第 6 页

browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that

killed me and took the things. They won't ever hunt the river for

anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't

bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I want to.

Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well,

and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights,

and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place.

I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I

woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked

around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and

miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs

that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from

shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and SMELT late.

You know what I mean--I don't know the words to put it in.

I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start

when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I

made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from

oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night. I peeped out through

the willow branches, and there it was--a skiff, away across the water. I

couldn't tell how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it was

abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it. Think's I, maybe

it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped below me with the

current, and by and by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy water, and

he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him. Well,

it WAS pap, sure enough--and sober, too, by the way he laid his oars.

I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down stream soft

but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then

struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river,

because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing, and people

might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood, and then laid

down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float. I laid there, and had

a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky; not a

cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back

in the moonshine; I never knowed it before. And how far a body can hear

on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry landing.

I heard what they said, too--every word of it. One man said it was

getting towards the long days and the short nights now. T'other one said

THIS warn't one of the short ones, he reckoned--and then they laughed,

and he said it over again, and they laughed again; then they waked up

another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped

out something brisk, and said let him alone. The first fellow said he

'lowed to tell it to his old woman--she would think it was pretty good;

but he said that warn't nothing to some things he had said in his time.

I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight

wouldn't wait more than about a week longer. After that the talk got

further and further away, and I couldn't make out the words any more; but

I could hear the mumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a

long ways off.

I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson's

Island, about two mile and a half down stream, heavy timbered and

standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like

a steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs of the bar at the

head--it was all under water now.

It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping

rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and

landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into a

deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow

branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a seen the canoe

from the outside.

I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked out

on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town, three

mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling. A monstrous

big lumber-raft was about a mile up stream, coming along down, with a

lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping down, and when

it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say, "Stern oars,

there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just as plain as if

the man was by my side.

There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods, and

laid down for a nap before breakfast.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight

o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about

things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I could

see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all

about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places on

the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the

freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze

up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very

friendly.

I was powerful lazy and comfortable--didn't want to get up and cook

breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep

sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow

and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and

looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying on

the water a long ways up--about abreast the ferry. And there was the

ferryboat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the

matter now. "Boom!" I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's

side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my

carcass come to the top.

I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire,

because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the

cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide there,

and it always looks pretty on a summer morning--so I was having a good

enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to

eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in

loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the

drownded carcass and stop there. So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and if

any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show. I changed

to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could have, and I

warn't disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I most got it

with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further. Of

course I was where the current set in the closest to the shore--I knowed

enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, and this time I

won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver,

and set my teeth in. It was "baker's bread"--what the quality eat; none

of your low-down corn-pone.

I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching

the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied. And then

something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or

somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and

done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing

--that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson

prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just

the right kind.

I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The

ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance

to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in

close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along down

towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread,

and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place. Where the

log forked I could peep through.

By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a

run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap,

and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer,

and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more. Everybody was

talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says:

"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's

washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I

hope so, anyway."

"I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly

in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see

them first-rate, but they couldn't see me. Then the captain sung out:

"Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it

made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I

judged I was gone. If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd a

got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to

goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder

of the island. I could hear the booming now and then, further and

further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more. The

island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the foot, and was

giving it up. But they didn't yet a while. They turned around the foot

of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, under

steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over to that

side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island they

quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the

town.

I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after me.

I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick

woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under

so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a catfish and haggled him

open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had

supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.

When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well

satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set

on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the

stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed;

there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't

stay so, you soon get over it.

And so for three days and nights. No difference--just the same thing.

But the next day I went exploring around down through the island. I was

boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all

about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty

strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green

razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They

would all come handy by and by, I judged.

Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far

from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot

nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh home.

About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went

sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get

a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to

the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.

My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further,

but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever

I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves

and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else. I

slunk along another piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so

on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and

broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two

and I only got half, and the short half, too.

When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in

my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got

all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I

put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last

year's camp, and then clumb a tree.

I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I

didn't hear nothing--I only THOUGHT I heard and seen as much as a

thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I

got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time.

All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast.

By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and

dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the

Illinois bank--about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and

cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all

night when I hear a PLUNKETY-PLUNK, PLUNKETY-PLUNK, and says to myself,

horses coming; and next I hear people's voices. I got everything into

the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping through the woods

to see what I could find out. I hadn't got far when I hear a man say:

"We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about

beat out. Let's look around."

I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the

old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.

I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every time

I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn't do

me no good. By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way; I'm