Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/105

 was for only half an hour or so—and then he went to sleep with such a feeling of rest and comfort as he had never known before. For years and years he had been struggling and fighting and grappling with questions and seeking for opportunities and wrestling with unseen difficulties, till his mind was in a whirl and his soul was sick and his heart was faint. In a madness of anger and despair he had quit, let go his old life, and fled—and a whimsy of chance had fixed in his mind the idea of tripping down the Mississippi on some indefinite point of which was a line known as the jumping-off place.

"I really found it," he told himself in wondering surprise. "I really found it—the jumping-off place! I thought it was absurd, but it's at the mouth of the Ohio River!"

The incredible had become a literal fact.

The following morning he slept late, making up for years and years of lost repose of mind. It was nearly nine o'clock when he prepared his breakfast, nearly noon when he took down the canvas and made ready for a short day of floating.

There was a light breeze blowing, and when he hoisted the anchor the breeze blew him against the eddy current, and he found himself obliged to resort to the oars. He rowed out into the edge of the river current, and floated down along the brim of the eddy.