For answer Terabon drew his skiff alongside and reached for his typewriter. As he began to write, he said: “I write everything down—big or little. A man can’t remember everything, you know.”
“Make good money writing for the newspapers?”
“Enough to live on,” Terabon replied, “and, of course, it’s living, coming down Old Mississip’!”
“You like it travelling in that skiff? Where do you sleep?”
“I stretch that canvas between the gunwales in those 69 staples; I put those hoops up, and draw a canvas over the whole length of the boat. I can sleep like a baby in its cradle.”
“Well, that’s one way,” Carline replied, doubtfully. “If I owned this old river, you could buy it for two cents.”
Terabon laughed, and after a minute Carline joined in, but he had told the truth. He hated the river, and he was cowed by it; yet he could not escape its clutches.
“I fancy it hasn’t always treated you right,” Terabon remarked.
“Treated me right!” Carline doubled his fists and stiffened where he sat. “It’s!—it’s––”
He could not speak for his emotion, but his little pointed chin trembled a minute later as he relaxed and looked over his shoulder again. The typewriter clicked along for minutes, Terabon’s fingers dancing over the keys as he put down, word for word, and motion for motion, the man who was afraid of the river and yet was tripping down it. It seemed as though the man afraid must have some kind of courage, too, because he was going in spite of his fears.