The little man laughed in his throat. He handled the boat like a river pilot. His eyes turned to the banks, swept the sandbars, gazed into the coiling waters alongside, and he whispered names of places as he passed them--landings, bars, crossings, bends, and even the plantations and log cuttings. He named the three cotton gins in Tiptonville, and stared at the ferry below town with a sidelong leer. Carline would have been the most astonished man on the Mississippi had he known that nearly all his money was in the pockets of his guest. He babbled on, and before he knew it, he was telling all about his wife running away down the Mississippi. "What kind of a boat's she in?" Doss asked. "I don't know." "How do you expect to find her if you don't know the boat?" "Why--why, somebody might know her; a woman alone!" "She's alone?" "Why--yes, sir. I heard so." "Good looker?" Without a word Carline handed the fellow a photograph. Doss made no sign. For two minutes he stared at that fine face. "I bet she's got an awful temper," he half whispered. "She's quick," Carline admitted, fervently. "She'd just soon shoot a man as look at him," Doss added, with a touch of asperity. "Why--she----" Carline hesitated. He recalled a day in his own experience when she took his own shot gun from him, and stood a fury, flaming with anger. "Yes, sir, she would," Doss declared, with finality. Doss had seen her. By that time a thousand shanty-boaters had heard about that girl's one shot of deadly accuracy. The woman folks on a thousand miles of reach and bend had had a bad example set before them. Doss himself felt an anger which was impotent against the woman who had shot Jest Prebold down. Probably other women would take to shooting, right off the bat, the same way. He despised that idea. Carline, doubtful as to whether his wife was being insulted, congratulated, or described, gazed at the photograph. The more he looked, the more exasperated he felt. She was a woman--what right had she to run away and leave him with his honour impugned? He felt as though he hadn't taught her her place. At the same time, when he looked at the picture, he discovered a remembrance of his feeling that she was a very difficult person to teach anything to. Her learning always had insulted his own meagreness of information and aptness in repartee. Next to not finding her, his big worry had become finding her.