Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/86

 for good or evil. Right there, where thousands and tens of thousands of river trippers had landed in, Murdong answered to the spirit of the river, which makes one look askant down stream, and with calm questioning up stream.

Murdong thought that he had left the dead past in Chicago, but now he discovered that he had had a living past, and that he was at the brim of two futures: he could return into the old life—and it was life—or he could swing down into the new opportunities of an entirely—apparently—different feature.

Many a man and many a woman has taken one look at the lower Mississippi, and then caught the steamer bound for home. Sometimes a shantyboat is for sale mighty cheap there in Putney Bend—but mostly shantyboats are not for sale there at any price. There are husbands and fathers who quit the river to return home from Putney Bend; there are wives and sweethearts who scurried back up stream to their old lives from that same place. On the other hand, many a life dates its beginning under cover of a new name from that same changing place.

There, not knowing these things, Murdong met an old lady who declared her name was Mrs. Haney, who invited him in to supper, and whose son Jesse offered him the use of his razor and a leather belt to strop it on.