IT must a been close on to one
o'clock when we got below the
island at last, and the raft
did seem to go mighty slow. If
a boat was to come along we was
going to take to the canoe and
break for the Illinois shore;
and it was well a boat didn't
come, for we hadn't ever thought
to put the gun in the canoe,
or a fishing-line, or anything
to eat. We was in ruther too
much of a sweat to think of so
many things. It warn't good judgment
to put EVERYTHING on the raft.
If the men went to the island
I just expect they found the
camp fire I built, and watched
it all night for Jim to come.
Anyways, they stayed away from
us, and if my building the fire
never fooled them it warn't no
fault of mine. I played it as
low down on them as I could.
When the first streak of day
began to show we tied up to a
towhead in a big bend on the
Illinois side, and hacked off
cottonwood branches with the
hatchet, and covered up the raft
with them so she looked like
there had been a cave-in in the
bank there. A towhead is a sandbar
that has cottonwoods on it as
thick as harrow-teeth.
We had mountains on the Missouri
shore and heavy timber on the
Illinois side, and the channel
was down the Missouri shore at
that place, so we warn't afraid
of anybody running across us.
We laid there all day, and watched
the rafts and steamboats spin
down the Missouri shore, and
up-bound steamboats fight the
big river in the middle. I told
Jim all about the time I had
jabbering with that woman; and
Jim said she was a smart one,
and if she was to start after
us herself she wouldn't set down
and watch a camp fire -- no,
sir, she'd fetch a dog. Well,
then, I said, why couldn't she
tell her husband to fetch a dog?
Jim said he bet she did think
of it by the time the men was
ready to start, and he believed
they must a gone up-town to get
a dog and so they lost all that
time, or else we wouldn't be
here on a towhead sixteen or
seventeen mile below the village
-- no, indeedy, we would be in
that same old town again. So
I said I didn't care what was
the reason they didn't get us
as long as they didn't.
When it was
beginning to come on dark we
poked our heads out
of the cottonwood thicket, and
looked up and down and across;
nothing in sight; so Jim took
up some of the top planks of
the raft and built a snug wigwam
to get under in blazing weather
and rainy, and to keep the things
dry. Jim made a floor for the
wigwam, and raised it a foot
or more above the level of the
raft, so now the blankets and
all the traps was out of reach
of steamboat waves. Right in
the middle of the wigwam we made
a layer of dirt about five or
six inches deep with a frame
around it for to hold it to its
place; this was to build a fire
on in sloppy weather or chilly;
the wigwam would keep it from
being seen. We made an extra
steering-oar, too, because one
of the others might get broke
on a snag or something. We fixed
up a short forked stick to hang
the old lantern on, because we
must always light the lantern
whenever we see a steamboat coming
down-stream, to keep from getting
run over; but we wouldn't have
to light it for up-stream boats
unless we see we was in what
they call a "crossing"; for the
river was pretty high yet, very
low banks being still a little
under water; so up-bound boats
didn't always run the channel,
but hunted easy water.
This second night we run between
seven and eight hours, with a
current that was making over
four mile an hour. We catched
fish and talked, and we took
a swim now and then to keep off
sleepiness. It was kind of solemn,
drifting down the big, still
river, laying on our backs looking
up at the stars, and we didn't
ever feel like talking loud,
and it warn't often that we laughed
-- only a little kind of a low
chuckle. We had mighty good weather
as a general thing, and nothing
ever happened to us at all --
that night, nor the next, nor
the next.
Every night we passed towns,
some of them away up on black
hillsides, nothing but just a
shiny bed of lights; not a house
could you see. The fifth night
we passed St. Louis, and it was
like the whole world lit up.
In St. Petersburg they used to
say there was twenty or thirty
thousand people in St. Louis,
but I never believed it till
I see that wonderful spread of
lights at two o'clock that still
night. There warn't a sound there;
everybody was asleep.
Every night now I used to slip
ashore towards ten o'clock at
some little village, and buy
ten or fifteen cents' worth of
meal or bacon or other stuff
to eat; and sometimes I lifted
a chicken that warn't roosting
comfortable, and took him along.
Pap always said, take a chicken
when you get a chance, because
if you don't want him yourself
you can easy find somebody that
does, and a good deed ain't ever
forgot. I never see pap when
he didn't want the chicken himself,
but that is what he used to say,
anyway.
Mornings before daylight I
slipped into cornfields and borrowed
a watermelon, or a mushmelon,
or a punkin, or some new corn,
or things of that kind. Pap always
said it warn't no harm to borrow
things if you was meaning to
pay them back some time; but
the widow said it warn't anything
but a soft name for stealing,
and no decent body would do it.
Jim said he reckoned the widow
was partly right and pap was
partly right; so the best way
would be for us to pick out two
or three things from the list
and say we wouldn't borrow them
any more -- then he reckoned
it wouldn't be no harm to borrow
the others. So we talked it over
all one night, drifting along
down the river, trying to make
up our minds whether to drop
the watermelons, or the cantelopes,
or the mushmelons, or what. But
towards daylight we got it all
settled satisfactory, and concluded
to drop crabapples and p'simmons.
We warn't feeling just right
before that, but it was all comfortable
now. I was glad the way it come
out, too, because crabapples
ain't ever good, and the p'simmons
wouldn't be ripe for two or three
months yet.
We shot a water-fowl now and
then that got up too early in
the morning or didn't go to bed
early enough in the evening.
Take it all round, we lived pretty
high.
The fifth night
below St. Louis we had a big
storm after midnight,
with a power of thunder and lightning,
and the rain poured down in a
solid sheet. We stayed in the
wigwam and let the raft take
care of itself. When the lightning
glared out we could see a big
straight river ahead, and high,
rocky bluffs on both sides. By
and by says I, "Hel-LO, Jim,
looky yonder!" It was a steamboat
that had killed herself on a
rock. We was drifting straight
down for her. The lightning showed
her very distinct. She was leaning
over, with part of her upper
deck above water, and you could
see every little chimbly-guy
clean and clear, and a chair
by the big bell, with an old
slouch hat hanging on the back
of it, when the flashes come.
Well, it being away in the
night and stormy, and all so
mysterious-like, I felt just
the way any other boy would a
felt when I see that wreck laying
there so mournful and lonesome
in the middle of the river. I
wanted to get aboard of her and
slink around a little, and see
what there was there. So I says:
"Le's land
on her, Jim."
But Jim was dead against it
at first. He says:
"I doan' want
to go fool'n 'long er no wrack.
We's doin'
blame' well, en we better let
blame' well alone, as de good
book says. Like as not dey's
a watchman on dat wrack."
"Watchman your grandmother," I
says; "there ain't nothing to
watch but the texas and the pilothouse;
and do you reckon anybody's going
to resk his life for a texas
and a pilot-house such a night
as this, when it's likely to
break up and wash off down the
river any minute?" Jim couldn't
say nothing to that, so he didn't
try. "And besides," I says, "we
might borrow something worth
having out of the captain's stateroom.
Seegars, I bet you -- and cost
five cents apiece, solid cash.
Steamboat captains is always
rich, and get sixty dollars a
month, and THEY don't care a
cent what a thing costs, you
know, long as they want it. Stick
a candle in your pocket; I can't
rest, Jim, till we give her a
rummaging. Do you reckon Tom
Sawyer would ever go by this
thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't.
He'd call it an adventure --
that's what he'd call it; and
he'd land on that wreck if it
was his last act. And wouldn't
he throw style into it? -- wouldn't
he spread himself, nor nothing?
Why, you'd think it was Christopher
C'lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come.
I wish Tom Sawyer WAS here."
Jim he grumbled a little, but
give in. He said we mustn't talk
any more than we could help,
and then talk mighty low. The
lightning showed us the wreck
again just in time, and we fetched
the stabboard derrick, and made
fast there.
The deck was high out here.
We went sneaking down the slope
of it to labboard, in the dark,
towards the texas, feeling our
way slow with our feet, and spreading
our hands out to fend off the
guys, for it was so dark we couldn't
see no sign of them. Pretty soon
we struck the forward end of
the skylight, and clumb on to
it; and the next step fetched
us in front of the captain's
door, which was open, and by
Jimminy, away down through the
texas-hall we see a light! and
all in the same second we seem
to hear low voices in yonder!
Jim whispered and said he was
feeling powerful sick, and told
me to come along. I says, all
right, and was going to start
for the raft; but just then I
heard a voice wail out and say:
"Oh, please
don't, boys; I swear I won't
ever tell!"
Another voice said, pretty
loud:
"It's a lie,
Jim Turner. You've acted this
way before. You always
want more'n your share of the
truck, and you've always got
it, too, because you've swore
't if you didn't you'd tell.
But this time you've said it
jest one time too many. You're
the meanest, treacherousest hound
in this country."
By this time Jim was gone for
the raft. I was just a-biling
with curiosity; and I says to
myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back
out now, and so I won't either;
I'm a-going to see what's going
on here. So I dropped on my hands
and knees in the little passage,
and crept aft in the dark till
there warn't but one stateroom
betwixt me and the cross-hall
of the texas. Then in there I
see a man stretched on the floor
and tied hand and foot, and two
men standing over him, and one
of them had a dim lantern in
his hand, and the other one had
a pistol. This one kept pointing
the pistol at the man's head
on the floor, and saying:
"I'd LIKE to!
And I orter, too -- a mean
skunk!"
The man on
the floor would shrivel up
and say, "Oh, please
don't, Bill; I hain't ever goin'
to tell."
And every time he said that
the man with the lantern would
laugh and say:
"'Deed you AIN'T! You never
said no truer thing 'n that,
you bet you." And once he said: "Hear
him beg! and yit if we hadn't
got the best of him and tied
him he'd a killed us both. And
what FOR? Jist for noth'n. Jist
because we stood on our RIGHTS
-- that's what for. But I lay
you ain't a-goin' to threaten
nobody any more, Jim Turner.
Put UP that pistol, Bill."
Bill says:
"I don't want
to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin'
him -- and didn't
he kill old Hatfield jist the
same way -- and don't he deserve
it?"
"But I don't
WANT him killed, and I've got
my reasons for it."
"Bless yo' heart for them words,
Jake Packard! I'll never forgit
you long's I live!" says the
man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didn't take no notice
of that, but hung up his lantern
on a nail and started towards
where I was there in the dark,
and motioned Bill to come. I
crawfished as fast as I could
about two yards, but the boat
slanted so that I couldn't make
very good time; so to keep from
getting run over and catched
I crawled into a stateroom on
the upper side. The man came
apawing along in the dark, and
when Packard got to my stateroom,
he says:
"Here -- come
in here."
And in he come, and Bill after
him. But before they got in I
was up in the upper berth, cornered,
and sorry I come. Then they stood
there, with their hands on the
ledge of the berth, and talked.
I couldn't see them, but I could
tell where they was by the whisky
they'd been having. I was glad
I didn't drink whisky; but it
wouldn't made much difference
anyway, because most of the time
they couldn't a treed me because
I didn't breathe. I was too scared.
And, besides, a body COULDN'T
breathe and hear such talk. They
talked low and earnest. Bill
wanted to kill Turner. He says:
"He's said
he'll tell, and he will. If
we was to give both
our shares to him NOW it wouldn't
make no difference after the
row and the way we've served
him. Shore's you're born, he'll
turn State's evidence; now you
hear ME. I'm for putting him
out of his troubles."
"So'm I," says
Packard, very quiet.
"Blame it, I'd sorter begun
to think you wasn�t. Well, then,
that's all right. Le's go and
do it."
"Hold on a
minute; I hain't had my say
yit. You listen to
me. Shooting's good, but there's
quieter ways if the thing's GOT
to be done. But what I say is
this: it ain't good sense to
go court'n around after a halter
if you can git at what you're
up to in some way that's jist
as good and at the same time
don't bring you into no resks.
Ain't that so?"
"You bet it
is. But how you goin' to manage
it this time?"
"Well, my idea
is this: we'll rustle around
and gather up whatever
pickins we've overlooked in the
staterooms, and shove for shore
and hide the truck. Then we'll
wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin'
to be more'n two hours befo'
this wrack breaks up and washes
off down the river. See? He'll
be drownded, and won't have nobody
to blame for it but his own self.
I reckon that's a considerble
sight better 'n killin' of him.
I'm unfavorable to killin' a
man as long as you can git aroun'
it; it ain't good sense, it ain't
good morals. Ain't I right?"
"Yes, I reck'n
you are. But s'pose she DON'T
break up and
wash off?"
"Well, we can
wait the two hours anyway and
see, can't we?"
"All right,
then; come along."
So they started,
and I lit out, all in a cold
sweat, and
scrambled forward. It was dark
as pitch there; but I said, in
a kind of a coarse whisper, "Jim
!" and he answered up, right
at my elbow, with a sort of a
moan, and I says:
"Quick, Jim,
it ain't no time for fooling
around and moaning;
there's a gang of murderers in
yonder, and if we don't hunt
up their boat and set her drifting
down the river so these fellows
can't get away from the wreck
there's one of 'em going to be
in a bad fix. But if we find
their boat we can put ALL of
'em in a bad fix -- for the sheriff
'll get 'em. Quick -- hurry!
I'll hunt the labboard side,
you hunt the stabboard. You start
at the raft, and --"
"Oh, my lordy,
lordy! RAF'? Dey ain' no raf'
no mo'; she
done broke loose en gone I --
en here we is!" |