Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/43

 cabin. It was a dainty meal—a luncheon that included salad, tea, and bread ample for a fair appetite. The boat, swinging and swaying in the mid-channel swirls, hung broadside to the current. As she ate, she could distinguish the gasolene boat far astern, floating in her wake, but not approaching nearer that she could see. She resumed her vigil on the bow of the boat, sitting there as she had been sitting when she drifted out of the Ohio. She at last observed that the boat astern was coming nearer, for she could see it plainly with her unassisted eyes. As night drew near, the boat drew up within a mile, and Delia, watching both shores ahead, sought for a little shantyboat town where she could land in among people.

She had passed Hickman, and the river had turned wild below there. Woods grew to the very bank of the river, so that midstream was open, but her course down stream crowded into a bend that grew ever gloomier and darker, and the shantyboats which she discovered under the high, caving banks were in singles. She knew better than to run in beside a lone shantyboat!

A dread, which is a part of the Mississippi's training of the soul, filled her thoughts. With sunset near, a strange little chill swept over the river. Real danger menaced! The gasolene boat drawing down nearer