Raymond S. Spears

“ Denton Rillard's feud with pirates, undertaken to save a pretty river girl from their attentions. That phase of the matter was fit to make him reel with excitement. Over and over again he reassured himself that what happened on the Mississippi was a closed book as regards up-the-bank knowledge.
Accordingly, without many misgivings, he dropped out of the eddy with the Voane boat, made it fast to down the crossing and thus saved the women on board it with the necessity of steering or pulling it with their sweeps; the power of his own motor would take the big house boat upstream, if need be. ”

“ After breakfast he and Dona went to the little shanty boat which they had salvaged the previous night, as it floated lost down the mid-current. It gave evidence of another mystery. Whoever had lived on board had thrown his clothes over a chair, and gone to bed. The bed had been slept in. It was a single iron bedstead, with everything clean and neat. Cold cooked meat and raised buckwheat batter cakes were ready for breakfast; even coffee was in the percolator; hanging over the head of the bed was a money belt containing eight hundred and fifty dollars, but no name and no address. ”

“ He turned and looked at her with some little alarm, and was just in time to see the quiet smile, and the uprolling eyes of a young woman knew that, she had amazed and shaken a man beyond any idea that he had previously expressed. ”

“ There was never lack for something to talk about. Mrs. Voane had lived on the Mississippi for nearly twenty years, and previous to that had been a Montana prospector's daughter, living from camp to camp, and she was now a woman of some little property, and asked Rillard's advice about investing several hundred dollars of income from mine stock dividends that happened to come to her at Memphis, where they ran down Ash Slough. ”

“ It's fair warnin'; they're mean, that pirate crew; they'll shoot yo' if they can. I'm all right They come round this boat, an' I'll shoot fustest an' ask questions, if necessary, afterward. But I'm powerful worried about you, suh. Likely yo'd betteh quit the riveh—the farther down yo' go, the worse off yo' be, till yo' go down Chaffeli, where yo' don't come back."
There it was again—the challenge of old Mississip'! Rillard rose on his tiptoes, almost unconsciously, and he turned to look down the river where Helena's lights were sparkling and shining nine or ten miles distant. ”

“ Many a man walks in his sleep down this shanty boatin' riveh—and to that kind, things happen—sho! I neveh saw this boat before, and it's riveh built, twenty-two foot long, six and a half foot wide, low cabin, deep hull. ”