"Oh, he don't want to write about crooks; he wants to write about nice people, society people, and that kind, and big cities. He says it's awful hard to find anybody to write about." "You've got to look to find heroes," Terabon admitted. "I came more than a thousand miles to see a shanty-boat." "You di-i-d? Just to see a shanty-boat!" Carline stared at Terabon in amazement. In spite of Terabon being such a queer duck he made a good companion. He was a good cook, for one thing, and when they landed in below Hickman Bend, he went ashore and killed three squirrels and two black ducks in the woods and marsh beyond the new levee. When he returned, he found a skiff landed near by on the sandbar. Carline was talking to the man, who had just handed over a gallon jug. The man pulled away swiftly and disappeared down the chute. Carline explained: "He's a whiskey pedlar; a man always needs to have whiskey on board; malaria is bad down here, and a fellow might catch cold. You see how it is if a man don't have some whiskey on board." "I understand," Terabon admitted. After supper Carline decided that there was a lot of night air around, and that a man couldn't take too many precautions against that deadly river miasma whose insidious menace so many people have ignored to their great cost. As for himself, Carline didn't propose to be taken bad when he had so universal a specific, to take or leave alone, just as he wanted. Terabon, having put up the hoops of his skiff and stretched the canvas over them, retired to his own boat and spent two hours writing. In the morning, when he stirred out, he found Carline lying in the engine pit, oblivious to the night air that had fallen upon him, protected as he was by his absorption of the sure preventive of night air getting him first. The jug was on the floor, and Terabon, after a little thought, poured out about two and a half quarts which he replaced with distilled water from the motorboat's drinking bottle. Then he dropped down the chute into the main river to resume his search for really interesting "histories." The river had never been more glorious than that morning. The sun shone from a white, misty sky. It was warm, with the slight tang of autumn, and the yellow leaves were fluttering down; squirrels were barking, and a flock of geese, so high in the air that they sparkled, in the sunshine, were gossiping, and the music of their voices rained upon the river surface as upon a sounding board. Terabon was approaching Donaldson's Point, Winchester Chute, Island No. 10, and New Madrid. An asterisk on his map showed that Slough Neck was interesting, and sure enough, he found a 60-foot boat just above Upper Slough Landing, anchored off the sandbar. This was a notorious whiskey boat, and just below it was a flight of steps up the steep bank. No plantation darky ever used those steps. He would rather scramble in the loose silt and risk his neck than climb that easy stairway--yes, indeed!