Before he knew it, a big patch of woods grew up behind him, and when he felt the current under the boat slacken he discovered that he had run out of the Mississippi River and was in a narrow waterway no larger than Tug Fork.
“Where all mout I be?” he gasped, in wonderment.
He saw three houseboats just below him, moored against a sandbar, with hoop nets drying near by, blue smoke curling out of tin pipes, and two or three people standing by to look at the stranger.
He rowed ashore and carried out a big roped stone, which he used as anchor; then he walked down the bar toward the man who watched his approach with interest.
“I am Elijah Rasba,” he greeted him. “I come down out of Tug River; I am looking for Jock Drones; he’s down thisaway, somewheres; can yo’ all tell me whichaway is the Mississippi River?”
“I don’t know him,” the fisherman shook his head. “But this yeah is Wolf Island Chute; the current caught you off of Columbus bluffs, and you drifted in yeah; jes’ keep a-floatin’ an’ d’rectly you’ll see Old Mississip’ down thataway.”
“It’s near night,” Rasba remarked, looking at the sun through the trees. “I’m a stranger down thisaway; mout I get to stay theh?”
“Yo’ can land anywhere’s,” the man said. “No man can stop you all!”
“But a woman mout!” Rasba exclaimed, with sudden humour. “Yistehd’y evenin’, up yonway, by the Ohio River, I found a man shot through into his shanty-boat. He said he ’lowed to land along of the same eddy with a woman, an’ she shot him almost daid!”
“Ho law!” the fisherman cried, and another man and three or four women drew near to hear the rest of the narrative. “How come hit?” 53