CHAPTER XVI RIVER PEOPLE

"An' when I sees ye layin' in the bottom o' that kicker, I'd swore I was seein' things so I would," Big Joe Tully was saying. "Lucky I gets it in me noodle that somethin's wrong the way that bell keeps ringin'."

The shanty of the Minnie M. Baxter was bright with the light of mid-morning. The floor had been scrubbed almost to whiteness, the t