“Fine!” the other replied. “Out the Ohio?”
“No—well, yes—I started at Evansville, where I bought this boat, but I live up the Mississippi, at Kaskaskia—Gage, they call it now.”
“Yes? I stopped at Menard’s on my way down from St Louis.”
“When was that?”
“About ten days ago—tell you in a minute—Monday a week!” A big quarto loose-leaf notebook had revealed the day and date.
“Well, say—I––?” Carline’s one question leaped to his lips but remained unasked. For the minute he could not ask it. The thing that had been his rage, and then his wonder, suddenly drew back into his heart as a secret sorrow.
“Won’t you come over?” Carline asked, “it’d be company!”
“Yes, it’ll be company,” the other admitted, and with a pull of his oars brought the skiff alongside. He climbed aboard, painter in hand, and making the light line fast to one of the cleats, sat down on the locker across from his host.
“My name’s Carline.”
“Mine’s Lester Terabon; a newspaper let me come down the river to write stories about it; it’s the biggest thing I ever saw!” 68