"If--if a man could only write you!" he said, with such sincerity that she laughed aloud with glee. "Oh, I've read books!" she declared. "I know--I've been miserable, and I've been unhappy, but I've turned to the books, and they've told me. They kept me alive--they kept me above those horrid little things which a woman--which I have. You've never been in jail, I suppose?" "What--in jail? I've been there, but not a prisoner. To see prisoners." "You couldn't know, then, the way prisoners feel. I know. I reckon most women know. But now I'm out of jail. I'm free." He could not answer; her eyes flashed as they narrowed, and she fairly glared at him in the intensity of her declaration. "Oh, you couldn't know," she laughed, "but that's the way I feel. I'm free! Isn't the river beautiful to-day? I'm like the river----" "Which is kept between two banks?" he suggested. "I was wrong," she shook her head. "I'm a bird----" "I can well admit that," he laughed. "Oh," she cried, in mock rebuke, "the idea!" "It's your own--and a very brilliant one," he retorted, and they laughed together. There was no resisting the gale of Nelia Crete's effervescent spirits. It was clear that she had burst through bonds of restraint that had imprisoned her soul for years. Terabon was too acute an observer to frighten the sensitive exhilaration. It would pass--he was only too sure of that. What would follow? The sandbar was miles long, miles wide; six or seven miles of caving bend was visible below them, part of it over another sandbar that extended out into the river. There was not a boat, house, human being, or even fence in sight in any direction. Across the river there was a cotton field, but so far away it was that the stalks were but a purple haze under the afternoon sun. "You think I'm queer?" she suddenly demanded. "No, but I would be if----" "If what?" "If I didn't think you were the dandiest river tripper in the world," he exclaimed. "You're a dear boy," she laughed. "You don't know how much good you've done me already. Now we'll get supper." "I've two black ducks," he said. "I'll bet they'll make a good----" "Roast," she took his word. "I'll show you I'm a dandy cook, too!" CHAPTER XV The Mississippi River brings people from the most distant places to close proximity; Pittsburg and even Salamanca meet Fort Benton and St. Paul at the Forks of the Ohio. On the other hand, with uncanny certainty, those most eager to meet are kept apart and thrown to the ends of the world. Parson Rasba saw Nelia Crele's boat drift out into the current and drop down the Chute of Wolf Island, and impelled by solitude and imagination he followed her. She had awakened sensations in his heart which he had never before known, so he acted with primitive directness and moved out into the Mississippi.