Disillusionment came. As long as the things that were going on in this world were natural, and could be explained, Rat saw no reason for worrying about the next. A cherished idol was shattered; his piety was dead sea fruit.

With the calmness of a cool gamester, who has thrown and lost his all—slightly pale, but with firm and deliberate step, he went behind the door and secured the rifle and cartridges he had asked Bill Stiles to restore to the swindled trapper. With no word of farewell to those around him, he lighted his long neglected old pipe, reeking with sin and nicotine, whistled to Spot, and walked away down the path to the river bank where the canoe had been left, and disappeared.

Brother Butters went out on the platform and looked longingly after him.

Night had fallen upon the river. Somewhere far away in the purple gloom, that softly lay upon its dimpling and restless tide, was a lost sheep. Its fleece had become black, but it was more precious than the ninety and nine that were still within the fold.

VII
THE TURKEY CLUB

“We’re goin’ to take you up the river to the Turkey Club tomorrer,” announced “Rat” Hyatt, as we left Posey’s store one night. “There’s goin’ to be some doin’s there that you’ll like, an’ you’ll meet a lot o’ people you never seen before, an’ prob’ly some you won’t never want to see ag’in.”

We had spent the evening with the usual group that clustered around the smoky stove when the weather rendered the platform outside uncomfortable. It was late in the fall and Thanksgiving was only a few days away, but Indian Summer still lingered, with its purple days and frosty nights, and I was loth to leave the river country while it lasted.

The council around the stove often varied in composition, but not in character. It was always picturesque, not only in its light and shade and color, but in the primitive philosophy, spontaneous wit, original profanity and ornate narrative that issued from it.

On this occasion “Pop” Wilkins had told, with much circumstantial detail, a long story about his old plug hat. He said it “was minted about thirty years ago some’rs down east,” and was bought for him by subscription by the congregation over which he at that time presided. The hat was in the Allegheny river a couple of days during its journey to his address, but when it finally got to him the congregation had it all fixed up so that everybody said it was just as good as new. Since then he had only had to have it repaired twice. He had a great affection for it, on account of its old associations, and hoped that it would be buried with him when he died—a hope that was shared by all present. The old plug was an echo of years long departed and a never-failing butt of merry jest. The tickets of all the raffles that had ever been held in that part of the country, that anybody could remember, had been shaken up in Pop’s hat.

The old man’s story had reminded his listeners of others, and it was quite late when Posey remarked that he was going upstairs to bed, and “to keep things from bein’ carried off” he was “goin’ to lock up.”