Raymond S. Spears

“ As always, there were several boats for sale in the Paducah shanty-boat town eddy, and one of them was a small semi-cruising motor-boat. Captain Dunlin bought it, and put on an outfit that was according to the boat—an oil-stove, folding cot, grub-box, et cetera.
He was a changed man when he started down the Ohio on his way to the Mississippi. There is something about Paducah that alters the career of many a river-man. Men have dropped into that sawmill eddy as mean and sorrowful as ever men could be, and in a day or two their whole outlook on life has changed. ”

“ He reflected that the cabin-boat on the gravel lump down the reef would be dry, too. He felt something like fighting, in view of his several worries and disappointments.
He turned in for the night feeling a good deal better. In the morning he, slept late, and when he peered out the port eye he saw the cabin-boat careening somewhat on the lump. But at sight of that color his startled gaze saw blue and red; and if he knew boats, that was Mrs. Crell's.
"And I—and I sassed her!" he choked. "A man ain't safe to sass a woman. They never git over it, if you ain't married, and they don't have to!" ”

“ Crelle saw just one perfectly safe way of taking care of her daughter, Claire Belle—that was to keep every man up the bank, or not less than thirty rods distant in midstream. This was her practise, and for that reason there wasn't a river-man from Pittsburgh, Knoxville, and St. Louis to New Orleans who did not regard the widow as the least agreeable lady on the rivers.
There were some men—no less than a dozen, in fact—who would have had no designs whatever on the daughter if only the widow had been kindly disposed. ”

“ There never was a jury in Paducah who would have convicted Mrs. Crell on the charge of killing Captain Dunlin, whose attentions, however natural, were ominous on the river. It is not fit and meet for any one to drift in pursuit of another shanty-boat—a woman has a right to be nervous, and two women four times as nervous. ”

“ Captain Dunlin said at last, "Claire Belle's a fine, clean river girl. They've places enough they could live at up the banks. She's got a farm leased out in her own right—three hundred acres o£ corn land-up in Illinois. Her mother has quite a lot of money, too. They aren't exactly what you'd call society people, but they're river folks of the old kind." ”

“ Claire Belle Crell was nineteen years of age, a shapely, light-footed girl, with bright blue eyes, long wavy hair, and the witching type of smile which is called "sorgum 'lasses" as a kind of make-shift, there being in Mississippi nomenclature no adequate description to stir the imagination of those who' do not know sorgum molasses. ”

“ Captain Dunlin saw in that gesture the fruitlessness of all his efforts and the failure of all his hopes.
But after a time the widow edged around, and returned to look at the river captain.
"Captain," she said meekly, "how do you reckon an old river woman like me happened to hit that gravel lump on a falling river when nothing ever drifts to shore, but sucks out from it?"
"Why—I—why, I hadn't thought!" he gasped. "That's so! How'd it happen?"
"Well, you had to drive your motor, and I had to pull my sweeps—that's all. A fisherman up here said you was aground in the chute," she laughed ”

“ Two days later the Crells had made up their minds to return to the cabin-boat in Paducah eddy on the following Monday. On Saturday afternoon Claire Belle casually strolled down the road to visit a neighbor, and she entered a five-passenger automobile and rode into Paducah. Captain Dunlin had planned the details. Within three hours Mr. and Mrs. William Deverts had floated down under the railroad bridge below Paducah and were on their way into the Mississippi in Captain Dunlin's boat.
"That's all right!" he protested to the last. "I'm going to live up the bank a while, anyhow. ”

“ Well, I haven't any right to talk about anybody; she's a mighty interesting girl. The old woman made me mad, letting strip with her rifle the way she did. I thought she'd get me before I got into a bend in the bank out of sight. ”

“ Crell here?" he demanded, and as that woman emerged from the sitting-room onto the broad veranda, her face hardened angrily. He gave the storm no time to break, continuing: "Madam, I saw your daughter going by in an automobile in Paducah, this afternoon, with a young man I happen to know is a skiff traveler down the Tennessee—Deverts by name." ”