LumberChunker/GutenQA_Paragraphs · Datasets at Hugging Face

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Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	300	CHAPTER XI.	“No’m. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I’ve walked all the way and I’m all tired out.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	301	CHAPTER XI.	“Hungry, too, I reckon. I’ll find you something.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	302	CHAPTER XI.	“No’m, I ain’t hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below here at a farm; so I ain’t hungry no more. It’s what makes me so late. My mother’s down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the town, she says. I hain’t ever been here before. Do you know him?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	303	CHAPTER XI.	“No; but I don’t know everybody yet. I haven’t lived here quite two weeks. It’s a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	304	CHAPTER XI.	“No,” I says; “I’ll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain’t afeared of the dark.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	305	CHAPTER XI.	She said she wouldn’t let me go by myself, but her husband would be in by-and-by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she’d send him along with me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up the river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better off they used to was, and how they didn’t know but they’d made a mistake coming to our town, instead of letting well alone—and so on and so on, till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was going on in the town; but by-and-by she dropped on to pap and the murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only she got it ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	306	CHAPTER XI.	“Who done it? We’ve heard considerable about these goings on down in Hookerville, but we don’t know who ’twas that killed Huck Finn.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	307	CHAPTER XI.	“Well, I reckon there’s a right smart chance of people here that’d like to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	308	CHAPTER XI.	“No—is that so?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	309	CHAPTER XI.	“Most everybody thought it at first. He’ll never know how nigh he come to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	310	CHAPTER XI.	“Why he—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	311	CHAPTER XI.	I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never noticed I had put in at all:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	312	CHAPTER XI.	“The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there’s a reward out for him—three hundred dollars. And there’s a reward out for old Finn, too—two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with ’em on the ferry-boat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn’t ben seen sence ten o’clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain’t come back sence, and they ain’t looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he’d get Huck’s money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People do say he warn’t any too good to do it. Oh, he’s sly, I reckon. If he don’t come back for a year he’ll be all right. You can’t prove anything on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and he’ll walk in Huck’s money as easy as nothing.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	313	CHAPTER XI.	“Yes, I reckon so, ’m. I don’t see nothing in the way of it. Has everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	314	CHAPTER XI.	“Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they’ll get the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	315	CHAPTER XI.	“Why, are they after him yet?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	316	CHAPTER XI.	“Well, you’re innocent, ain’t you! Does three hundred dollars lay around every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger ain’t far from here. I’m one of them—but I hain’t talked it around. A few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they call Jackson’s Island. Don’t anybody live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn’t say any more, but I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I’d seen smoke over there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself, like as not that nigger’s hiding over there; anyway, says I, it’s worth the trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain’t seen any smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he’s gone, if it was him; but husband’s going over to see—him and another man. He was gone up the river; but he got back to-day, and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	317	CHAPTER XI.	I had got so uneasy I couldn’t set still. I had to do something with my hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman stopped talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to be interested—and I was, too—and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	318	CHAPTER XI.	“Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get it. Is your husband going over there to-night?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	319	CHAPTER XI.	“Oh, yes. He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to get a boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They’ll go over after midnight.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	320	CHAPTER XI.	“Couldn’t they see better if they was to wait till daytime?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	321	CHAPTER XI.	“Yes. And couldn’t the nigger see better, too? After midnight he’ll likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he’s got one.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	322	CHAPTER XI.	“I didn’t think of that.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	323	CHAPTER XI.	The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn’t feel a bit comfortable. Pretty soon she says,
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	324	CHAPTER XI.	“What did you say your name was, honey?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	325	CHAPTER XI.	“M—Mary Williams.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	326	CHAPTER XI.	Somehow it didn’t seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn’t look up—seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But now she says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	327	CHAPTER XI.	“Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	328	CHAPTER XI.	“Oh, yes’m, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah’s my first name. Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	329	CHAPTER XI.	“Oh, that’s the way of it?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	330	CHAPTER XI.	“Yes’m.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	331	CHAPTER XI.	I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I couldn’t look up yet.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	332	CHAPTER XI.	Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right about the rats. You’d see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn’t give her no peace. She showed me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generly, but she’d wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn’t know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said “Ouch!” it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn’t let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he’d a stayed where he was he’d a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her husband’s matters. But she broke off to say:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	333	CHAPTER XI.	“Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap, handy.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	334	CHAPTER XI.	So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very pleasant, and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	335	CHAPTER XI.	“Come, now, what’s your real name?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	336	CHAPTER XI.	“Wh—what, mum?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	337	CHAPTER XI.	“What’s your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?—or what is it?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	338	CHAPTER XI.	I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn’t know hardly what to do. But I says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	339	CHAPTER XI.	“Please to don’t poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I’m in the way here, I’ll—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	340	CHAPTER XI.	“No, you won’t. Set down and stay where you are. I ain’t going to hurt you, and I ain’t going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your secret, and trust me. I’ll keep it; and, what’s more, I’ll help you. So’ll my old man if you want him to. You see, you’re a runaway ’prentice, that’s all. It ain’t anything. There ain’t no harm in it. You’ve been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you, child, I wouldn’t tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that’s a good boy.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	341	CHAPTER XI.	So I said it wouldn’t be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn’t go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn’t stand it no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter’s old clothes and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of Goshen.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	342	CHAPTER XI.	“Goshen, child? This ain’t Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen’s ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	343	CHAPTER XI.	“Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	344	CHAPTER XI.	“He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	345	CHAPTER XI.	“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.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	346	CHAPTER XI.	“Hold on a minute. I’ll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	347	CHAPTER XI.	So she put me up a snack, and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	348	CHAPTER XI.	“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?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	349	CHAPTER XI.	“The hind end, mum.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	350	CHAPTER XI.	“Well, then, a horse?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	351	CHAPTER XI.	“The for’rard end, mum.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	352	CHAPTER XI.	“Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	353	CHAPTER XI.	“North side.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	354	CHAPTER XI.	“If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with their heads pointed the same direction?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	355	CHAPTER XI.	“The whole fifteen, mum.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	356	CHAPTER XI.	“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?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	357	CHAPTER XI.	“George Peters, mum.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	358	CHAPTER XI.	“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.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	359	CHAPTER XI.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	360	CHAPTER XI.	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:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	361	CHAPTER XI.	“Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain’t a minute to lose. They’re after us!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	362	CHAPTER XI.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	363	CHAPTER XI.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	364	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	365	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	366	CHAPTER XII.	When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a tow-head 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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	367	CHAPTER XII.	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 tow-head 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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	368	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	369	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	370	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	371	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	372	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	373	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	374	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	375	CHAPTER XII.	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:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	376	CHAPTER XII.	“Le’s land on her, Jim.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	377	CHAPTER XII.	But Jim was dead against it at first. He says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	378	CHAPTER XII.	“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.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	379	CHAPTER XII.	“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.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	380	CHAPTER XII.	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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	381	CHAPTER XII.	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!
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	382	CHAPTER XII.	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:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	383	CHAPTER XII.	“Oh, please don’t, boys; I swear I won’t ever tell!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	384	CHAPTER XII.	Another voice said, pretty loud:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	385	CHAPTER XII.	“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.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	386	CHAPTER XII.	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:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	387	CHAPTER XII.	“I’d like to! And I orter, too—a mean skunk!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	388	CHAPTER XII.	The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, “Oh, please don’t, Bill; I hain’t ever goin’ to tell.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	389	CHAPTER XII.	And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	390	CHAPTER XII.	“’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.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	391	CHAPTER XII.	Bill says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	392	CHAPTER XII.	“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?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	393	CHAPTER XII.	“But I don’t want him killed, and I’ve got my reasons for it.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	394	CHAPTER XII.	“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.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	395	CHAPTER XII.	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:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	396	CHAPTER XII.	“Here—come in here.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	397	CHAPTER XII.	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:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	398	CHAPTER XII.	“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.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	399	CHAPTER XII.	“So’m I,” says Packard, very quiet.

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“No’m. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I’ve walked all the way and I’m all tired out.”

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“Hungry, too, I reckon. I’ll find you something.”

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“No’m, I ain’t hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below here at a farm; so I ain’t hungry no more. It’s what makes me so late. My mother’s down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the town, she says. I hain’t ever been here before. Do you know him?”

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“No; but I don’t know everybody yet. I haven’t lived here quite two weeks. It’s a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet.”

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“No,” I says; “I’ll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain’t afeared of the dark.”

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She said she wouldn’t let me go by myself, but her husband would be in by-and-by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she’d send him along with me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up the river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better off they used to was, and how they didn’t know but they’d made a mistake coming to our town, instead of letting well alone—and so on and so on, till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was going on in the town; but by-and-by she dropped on to pap and the murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only she got it ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says:

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CHAPTER XI.

“Who done it? We’ve heard considerable about these goings on down in Hookerville, but we don’t know who ’twas that killed Huck Finn.”

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CHAPTER XI.

“Well, I reckon there’s a right smart chance of people here that’d like to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself.”

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CHAPTER XI.

“No—is that so?”

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“Most everybody thought it at first. He’ll never know how nigh he come to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim.”

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“Why he—”

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I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never noticed I had put in at all:

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“The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there’s a reward out for him—three hundred dollars. And there’s a reward out for old Finn, too—two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with ’em on the ferry-boat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn’t ben seen sence ten o’clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain’t come back sence, and they ain’t looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he’d get Huck’s money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People do say he warn’t any too good to do it. Oh, he’s sly, I reckon. If he don’t come back for a year he’ll be all right. You can’t prove anything on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and he’ll walk in Huck’s money as easy as nothing.”

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“Yes, I reckon so, ’m. I don’t see nothing in the way of it. Has everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?”

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“Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they’ll get the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him.”

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“Why, are they after him yet?”

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“Well, you’re innocent, ain’t you! Does three hundred dollars lay around every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger ain’t far from here. I’m one of them—but I hain’t talked it around. A few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they call Jackson’s Island. Don’t anybody live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn’t say any more, but I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I’d seen smoke over there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself, like as not that nigger’s hiding over there; anyway, says I, it’s worth the trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain’t seen any smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he’s gone, if it was him; but husband’s going over to see—him and another man. He was gone up the river; but he got back to-day, and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago.”

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CHAPTER XI.

I had got so uneasy I couldn’t set still. I had to do something with my hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman stopped talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to be interested—and I was, too—and says:

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“Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get it. Is your husband going over there to-night?”

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CHAPTER XI.

“Oh, yes. He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to get a boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They’ll go over after midnight.”

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CHAPTER XI.

“Couldn’t they see better if they was to wait till daytime?”

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CHAPTER XI.

“Yes. And couldn’t the nigger see better, too? After midnight he’ll likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he’s got one.”

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CHAPTER XI.

“I didn’t think of that.”

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CHAPTER XI.

The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn’t feel a bit comfortable. Pretty soon she says,

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“What did you say your name was, honey?”

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CHAPTER XI.

“M—Mary Williams.”

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Somehow it didn’t seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn’t look up—seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But now she says:

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“Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?”

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“Oh, yes’m, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah’s my first name. Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary.”

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“Oh, that’s the way of it?”

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“Yes’m.”

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I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I couldn’t look up yet.

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Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right about the rats. You’d see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn’t give her no peace. She showed me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generly, but she’d wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn’t know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said “Ouch!” it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn’t let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he’d a stayed where he was he’d a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her husband’s matters. But she broke off to say:

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“Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap, handy.”

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So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very pleasant, and says:

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CHAPTER XI.

“Come, now, what’s your real name?”

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CHAPTER XI.

“Wh—what, mum?”

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“What’s your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?—or what is it?”

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I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn’t know hardly what to do. But I says:

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“Please to don’t poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I’m in the way here, I’ll—”

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“No, you won’t. Set down and stay where you are. I ain’t going to hurt you, and I ain’t going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your secret, and trust me. I’ll keep it; and, what’s more, I’ll help you. So’ll my old man if you want him to. You see, you’re a runaway ’prentice, that’s all. It ain’t anything. There ain’t no harm in it. You’ve been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you, child, I wouldn’t tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that’s a good boy.”

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So I said it wouldn’t be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn’t go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn’t stand it no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter’s old clothes and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of Goshen.

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“Goshen, child? This ain’t Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen’s ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?”

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“Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen.”

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“He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong.”

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“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.”

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“Hold on a minute. I’ll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it.”

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So she put me up a snack, and says:

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“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?”

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“The hind end, mum.”

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“Well, then, a horse?”

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“The for’rard end, mum.”

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“Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?”

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“North side.”

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“If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with their heads pointed the same direction?”

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“The whole fifteen, mum.”

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“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?”

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“George Peters, mum.”

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“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.”

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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.

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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:

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“Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain’t a minute to lose. They’re after us!”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a tow-head 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.

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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 tow-head 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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“Le’s land on her, Jim.”

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But Jim was dead against it at first. He says:

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“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.”

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“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.”

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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.

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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!

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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:

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“Oh, please don’t, boys; I swear I won’t ever tell!”

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Another voice said, pretty loud:

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“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.”

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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:

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“I’d like to! And I orter, too—a mean skunk!”

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The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, “Oh, please don’t, Bill; I hain’t ever goin’ to tell.”

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And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say:

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“’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.”

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Bill says:

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“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?”

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“But I don’t want him killed, and I’ve got my reasons for it.”

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“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.

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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:

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“Here—come in here.”

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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:

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“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.”

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“So’m I,” says Packard, very quiet.