"It isn't that we don't like them!" he blurted out. "It's--it's just that we'd rather deserve them and not have them than have them and not deserve them!" She laughed. "Good-bye--and don't forget, Fort Pillow!" "Does a man forget his meals?" he demanded, lightly, and with his duffle packed low in his skiff he rowed out into the gray river and the black night. Having found a lee along the caving bank above New Madrid he gain-speeded down the current behind the sandbar, but when he turned the New Madrid bend he pulled out into mid-river and with current and wind both behind him, followed the government lights that showed the channel. He had expected to linger long down this historic stretch of river with its Sunk Lands of the New Madrid earthquakes, with its first glimpse of the cotton country, and with its countless river phenomena. "But Old Mississip' has other ideas," he said to himself, and miles below he was wondering if and when he would meet the girl of Island No. 10 again. CHAPTER XXI Pirates have infested the Mississippi from the earliest days. The stranger on the river cannot possibly know a pirate when he sees one, and even shanty-boaters of long experience and sharp eyes penetrate their disguises with difficulty. How could Gus Carline suspect the loquacious, ingratiating, and helpful Renald Doss? Lonely; pursued by doubts, ignorance, and a lurking timidity, Carline was only too glad to take on a companion who discoursed about all the river towns, called river commissioners by their first names, knew all the makes of motors, and called the depth of the water in Point Pleasant crossing by reading the New Madrid gauge. He relinquished the wheel of his boat to the dapper little man, and fed the motor more gas, or slowed down to half speed, while he listened to volumes of river lore. "You've been landing along down?" Doss asked. "All along," Carline replied, "everywhere." "Seen anybody?" "I should say so; there was a fellow come down pretending to be a reporter. He stopped over with me, got me full's a tick, and then robbed me." "Eh--_he_ robbed you?" "Yes, sir! He got me to drinking heavy. I like my stew a little, but he fixed me. Then he just went through me, but he didn't get all I had, you bet!" This was rich! "Lucky he didn't hit you on the head, and take the boat, too!" Doss grinned. "I suppose so." "Yes, sir! Lots of mean men on this river, they play any old game. They say they're preachers, or umbrella menders, or anything. Every once in a while some feller comes down, saying he's off'n some magazine. They come down in skiffs, mostly. It's a great game they play. Everybody tells 'em everything. If I was going to be a crook, I bet I'd say I was a hist'ry writer. I'd snoop around, and then I'd land--same's that feller landed on you. Get much?" "Two--three hundred dollars!"