The next day was calm all day long, and Terabon went up the bank to shoot squirrels or other woods game; he went almost up to the Plum Point, killed several head of game, and rejoiced in the bayous and sloughs and chutes of a changing land.
The following morning he was hailed by Slamey:
“Hi—i, Terabon! Theh’s a shanty-boat up the head of Flower Island Bar jes’ drappin’ in. They’ve floated down all night!”
Through his glasses Terabon saw two men walking a shanty-boat across the dead water below Yankee Lower Bar to the mainland.
They were too far away for him to distinguish their personalities, but one was a tall, active man, the other obviously chunky, and when they ran their lines out and made fast to half-buried snags, it was with the quick decision of men used to work against currents and to unison of effort. There was something suggestive in their bearing, their scrutiny up and down the river, their standing close to each other as they talked. If Terabon had not suspected them of being pirates, their attitude and actions would have betrayed them. 162
Terabon, after a little while, pulled up the eddy toward them; he was willing to take a long chance. Few men resent a newspaper man’s presence. The worst of them like to put themselves, their ideas, right with the world. Terabon risked their knavery to win their approbation. Come what might, he would seek to save Augustus Carline from the consequences of his ignorance, money, folly, and remorse.
CHAPTER XXIV
The flow of the Mississippi River is down stream—a perfectly absurd and trite statement at first thought. On second thought, one reverts to the people who are always trying to fight their way up that adverse current, with the thrust of two miles perpendicular descent and the body of a thousand storms in its rush.