The River Prophet

by Raymond S. Spears

A sweep of hail and rain was followed by a moment of calm. Then a blast of wind, which scraped over the cabin roof, was succeeded by the suck of the tornado, which swept, a waterspout, across the river a quarter of a mile down stream, struck a sandbar, and carried up a golden yellow cloud of dust, which disappeared in the gray blackness of a terrific downpour of rain.

They stretched out on their anchor lines till the whole fabric of the cabin hummed and crackled with the strain, but the lines held, and the windows being open, prevented the semi-vacuum created by the storm’s passing from “exploding” the boat, and tearing off the cabin, or the roof.

After the varying gusts and blasts the wind settled down, colder by forty degrees, and with the steady white of a norther. It meant days and nights of waiting while the storm blew itself out. And when the danger had passed and the boats were safe against the lines, the two men turned in to sleep, more tired after their adventures than they remembered ever being before.

In the morning rain was falling intermittently with some sleet, but toward afternoon there was just a cold wind. They built hot fires in their heater, burning coal with which the gamblers had filled bow and stern bins from coal barges somewhere up the river. Having plenty to eat on board, there was nothing to worry them.

Terabon, his fountain pen racing, wrote for his own distant Sunday Editor a narrative which excited the compiler of the Magazine Supplement to deep oaths of admiration for the fertile, prolific imagination of the 238 wandering writer—for who would believe in a romance ready made?

The night of the big wind was followed by a day and a night of gusts of wind and sleety rain; then followed a day and a night of rising clouds, then a day when the clouds were scattered and the sun was cold. That day the sunset was grim, white, and freezing cold.

In the morning there was a bright, warm sunrise, a breath of sweet, soft air, and unimaginable brightness and buoyancy, birds singing, squirrels barking, and all the dismal pangs banished.

Shanty-boats shot out into the gay river and dotted the wide surface up and down the current for miles. The ears of the parson and the writer, keener with the acuteness of distant sounds, could hear music from a boat so far away that they could not see it, a wonderfully enchanting experience.

They, too, ran out into the flood of sunshine to float down with the rest.

At the foot of Brandywine Bar a little cabin-boat suddenly rowed out into the current and signalled them; somebody recognized and wanted to speak to the mission boat. They were rapidly sucking down the swift chute current, but Terabon turned over the motor, and flanked the big houseboat across the current so that the hail could be answered.