Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/204

 overwhelmed his muse and prevented him from putting even into prose the galloping wonder of the adventure which was now his, although he did not label the varying incidents adventure, and would not know till long afterward that the Mississippi commonplaces were wonderful. The river was like a fairy-kingdom where one in enchantment regards the most extraordinary events as the most commonplace and merely interesting.

He did not know where Spanish Moss Bend was. He had never heard of it before she had whispered in his ear the magic name. He had sealed his agreement to meet her there with a kiss so precious that he felt that he would breast the ramparts of countless hordes of foes to reach her side.

And the river smiled and turned the bends, piling up against the long curve, and sloping down like the rim of a vast, shallow half-saucer. He floated down and down till he was carried into the bank at Mendova one bright day. He landed and in a ship chandler's on the waterfront he found a book of river maps and a list of the post lights on Western rivers, which he carried on board his boat and examined with eager haste.

Sure enough! There was Spanish Moss Bend, a twenty-five-mile semicircle, where the first Spanish moss is seen growing on the trees. He had four