第 11 页

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 a-pawing 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!"

CHAPTER XIII.

WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such

a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd GOT to

find that boat now--had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking

and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too--seemed a

week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't

believe he could go any further--so scared he hadn't hardly any strength

left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are

in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the

texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight,

hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in

the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there was the

skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so

thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then

the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple

of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again, and

says:

"Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!"

He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and

set down. It was Packard. Then Bill HE come out and got in. Packard

says, in a low voice:

"All ready--shove off!"

I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:

"Hold on--'d you go through him?"

"No. Didn't you?"

"No. So he's got his share o' the cash yet."

"Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money."

"Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?"

"Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along."

So they got out and went in.

The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half

second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my

knife and cut the rope, and away we went!

We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly even

breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the

paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a

hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last

sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.

When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lantern

show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed by

that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to

understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was.

Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the

first time that I begun to worry about the men--I reckon I hadn't had

time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for

murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no telling

but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like

it? So says I to Jim:

"The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above it,

in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then

I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that

gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their

time comes."

But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and

this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light

showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river,

watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the

rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering,

and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we

made for it.

It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We

seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go

for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole

there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told

Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone

about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oars

and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it three or four more

showed--up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore

light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by I see it was a

lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat. I skimmed

around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by and by

I found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his head down between his

knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.

He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only

me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:

"Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?"

I says:

"Pap, and mam, and sis, and--"

Then I broke down. He says:

"Oh, dang it now, DON'T take on so; we all has to have our troubles, and

this 'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?"

"They're--they're--are you the watchman of the boat?"

"Yes," he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. "I'm the captain and

the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck-hand; and

sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich as old Jim

Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good to Tom, Dick, and

Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but I've told

him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with him; for, says I, a

sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if I'D live two mile out

o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' on, not for all his

spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I--"

I broke in and says:

"They're in an awful peck of trouble, and--"

"WHO is?"

"Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your

ferryboat and go up there--"

"Up where? Where are they?"

"On the wreck."

"What wreck?"

"Why, there ain't but one."

"What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?"

"Yes."

"Good land! what are they doin' THERE, for gracious sakes?"

"Well, they didn't go there a-purpose."

"I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'em

if they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever

git into such a scrape?"

"Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town--"

"Yes, Booth's Landing--go on."

"She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of the

evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry to stay

all night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I disremember

her name--and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and went

a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the

wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost,

but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an

hour after dark we come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so

dark we didn't notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so WE

saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple--and oh, he WAS

the best cretur!--I most wish 't it had been me, I do."

"My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And THEN what did

you all do?"

"Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn't make

nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help

somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, and

Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and hunt

up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I made the land about a mile