in sombre mystery. There was no break in the heavy clouds to permit the
gleam of a friendly star. There was no sound save the soft swish of the
water against the bank where he stood, the chirping of a bird in the
near-by willows, and the occasional splash of a leaping fish or water
animal. But to the man there was a feeling of sound. To the lonely human
wreck standing there in the darkness, the river called--called with
fearful, insistent power.

From under the black wall of the night the dreadful flood swept out of
the Somewhere of its beginning. Past the man the river poured its mighty
strength with resistless, smoothly flowing, terrible force. Into the
darkness it swept on its awful way to the Nowhere of its ending. For
uncounted ages, the river had poured itself thus between those walls of
hills. For untold ages to come, until the end of time itself, the stream
would continue to pour its strength past that spot where the man stood.

Out of the night, the voice of the river had called to the man, as he
stood at the window of his darkened room. And the man had come, now, to
answer the call. Cautiously, he went down the bank toward the edge of
the dark, swirling water. His purpose was unmistakable. Nor was there
any hint of faltering, now, in his manner. He had reached his decision.
He knew what he had come to do.

The man's feet were feeling the mud at the margin of the stream when his
legs touched something, and a low, rattling sound startled him. Then
he remembered. A skiff was moored there, and he had brushed against the
chain that led from the bow of the boat to the stump of a willow higher
up on the bank. The man had seen the skiff,--a rude, flat-bottomed
little craft, known to the Ozark natives as a John-boat,--just before
sunset that evening. But there had been no boat in his thoughts when he