As he worked he sang:-- "David an' Cephas, an' ole brer Mingo, Saul an' Paul, an' de w'ite folk sinners-- Oh, my chillern, follow de Lawd!" Supper was eaten in silence.

When it was over, Gideon Rand sat with his back against a pine and smoked his pipe.

His son went down to the river and stretched his length upon a mossed and lichened boulder.

The deep water below the stone did not give him back himself as had done the streamlet five days before.

This was a river, marred with eddies and with drifting wood, and red with the soil.