第 10 页

"Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got

to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight."

"Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it."

So she put me up a snack, and says:

"Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer

up prompt now--don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?"

"The hind end, mum."

"Well, then, a horse?"

"The for'rard end, mum."

"Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?"

"North side."

"If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with

their heads pointed the same direction?"

"The whole fifteen, mum."

"Well, I reckon you HAVE lived in the country. I thought maybe you was

trying to hocus me again. What's your real name, now?"

"George Peters, mum."

"Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's

Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Elexander

when I catch you. And don't go about women in that old calico. You do a

girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. Bless you, child,

when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch

the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it;

that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other

way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe

and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss

your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder,

like there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the

wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind

you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees

apart; she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the

lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the

needle; and I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot

along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if

you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me,

and I'll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the

way, and next time you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river

road's a rocky one, and your feet'll be in a condition when you get to

Goshen, I reckon."

I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks and

slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I

jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went up-stream far enough to make

the head of the island, and then started across. I took off the

sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on then. When I was about the

middle I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens; the

sound come faint over the water but clear--eleven. When I struck the

head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded, but

I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and started

a good fire there on a high and dry spot.

Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place, a mile and a half

below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the timber

and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound asleep on

the ground. I roused him out and says:

"Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose. They're

after us!"

Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he worked

for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By that time

everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was ready to be

shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We put out the camp

fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a candle outside

after that.

I took the canoe out from the shore a little piece, and took a look; but

if there was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and shadows ain't

good to see by. Then we got out the raft and slipped along down in the

shade, past the foot of the island dead still--never saying a word.

CHAPTER XII.

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 tow-head 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 pilot-house; 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!"