad, and
they could take care of themselves.

"You all alone?" Mrs. Disbon asked.

"I'm alone," Nelia admitted, having told her name as Nelia Crele.

"Well, I don't know as I blame you," Mrs. Disbon declared, looking at
her husband doubtfully. "Seems to me that on the average, men are more
of a nuisance than they're worth. It's which and t'other about them. I
see you've had experience?"

Nelia looked down at her wedding ring.

"Yes, I've had experience," she nodded.

"Going clear down?"

"You mean----?"

"N'Orleans?"

"Why, I hadn't thought much about it."

"The Lower River's pretty bad." Disbon looked up from cleaning his
repeating shotgun. "My first trip was out of the Ohio and down to
N'Orleans. I wouldn't recommend to no woman that she go down thataway,
not alone. Theh's junker-pirates use up from N'Orleans, and, course,
there's always more or less meanness below Cairo. Above St. Louis it
ain't so bad, but mean men draps down from Little Klondike."

"I haven't made up m