CHAPTER XI.

"COME in," says the woman, and I did. She
says: "Take a cheer."

I done it. She looked me all over with her little
shiny eyes, and says:

"What might your name be?"

"Sarah Williams."

"Where 'bouts do you live? In this neighbor-
hood?'

"No'm. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I've
walked all the way and I'm all tired out."

"Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something."

"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?"

"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."

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

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 rela-
tions 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:

"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."

"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."

"No -- is that so?"

"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."

"Why HE --"

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

"The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was
killed. So there's a reward out for him -- three hun-
dred 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 ferryboat 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 mid-
night 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."

"Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the
way of it. Has everybody guit thinking the nigger
done it?"

"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."

"Why, are they after him yet?"

"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 any-
body 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."

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:

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

"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."

"Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till
daytime?"

"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."

"I didn't think of that."

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

"What did you say your name was, honey?"

"M -- Mary Williams."

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:

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

"Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's
my first name. Some calls me Sarah, some calls me
Mary."

"Oh, that's the way of it?"

"Yes'm."

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

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:

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

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:

"Come, now, what's your real name?"

"Wh -- what, mum?"

"What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or
Bob? -- or what is it?"

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

"Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me,
mum. If I'm in the way here, I'll --"

"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."

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.

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

"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."

"He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just ex-
actly wrong."

"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 every-
thing 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.
<--split-->
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, lay-
ing 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 noth-
ing 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 yon-
der!" 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!"

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 wasnUt.
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 state-
rooms, 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!"
<--split-->
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 be-
fore 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 mur-
derers, 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; every-
body 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 some-
times I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich
as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' gener-
ous 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 spon-
dulicks 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-herQI
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 below,
and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people
to do something, but they said, 'What, in such a night
and such a current? There ain't no sense in it; go
for the steam ferry.' Now if you'll go and --"

"By Jackson, I'd LIKE to, and, blame it, I don't
know but I will; but who in the dingnation's a-going'
to PAY for it? Do you reckon your pap --"

"Why THAT'S all right. Miss Hooker she tole me,
PARTICULAR, that her uncle Hornback --"

"Great guns! is HE her uncle? Looky here, you
break for that light over yonder-way, and turn out
west when you git there, and about a quarter of a mile
out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart you
out to Jim Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill. And
don't you fool around any, because he'll want to know
the news. Tell him I'll have his niece all safe before
he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'm a-
going up around the corner here to roust out my
engineer."

I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the
corner I went back and got into my skiff and bailed her
out, and then pulled up shore in the easy water about
six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some
woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see
the ferryboat start. But take it all around, I was feel-
ing ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this
trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it.
I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she
would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions,
because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the
widow and good people takes the most interest in.

Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and
dusky, sliding along down! A kind of cold shiver
went through me, and then I struck out for her. She
was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much
chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all
around her and hollered a little, but there wasn't any
answer; all dead still. I felt a little bit heavy-hearted
about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they
could stand it I could.

Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the
middle of the river on a long down-stream slant; and
when I judged I was out of eye-reach I laid on my
oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around
the wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the
captain would know her uncle Hornback would want
them; and then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up
and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and
went a-booming down the river.

It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light
showed up; and when it did show it looked like it was
a thousand mile off. By the time I got there the sky
was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we
struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the
skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XIV.

BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the
truck the gang had stole off of the wreck, and
found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all sorts of
other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and
three boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich
before in neither of our lives. The seegars was prime.
We laid off all the afternoon in the woods talking, and
me reading the books, and having a general good time.
I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck
and at the ferryboat, and I said these kinds of things
was adventures; but he said he didn't want no more
adventures. He said that when I went in the texas
and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her
gone he nearly died, because he judged it was all up
with HIM anyway it could be fixed; for if he didn't get
saved he would get drownded; and if he did get
saved, whoever saved him would send him back home
so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would
sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was
most always right; he had an uncommon level head
for a nigger.

I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes
and earls and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and
how much style they put on, and called each other
your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and
so on, 'stead of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out,
and he was interested. He says:

"I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't
hearn 'bout none un um, skasely, but ole King Soller-
mun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a pack er
k'yards. How much do a king git?"

"Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars
a month if they want it; they can have just as much
as they want; everything belongs to them."

"AIN' dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?"

"THEY don't do nothing! Why, how you talk!
They just set around."

"No; is dat so?"

"Of course it is. They just set around -- except,
maybe, when there's a war; then they go to the war.
But other times they just lazy around; or go hawking
-- just hawking and sp -- Sh! -- d' you hear a noise?"

We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing
but the flutter of a steamboat's wheel away down,
coming around the point; so we come back.

"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is
dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if everybody
don't go just so he whacks their heads off. But
mostly they hang round the harem."

"Roun' de which?"

"Harem."

"What's de harem?"

"The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you
know about the harem? Solomon had one; he had
about a million wives."

"Why, yes, dat's so; I -- I'd done forgot it. A
harem's a bo'd'n-house, I reck'n. Mos' likely dey
has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n de wives
quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey
say Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan'
take no stock in dat. Bekase why: would a wise man
want to live in de mids' er sich a blim-blammin' all de
time? No -- 'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take
en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet DOWN de
biler-factry when he want to res'."

"Well, but he WAS the wisest man, anyway; be-
cause the widow she told me so, her own self."

"I doan k'yer what de widder say, he WARN'T no
wise man nuther. He had some er de dad-fetchedes'
ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile dat
he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"

"Yes, the widow told me all about it."

"WELL, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de
worl'? You jes' take en look at it a minute. Dah's
de stump, dah -- dat's one er de women; heah's you
-- dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer
dollar bill's de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What
does I do? Does I shin aroun' mongs' de neighbors
en fine out which un you de bill DO b'long to, en han'
it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat
anybody dat had any gumption would? No; I take
en whack de bill in TWO, en give half un it to you, en
de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat's de way
Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I
want to ast you: what's de use er dat half a bill? --
can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a half a
chile? I wouldn' give a dern for a million un um."

"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point --
blame it, you've missed it a thousand mile."

"Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout
yo' pints. I reck'n I knows sense when I sees it; en
dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat. De 'spute
warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a
whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a
'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half a chile doan'
know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' talk
to me 'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back."

"But I tell you you don't get the point."

"Blame de point! I reck'n I knows what I knows.
En mine you, de REAL pint is down furder -- it's down
deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised.
You take a man dat's got on'y one or two chillen; is
dat man gwyne to be waseful o' chillen? No, he
ain't; he can't 'ford it. HE know how to value 'em.
But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million chillen
runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt. HE as soon
chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'. A
chile er two, mo' er less, warn't no consekens to
Sollermun, dad fatch him!"

I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his
head once, there warn't no getting it out again. He
was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever
see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let
Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got
his head cut off in France long time ago; and about
his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a king,
but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he
died there.

"Po' little chap."

"But some says he got out and got away, and come
to America."

"Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome -- dey
ain' no kings here, is dey, Huck?"

"No."

"Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne
to do?"

"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the
police, and some of them learns people how to talk
French."

"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same
way we does?"

"NO, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they
said -- not a single word."

"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat
come?"

"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their
jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to
you and say Polly-voo-franzy -- what would you
think?"

"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over
de head -- dat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low
no nigger to call me dat."

"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only
saying, do you know how to talk French?"

"Well, den, why couldn't he SAY it?"

"Why, he IS a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's
WAY of saying it."

"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want
to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

"No, a cat don't."

"Well, does a cow?"

"No, a cow don't, nuther."

"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a
cat?"

"No, dey don't."

"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from
each other, ain't it?"

"Course."

"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow
to talk different from US?"

"Why, mos' sholy it is."

"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a
FRENCHMAN to talk different from us? You answer me
that."

"Is a cat a man, Huck?"

"No."

"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a
man. Is a cow a man? -- er is a cow a cat?"

"No, she ain't either of them."

"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like
either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a
man?"

"Yes."

"WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he TALK like
a man? You answer me DAT!"

I see it warn't no use wasting words -- you can't
learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XV.

WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to
Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio
River comes in, and that was what we was after. We
would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way
up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out
of trouble.

Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and
we made for a towhead to tie to, for it wouldn't do to
try to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in the
canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't any-
thing but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line
around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank,
but there was a stiff current, and the raft come boom-
ing down so lively she tore it out by the roots and
away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it
made me so sick and scared I couldn't budge for most
a half a minute it seemed to me -- and then there warn't
no raft in sight; you couldn't see twenty yards. I
jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and
grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But
she didn't come. I was in such a hurry I hadn't
untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was
so excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do
anything with them.

As soon as I got started I took out after the raft,
hot and heavy, right down the towhead. That was
all right as far as it went, but the towhead warn't
sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of
it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no
more idea which way I was going than a dead man.

Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll
run into the bank or a towhead or something; I got
to set still and float, and yet it's mighty fidgety busi-
ness to have to hold your hands still at such a time. I
whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres
I hears a small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I
went tearing after it, listening sharp to hear it again.
The next time it come I see I warn't heading for it,
but heading away to the right of it. And the next
time I was heading away to the left of it -- and not
gaining on it much either, for I was flying around, this
way and that and t'other, but it was going straight
ahead all the time.

I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan,
and beat it all the time, but he never did, and it was
the still places between the whoops that was making
the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly
I hears the whoop BEHIND me. I was tangled good
now. That was somebody else's whoop, or else I was
turned around.

I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop
again; it was behind me yet, but in a different place;
it kept coming, and kept changing its place, and I kept
answering, till by and by it was in front of me again,
and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head
down-stream, and I was all right if that was Jim and
not some other raftsman hollering. I couldn't tell
nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don't look
natural nor sound natural in a fog.

The whooping went on, and in about a minute I
come a-booming down on a cut bank with smoky
ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed me
off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that
fairly roared, the currrent was tearing by them so swift.

In another second or two it was solid white and still
again. I set perfectly still then, listening to my heart
thump, and I reckon I didn't draw a breath while it
thumped a hundred.

I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was.
That cut bank was an island, and Jim had gone down
t'other side of it. It warn't no towhead that you
could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber
of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long
and more than half a mile wide.

I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen
minutes, I reckon. I was floating along, of course,
four or five miles an hour; but you don't ever think
of that. No, you FEEL like you are laying dead still on
the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by
you don't think to yourself how fast YOU'RE going, but
you catch your breath and think, my! how that snag's
tearing along. If you think it ain't dismal and lone-
some out in a fog that way by yourself in the night,
you try it once -- you'll see.

Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and
then; at last I hears the answer a long ways off, and
tries to follow it, but I couldn't do it, and directly I
judged I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had little
dim glimpses of them on both sides of me -- sometimes
just a narrow channel between, and some that I
couldn't see I knowed was there because I'd hear the
wash of the current against the old dead brush and
trash that hung over the banks. Well, I warn't long
loosing the whoops down amongst the towheads; and
I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, be-
cause it was worse than chasing a Jack-o'-lantern.
You never knowed a sound dodge around so, and
swap places so quick and so much.

I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four
or five times, to keep from knocking the islands out of
the river; and so I judged the raft must be butting
into the bank every now and then, or else it would get
further ahead and clear out of hearing -- it was floating
a little faster than what I was.

Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and
by, but I couldn't hear no sign of a whoop nowheres.
I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a snag, maybe, and
it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laid
down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no
more. I didn't want to go to sleep, of course; but I
was so sleepy I couldn't help it; so I thought I would
take jest one little cat-nap.

But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I
waked up the stars was shining bright, the fog was all
gone, and I was spinning down a big bend stern first.
First I didn't know where I was; I thought I was
dreaming; and when things began to come back to me
they seemed to come up dim out of last week.

It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest
and the thickest kind of timber on both banks; just a
solid wall, as well as I could see by the stars. I looked
away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the
water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warn't
nothing but a couple of sawlogs made fast together.
Then I see another speck, and chased that; then
another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.

When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head
down between his knees, asleep, with his right arm
hanging over the steering-oar. The other oar was
smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves
and branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.

I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the
raft, and began to gap, and stretch my fists out against
Jim, and says:

"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you
stir me up?"

"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you
ain' dead -- you ain' drownded -- you's back agin?
It's too good for true, honey, it's too good for true.
Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No,
you ain' dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de
same ole Huck -- de same ole Huck, thanks to good-
ness!"

"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a-
drinking?"

"Drinkin'? Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I had a
chance to be a-drinkin'?"

"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"

"How does I talk wild?"

"HOW? Why, hain't you been talking about my
coming back, and all that stuff, as if I'd been gone
away?"

"Huck -- Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look
me in de eye. HAIN'T you ben gone away?"

"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you
mean? I hain't been gone anywheres. Where would
I go to?"

"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey
is. Is I ME, or who IS I? Is I heah, or whah IS I?
Now dat's what I wants to know."

"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I
think you're a tangle-headed old fool, Jim."

"I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn't you
tote out de line in de canoe fer to make fas' to de tow-
head?"

"No, I didn't. What tow-head? I hain't see no
tow-head."

"You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't
de line pull loose en de raf' go a-hummin' down de
river, en leave you en de canoe behine in de fog?"

"What fog?"

"Why, de fog! -- de fog dat's been aroun' all night.
En didn't you whoop, en didn't I whoop, tell we got
mix' up in de islands en one un us got los' en t'other
one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn' know whah
he wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands
en have a turrible time en mos' git drownded? Now
ain' dat so, boss -- ain't it so? You answer me dat."

"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen
no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing.
I been setting here talking with you all night till you
went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon I
done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that
time, so of course you've been dreaming."

"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in
ten minutes?"

"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there
didn't any of it happen."

"But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as --"

"It don't make no difference how plain it is; there
ain't nothing in it. I know, because I've been here
all the time."

Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but
set there studying over it. Then he says:

"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but
dog my cats ef it ain't de powerfullest dream I ever
see. En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo' dat's tired
me like dis one."

"Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does
tire a body like everything sometimes. But this one
was a staving dream; tell me all about it, Jim."

So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing
right through, just as it happened, only he painted it
up considerable. Then he said he must start in and
"'terpret" it, because it was sent for a warning. He
said the first towhead stood for a man that would try
to do us some good, but the current was another man
that would get us away from him. The whoops was
warnings that would come to us every now and then,
and if we didn't try hard to make out to understand
them they'd just take us into bad luck, 'stead of keep-
ing us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles
we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and
all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business
and didn't talk back and aggravate them, we would
pull through and get out of the fog and into the big
clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn't
have no more trouble.

It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to
the raft, but it was clearing up again now.

"Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as far
as it goes, Jim," I says; "but what does THESE things
stand for?"

It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the
smashed oar. You could see them first-rate now.

Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and
back at the trash again. He had got the dream fixed
so strong in his head that he couldn't seem to shake it
loose and get the facts back into its place again right
away. But when he did get the thing straightened
around he looked at me steady without ever smiling,
and says:

"What do dey stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell you.
When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin'
for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos' broke
bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what
become er me en de raf'. En when I wake up en fine
you back agin, all safe en soun', de tears come, en I
could a got down on my knees en kiss yo' foot, I's so
thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you
could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah
is TRASH; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de
head er dey fren's en makes 'em ashamed."

Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam,
and went in there without saying anything but that.
But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I
could almost kissed HIS foot to get him to take it back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up
to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it,
and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I
didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't
done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel
that way.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XVI.

WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a
little ways behind a monstrous long raft that
was as long going by as a procession. She had four
long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as
many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams
aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the mid-
dle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a
power of style about her. It AMOUNTED to something
being a raftsman on such a craft as that.

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the
night clouded up and got hot. The river was very
wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides;
you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.
We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we
would know it when we got to it. I said likely we
wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but
about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen
to have them lit up, how was we going to know we
was passing a town? Jim said if the two big rivers
joined together there, that would show. But I said
maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an
island and coming into the same old river again. That
disturbed Jim -- and me too. So the question was,
what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a
light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming
along with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at
the business, and wanted to know how far it was to
Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a
smoke on it and waited.

There warn't nothing to do now but to look out
sharp for the town, and not pass it without seeing it.
He said he'd be mighty sure to see it, because he'd be
a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it
he'd be in a slave country again and no more show for
freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:

"Dah she is?"

But it warn't. It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning
bugs; so he set down again, and went to watching,
same as before. Jim said it made him all over trembly
and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can
tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too,
to hear him, because I begun to get it through my
head that he WAS most free -- and who was to blame
for it? Why, ME. I couldn't get that out of my con-
science, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me
so I couldn't rest; I couldn't stay still in one place.
It hadn't ever come home to me before, what this
thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it
stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I
tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame,
because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner;
but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every
time, "But you knowed he was running for his free-
dom, and you could a paddled ashore and told some-
body." That was so -- I couldn't get around that
noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says
to me, "What had poor Miss Watson done to you
that you could see her nigger go off right under your
eyes and never say one single word? What did that
poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so
mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried
to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you
every way she knowed how. THAT'S what she done."

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished
I was dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing
myself to myself, and Jim was fidgeting up and down
past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every
time he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it
went through me like a shot, and I thought if it WAS
Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking
to myself. He was saying how the first thing he
would do when he got to a free State he would go to
saving up money and never spend a single cent, and
when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was
owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived;
and then they would both work to buy the two chil-
dren, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd
get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them.

It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't
ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just
see what a difference it made in him the minute he
judged he was about free. It was according to the old
saying, "Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell."
Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking.
Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped
to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying
he would steal his children -- children that belonged to
a man I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever
done me no harm.

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a
lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me up
hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, "Let up on
me -- it ain't too late yet -- I'll paddle ashore at the
first light and tell." I felt easy and happy and light
as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I
went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of sing-
ing to myself. By and by one showed. Jim sings
out:

"We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack
yo' heels! Dat's de good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows
it!"

I says:

"I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It
mightn't be, you know."

He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old
coat in the bottom for me to set on, and give me the
paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:

"Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say,
it's all on accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I
couldn't ever ben free ef it hadn' ben for Huck; Huck
done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; you's de
bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de ONLY fren' ole
Jim's got now."

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but
when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck
all out of me. I went along slow then, and I warn't
right down certain whether I was glad I started or
whether I warn't. When I was fifty yards off, Jim
says:

"Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white
genlman dat ever kep' his promise to ole Jim."

Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I GOT to do it -- I
can't get OUT of it. Right then along comes a skiff
with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I
stopped. One of them says:

"What's that yonder?"

"A piece of a raft," I says.

"Do you belong on it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any men on it?"

"Only one, sir."

"Well, there's five niggers run off to-night up yon-
der, above the head of the bend. Is your man white
or black?"

I didn't answer up prompt. I tried to, but the
words wouldn't come. I tried for a second or two to
brace up and out with it, but I warn't man enough --
hadn't the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening;
so I just give up trying, and up and says:

"He's white."

"I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves."

"I wish you would," says I, "because it's pap
that's there, and maybe you'd help me tow the raft
ashore where the light is. He's sick -- and so is mam
and Mary Ann."

"Oh, the devil! we're in a hurry, boy. But I
s'pose we've got to. Come, buckle to your paddle,
and let's get along."

I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars.
When we had made a stroke or two, I says:

"Pap'll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can
tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to
help me tow the raft ashore, and I can't do it by
myself."

"Well, that's infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy,
what's the matter with your father?"

"It's the -- a -- the -- well, it ain't anything much."

They stopped pulling. It warn't but a mighty little
ways to the raft now. One says:

"Boy, that's a lie. What IS the matter with your
pap? Answer up square now, and it'll be the better
for you."

"I will, sir, I will, honest -- but don't leave us,
please. It's the -- the -- Gentlemen, if you'll only
pull ahead, and let me heave you the headline, you
won't have to come a-near the raft -- please do."

"Set her back, John, set her back!" says one.
They backed water. "Keep away, boy -- keep to
looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind has
blowed it to us. Your pap's got the small-pox, and
you know it precious well. Why didn't you come out
and say so? Do you want to spread it all over?"

"Well," says I, a-blubbering, "I've told every-
body before, and they just went away and left us."

"Poor devil, there's something in that. We are
right down sorry for you, but we -- well, hang it, we
don't want the small-pox, you see. Look here, I'll
tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by your-
self, or you'll smash everything to pieces. You float
along down about twenty miles, and you'll come to a
town on the left-hand side of the river. It will be
long after sun-up then, and when you ask for help
you tell them your folks are all down with chills and
fever. Don't be a fool again, and let people guess
what is the matter. Now we're trying to do you a
kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us,
that's a good boy. It wouldn't do any good to land
yonder where the light is -- it's only a wood-yard.
Say, I reckon your father's poor, and I'm bound to
say he's in pretty hard luck. Here, I'll put a twenty-
dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when it
floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but my
kingdom! it won't do to fool with small-pox, don't
you see?"

"Hold on, Parker," says the other man, "here's a
twenty to put on the board for me. Good-bye, boy;
you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'll be all
right."

"That's so, my boy -- good-bye, good-bye. If you
see any runaway niggers you get help and nab them,
and you can make some money by it."

"Good-bye, sir," says I; "I won't let no runaway
niggers get by me if I can help it."

They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad
and low, because I knowed very well I had done
wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to try to
learn to do right; a body that don't get STARTED right
when he's little ain't got no show -- when the pinch
comes there ain't nothing to back him up and keep
him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought
a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd a
done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than
what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad -- I'd feel
just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I,
what's the use you learning to do right when it's
troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do
wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck.
I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't
bother no more about it, but after this always do
whichever come handiest at the time.

I went into the wigwam; Jim warn't there. I looked
all around; he warn't anywhere. I says:

"Jim!"

"Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o' sight yit? Don't
talk loud."

He was in the river under the stern oar, with just
his nose out. I told him they were out of sight, so he
come aboard. He says:

"I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de
river en was gwyne to shove for sho' if dey come
aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to de raf' agin
when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool
'em, Huck! Dat WUZ de smartes' dodge! I tell you,
chile, I'spec it save' ole Jim -- ole Jim ain't going to
forgit you for dat, honey."

Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty
good raise -- twenty dollars apiece. Jim said we could
take deck passage on a steamboat now, and the money
would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free
States. He said twenty mile more warn't far for the
raft to go, but he wished we was already there.

Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty
particular about hiding the raft good. Then he worked
all day fixing things in bundles, and getting all ready
to quit rafting.

That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights
of a town away down in a left-hand bend.

I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I
found a man out in the river with a skiff, setting a trot-
line. I ranged up and says:

"Mister, is that town Cairo?"

"Cairo? no. You must be a blame' fool."

"What town is it, mister?"

"If you want to know, go and find out. If you
stay here botherin' around me for about a half a minute
longer you'll get something you won't want."

I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed,
but I said never mind, Cairo would be the next place,
I reckoned.

We passed another town before daylight, and I was
going out again; but it was high ground, so I didn't
go. No high ground about Cairo, Jim said. I had
forgot it. We laid up for the day on a towhead
tolerable close to the left-hand bank. I begun to
suspicion something. So did Jim. I says:

"Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night."

He says:

"Doan' le's talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't
have no luck. I awluz 'spected dat rattlesnake-skin
warn't done wid its work."

"I wish I'd never seen that snake-skin, Jim -- I do
wish I'd never laid eyes on it."

"It ain't yo' fault, Huck; you didn' know. Don't
you blame yo'self 'bout it."

When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water
inshore, sure enough, and outside was the old regular
Muddy! So it was all up with Cairo.

We talked it all over. It wouldn't do to take to the
shore; we couldn't take the raft up the stream, of
course. There warn't no way but to wait for dark,
and start back in the canoe and take the chances. So
we slept all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so
as to be fresh for the work, and when we went back to
the raft about dark the canoe was gone!

We didn't say a word for a good while. There
warn't anything to say. We both knowed well enough
it was some more work of the rattlesnake-skin; so
what was the use to talk about it? It would only look
like we was finding fault, and that would be bound to
fetch more bad luck -- and keep on fetching it, too, till
we knowed enough to keep still.

By and by we talked about what we better do, and
found there warn't no way but just to go along down
with the raft till we got a chance to buy a canoe to go
back in. We warn't going to borrow it when there
warn't anybody around, the way pap would do, for
that might set people after us.

So we shoved out after dark on the raft.

Anybody that don't believe yet that it's foolishness to
handle a snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done
for us, will believe it now if they read on and see what
more it done for us.

The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at
shore. But we didn't see no rafts laying up; so we
went along during three hours and more. Well, the
night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next
meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the
river, and you can't see no distance. It got to be
very late and still, and then along comes a steamboat
up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged she would
see it. Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to
us; they go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy
water under the reefs; but nights like this they bull
right up the channel against the whole river.

We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't
see her good till she was close. She aimed right for
us. Often they do that and try to see how close they
can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites
off a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and
laughs, and thinks he's mighty smart. Well, here she
comes, and we said she was going to try and shave us;
but she didn't seem to be sheering off a bit. She was
a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking
like a black cloud with rows of glow-worms around it;
but all of a sudden she bulged out, big and scary, with
a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining like
red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows and guards
hanging right over us. There was a yell at us, and a
jingling of bells to stop the engines, a powwow of
cussing, and whistling of steam -- and as Jim went
overboard on one side and I on the other, she come
smashing straight through the raft.

I dived -- and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a
thirty-foot wheel had got to go over me, and I wanted
it to have plenty of room. I could always stay under
water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under a
minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a
hurry, for I was nearly busting. I popped out to my
armpits and blowed the water out of my nose, and
puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming current;
and of course that boat started her engines again ten
seconds after she stopped them, for they never cared
much for raftsmen; so now she was churning along up
the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though I
could hear her.

I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn't
get any answer; so I grabbed a plank that touched me
while I was "treading water," and struck out for
shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to
see that the drift of the current was towards the left-
hand shore, which meant that I was in a crossing; so
I changed off and went that way.

It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile cross-
ings; so I was a good long time in getting over. I
made a safe landing, and clumb up the bank. I couldn't
see but a little ways, but I went poking along over
rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and
then I run across a big old-fashioned double log-house
before I noticed it. I was going to rush by and get
away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to howl-
ing and barking at me, and I knowed better than to
move another peg.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XVII.

IN about a minute somebody spoke out of a window
without putting his head out, and says:

"Be done, boys! Who's there?"

I says:

"It's me."

"Who's me?"

"George Jackson, sir."

"What do you want?"

"I don't want nothing, sir. I only want to go
along by, but the dogs won't let me."

"What are you prowling around here this time of
night for -- hey?"

"I warn't prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off
of the steamboat."

"Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, some-
body. What did you say your name was?"

"George Jackson, sir. I'm only a boy."

"Look here, if you're telling the truth you needn't
be afraid -- nobody'll hurt you. But don't try to
budge; stand right where you are. Rouse out Bob
and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George
Jackson, is there anybody with you?"

"No, sir, nobody."

I heard the people stirring around in the house now,
and see a light. The man sung out:

"Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool -- ain't
you got any sense? Put it on the floor behind the
front door. Bob, if you and Tom are ready, take
your places."

"All ready."

"Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherd-
sons?"

"No, sir; I never heard of them."

"Well, that may be so, and it mayn't. Now, all
ready. Step forward, George Jackson. And mind,
don't you hurry -- come mighty slow. If there's any-
body with you, let him keep back -- if he shows him-
self he'll be shot. Come along now. Come slow;
push the door open yourself -- just enough to squeeze
in, d' you hear?"

I didn't hurry; I couldn't if I'd a wanted to. I
took one slow step at a time and there warn't a sound,
only I thought I could hear my heart. The dogs were
as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind
me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard
them unlocking and unbarring and unbolting. I put
my hand on the door and pushed it a little and a little
more till somebody said, "There, that's enough -- put
your head in." I done it, but I judged they would
take it off.

The candle was on the floor, and there they all was,
looking at me, and me at them, for about a quarter of
a minute: Three big men with guns pointed at me,
which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray and
about sixty, the other two thirty or more -- all of them
fine and handsome -- and the sweetest old gray-headed
lady, and back of her two young women which I
couldn't see right well. The old gentleman says:

"There; I reckon it's all right. Come in."

As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the
door and barred it and bolted it, and told the young
men to come in with their guns, and they all went in a
big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor, and
got together in a corner that was out of the range of
the front windows -- there warn't none on the side.
They held the candle, and took a good look at me,
and all said, "Why, HE ain't a Shepherdson -- no,
there ain't any Shepherdson about him." Then the
old man said he hoped I wouldn't mind being searched
for arms, because he didn't mean no harm by it -- it
was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my
pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said
it was all right. He told me to make myself easy and
at home, and tell all about myself; but the old lady
says:

"Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing's as wet as
he can be; and don't you reckon it may be he's
hungry?"

"True for you, Rachel -- I forgot."

So the old lady says:

"Betsy" (this was a nigger woman), you fly around
and get him something to eat as quick as you can, poor
thing; and one of you girls go and wake up Buck and
tell him -- oh, here he is himself. Buck, take this
little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and
dress him up in some of yours that's dry."

Buck looked about as old as me -- thirteen or four-
teen or along there, though he was a little bigger than
me. He hadn't on anything but a shirt, and he was
very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping and digging
one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along
with the other one. He says:

"Ain't they no Shepherdsons around?"

They said, no, 'twas a false alarm.

"Well," he says, "if they'd a ben some, I reckon
I'd a got one."

They all laughed, and Bob says:

"Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you've
been so slow in coming."

"Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right
I'm always kept down; I don't get no show."

"Never mind, Buck, my boy," says the old man,
"you'll have show enough, all in good time, don't
you fret about that. Go 'long with you now, and do
as your mother told you."

When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a
coarse shirt and a roundabout and pants of his, and I
put them on. While I was at it he asked me what my
name was, but before I could tell him he started to tell
me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched
in the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me
where Moses was when the candle went out. I said I
didn't know; I hadn't heard about it before, no way.

"Well, guess," he says.

"How'm I going to guess," says I, "when I never
heard tell of it before?"

"But you can guess, can't you? It's just as easy."

"WHICH candle?" I says.

"Why, any candle," he says.

"I don't know where he was," says I; "where
was he?"

"Why, he was in the DARK! That's where he was!"

"Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you
ask me for?"

"Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say,
how long are you going to stay here? You got to
stay always. We can just have booming times -- they
don't have no school now. Do you own a dog?
I've got a dog -- and he'll go in the river and bring
out chips that you throw in. Do you like to comb up
Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet I
don't, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole
britches! I reckon I'd better put 'em on, but I'd
ruther not, it's so warm. Are you all ready? All
right. Come along, old hoss."

Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and butter-
milk -- that is what they had for me down there, and
there ain't nothing better that ever I've come across
yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob
pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and
the two young women. They all smoked and talked,
and I eat and talked. The young women had quilts
around them, and their hair down their backs. They
all asked me questions, and I told them how pap and
me and all the family was living on a little farm down
at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann
run off and got married and never was heard of no
more, and Bill went to hunt them and he warn't heard
of no more, and Tom and Mort died, and then there
warn't nobody but just me and pap left, and he was
just trimmed down to nothing, on account of his
troubles; so when he died I took what there was left,
because the farm didn't belong to us, and started up
the river, deck passage, and fell overboard; and that
was how I come to be here. So they said I could
have a home there as long as I wanted it. Then it
was most daylight and everybody went to bed, and I
went to bed with Buck, and when I waked up in the
morning, drat it all, I had forgot what my name was.
So I laid there about an hour trying to think, and
when Buck waked up I says:

"Can you spell, Buck?"

"Yes," he says.

"I bet you can't spell my name," says I.

"I bet you what you dare I can," says he.

"All right," says I, "go ahead."

"G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n -- there now," he says.

"Well," says I, "you done it, but I didn't think
you could. It ain't no slouch of a name to spell --
right off without studying."

I set it down, private, because somebody might want
ME to spell it next, and so I wanted to be handy with
it and rattle it off like I was used to it.

It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice
house, too. I hadn't seen no house out in the country
before that was so nice and had so much style. It
didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor a
wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob
to turn, the same as houses in town. There warn't no
bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a bed; but heaps of
parlors in towns has beds in them. There was a big
fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the
bricks was kept clean and red by pouring water on
them and scrubbing them with another brick; some-
times they wash them over with red water-paint that
they call Spanish-brown, same as they do in town.
They had big brass dog-irons that could hold up a saw-
log. There was a clock on the middle of the mantel-
piece, with a picture of a town painted on the bottom
half of the glass front, and a round place in the middle
of it for the sun, and you could see the pendulum
swinging behind it. It was beautiful to hear that clock
tick; and sometimes when one of these peddlers had
been along and scoured her up and got her in good
shape, she would start in and strike a hundred and
fifty before she got tuckered out. They wouldn't took
any money for her.

Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side
of the clock, made out of something like chalk, and
painted up gaudy. By one of the parrots was a cat
made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other;
and when you pressed down on them they squeaked,
but didn't open their mouths nor look different nor
interested. They squeaked through underneath. There
was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out
behind those things. On the table in the middle of
the room was a kind of a lovely crockery basket that
bad apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled
up in it, which was much redder and yellower and
prettier than real ones is, but they warn't real because
you could see where pieces had got chipped off and
showed the white chalk, or whatever it was, under-
neath.

This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth,
with a red and blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a
painted border all around. It come all the way from
Philadelphia, they said. There was some books, too,
piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table.
One was a big family Bible full of pictures. One was
Pilgrim's Progress, about a man that left his family, it
didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and
then. The statements was interesting, but tough.
Another was Friendship's Offering, full of beautiful
stuff and poetry; but I didn't read the poetry. An-
other was Henry Clay's Speeches, and another was
Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine, which told you all about
what to do if a body was sick or dead. There was a
hymn book, and a lot of other books. And there was
nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too --
not bagged down in the middle and busted, like an
old basket.

They had pictures hung on the walls -- mainly
Washingtons and Lafayettes, and battles, and High-
land Marys, and one called "Signing the Declaration."
There was some that they called crayons, which one of
the daughters which was dead made her own self when
she was only fifteen years old. They was different
from any pictures I ever see before -- blacker, mostly,
than is common. One was a woman in a slim black
dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like
a cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large
black scoop-shovel bonnet with a black veil, and white
slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and very
wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning
pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a
weeping willow, and her other hand hanging down her
side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule, and
underneath the picture it said "Shall I Never See Thee
More Alas." Another one was a young lady with her
hair all combed up straight to the top of her head, and
knotted there in front of a comb like a chair-back, and
she was crying into a handkerchief and had a dead
bird laying on its back in her other hand with its heels
up, and underneath the picture it said "I Shall Never
Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas." There was one
where a young lady was at a window looking up at the
moon, and tears running down her cheeks; and she
had an open letter in one hand with black sealing wax
showing on one edge of it, and she was mashing a
locket with a chain to it against her mouth, and under-
neath the picture it said "And Art Thou Gone Yes
Thou Art Gone Alas." These was all nice pictures, I
reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them,
because if ever I was down a little they always give me
the fan-tods. Everybody was sorry she died, because
she had laid out a lot more of these pictures to do,
and a body could see by what she had done what they
had lost. But I reckoned that with her disposition she
was having a better time in the graveyard. She was
at work on what they said was her greatest picture
when she took sick, and every day and every night it
was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it
done, but she never got the chance. It was a picture
of a young woman in a long white gown, standing on
the rail of a bridge all ready to jump off, with her hair
all down her back, and looking up to the moon, with
the tears running down her face, and she had two arms
folded across her breast, and two arms stretched out in
front, and two more reaching up towards the moon --
and the idea was to see which pair would look best,
and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as I was
saying, she died before she got her mind made up,
and now they kept this picture over the head of the
bed in her room, and every time her birthday come
they hung flowers on it. Other times it was hid with
a little curtain. The young woman in the picture had a
kind of a nice sweet face, but there was so many arms
it made her look too spidery, seemed to me.

This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was
alive, and used to paste obituaries and accidents and
cases of patient suffering in it out of the Presbyterian
Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own
head. It was very good poetry. This is what she
wrote about a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling
Bots that fell down a well and was drownded:

  ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D

  And did young Stephen sicken,
    And did young Stephen die?
  And did the sad hearts thicken,
    And did the mourners cry?

  No; such was not the fate of
    Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
  Though sad hearts round him thickened,
    'Twas not from sickness' shots.

  No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
    Nor measles drear with spots;
  Not these impaired the sacred name
    Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

  Despised love struck not with woe
    That head of curly knots,
  Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
    Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

  O no. Then list with tearful eye,
    Whilst I his fate do tell.
  His soul did from this cold world fly
    By falling down a well.

  They got him out and emptied him;
    Alas it was too late;
  His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
    In the realms of the good and great.

If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like
that before she was fourteen, there ain't no telling
what she could a done by and by. Buck said she
could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever
have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a
line, and if she couldn't find anything to rhyme with it
would just scratch it out and slap down another one,
and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could write
about anything you choose to give her to write about
just so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or a
woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand
with her "tribute" before he was cold. She called
them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor
first, then Emmeline, then the undertaker -- the under-
taker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and
then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's
name, which was Whistler. She warn't ever the same
after that; she never complained, but she kinder pined
away and did not live long. Poor thing, many's the
time I made myself go up to the little room that used
to be hers and get out her poor old scrap-book and
read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me
and I had soured on her a little. I liked all that
family, dead ones and all, and warn't going to let any-
thing come between us. Poor Emmeline made poetry
about all the dead people when she was alive, and it
didn't seem right that there warn't nobody to make
some about her now she was gone; so I tried to sweat
out a verse or two myself, but I couldn't seem to make
it go somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim
and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way
she liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody
ever slept there. The old lady took care of the room
herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and she
sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there
mostly.

Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was
beautiful curtains on the windows: white, with pictures
painted on them of castles with vines all down the
walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a
little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon,
and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young
ladies sing "The Last Link is Broken" and play "The
Battle of Prague" on it. The walls of all the rooms
was plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and
the whole house was whitewashed on the outside.

It was a double house, and the big open place be-
twixt them was roofed and floored, and sometimes the
table was set there in the middle of the day, and it was
a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn't be better.
And warn't the cooking good, and just bushels of it
too!
<--split-->
CHAPTER XVIII.

COL. GRANGERFORD was a gentleman, you see.
He was a gentleman all over; and so was his
family. He was well born, as the saying is, and that's
worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the
Widow Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she
was of the first aristocracy in our town; and pap he
always said it, too, though he warn't no more quality
than a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall
and very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not
a sign of red in it anywheres; he was clean shaved
every morning all over his thin face, and he had the
thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils,
and a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest
kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that they seemed like
they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may
say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black
and straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands
was long and thin, and every day of his life he put on
a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot made
out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it;
and on Sundays he wore a blue tail-coat with brass
buttons on it. He carried a mahogany cane with a
silver head to it. There warn't no frivolishness about
him, not a bit, and he warn't ever loud. He was as
kind as he could be -- you could feel that, you know,
and so you had confidence. Sometimes he smiled,
and it was good to see; but when he straightened him-
self up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun to
flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to
climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was
afterwards. He didn't ever have to tell anybody to
mind their manners -- everybody was always good-
mannered where he was. Everybody loved to have
him around, too; he was sunshine most always -- I
mean he made it seem like good weather. When he
turned into a cloudbank it was awful dark for half a
minute, and that was enough; there wouldn't nothing
go wrong again for a week.

When him and the old lady come down in the morn-
ing all the family got up out of their chairs and give
them good-day, and didn't set down again till they had
set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard
where the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters
and handed it to him, and he held it in his hand and
waited till Tom's and Bob's was mixed, and then they
bowed and said, "Our duty to you, sir, and madam;"
and THEY bowed the least bit in the world and said
thank you, and so they drank, all three, and Bob and
Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and the
mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their
tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to
the old people too.

Bob was the oldest and Tom next -- tall, beautiful
men with very broad shoulders and brown faces, and
long black hair and black eyes. They dressed in white
linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and
wore broad Panama hats.

Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-
five, and tall and proud and grand, but as good as she
could be when she warn't stirred up; but when she
was she had a look that would make you wilt in your
tracks, like her father. She was beautiful.

So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different
kind. She was gentle and sweet like a dove, and she
was only twenty.

Each person had their own nigger to wait on them --
Buck too. My nigger had a monstrous easy time, be-
cause I warn't used to having anybody do anything
for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time.

This was all there was of the family now, but there
used to be more -- three sons; they got killed; and
Emmeline that died.

The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a
hundred niggers. Sometimes a stack of people would
come there, horseback, from ten or fifteen mile around,
and stay five or six days, and have such junketings
round about and on the river, and dances and picnics
in the woods daytimes, and balls at the house nights.
These people was mostly kinfolks of the family. The
men brought their guns with them. It was a hand-
some lot of quality, I tell you.

There was another clan of aristocracy around there
-- five or six families -- mostly of the name of Shep-
herdson. They was as high-toned and well born and
rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The
Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steam-
boat landing, which was about two mile above our
house; so sometimes when I went up there with a lot
of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons
there on their fine horses.

One day Buck and me was away out in the woods
hunting, and heard a horse coming. We was crossing
the road. Buck says:

"Quick! Jump for the woods!"

We done it, and then peeped down the woods
through the leaves. Pretty soon a splendid young
man come galloping down the road, setting his horse
easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across
his pommel. I had seen him before. It was young
Harney Shepherdson. I heard Buck's gun go off at
my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from his head.
He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place
where we was hid. But we didn't wait. We started
through the woods on a run. The woods warn't thick,
so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet, and
twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and
then he rode away the way he come -- to get his hat,
I reckon, but I couldn't see. We never stopped run-
ning till we got home. The old gentleman's eyes
blazed a minute -- 'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged --
then his face sort of smoothed down, and he says,
kind of gentle:

"I don't like that shooting from behind a bush.
Why didn't you step into the road, my boy?"

"The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always
take advantage."

Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen
while Buck was telling his tale, and her nostrils spread
and her eyes snapped. The two young men looked
dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned
pale, but the color come back when she found the
man warn't hurt.

Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs
under the trees by ourselves, I says:

"Did you want to kill him, Buck?"

"Well, I bet I did."

"What did he do to you?"

"Him? He never done nothing to me."

"Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?"

"Why, nothing -- only it's on account of the feud."

"What's a feud?"

"Why, where was you raised? Don't you know
what a feud is?"

"Never heard of it before -- tell me about it."

"Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way: A man
has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then
that other man's brother kills HIM; then the other
brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then
the COUSINS chip in -- and by and by everybody's killed
off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's kind of
slow, and takes a long time."

"Has this one been going on long, Buck?"

"Well, I should RECKON! It started thirty year ago,
or som'ers along there. There was trouble 'bout
something, and then a lawsuit to settle it; and the
suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot
the man that won the suit -- which he would naturally
do, of course. Anybody would."

"What was the trouble about, Buck? -- land?"

"I reckon maybe -- I don't know."

"Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Granger-
ford or a Shepherdson?"

"Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago."

"Don't anybody know?"

"Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the
other old people; but they don't know now what the
row was about in the first place."

"Has there been many killed, Buck?"

"Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they
don't always kill. Pa's got a few buckshot in him;
but he don't mind it 'cuz he don't weigh much, any-
way. Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and
Tom's been hurt once or twice."

"Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?"

"Yes; we got one and they got one. 'Bout three
months ago my cousin Bud, fourteen year old, was
riding through the woods on t'other side of the river,
and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame'
foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse
a-coming behind him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson
a-linkin' after him with his gun in his hand and his
white hair a-flying in the wind; and 'stead of jumping
off and taking to the brush, Bud 'lowed he could out-
run him; so they had it, nip and tuck, for five mile or
more, the old man a-gaining all the time; so at last
Bud seen it warn't any use, so he stopped and faced
around so as to have the bullet holes in front, you
know, and the old man he rode up and shot him
down. But he didn't git much chance to enjoy his
luck, for inside of a week our folks laid HIM out."

"I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck."

"I reckon he WARN'T a coward. Not by a blame'
sight. There ain't a coward amongst them Shepherd-
sons -- not a one. And there ain't no cowards amongst
the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep' up
his end in a fight one day for half an hour against
three Grangerfords, and come out winner. They was
all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse and got behind
a little woodpile, and kep' his horse before him to stop
the bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed on their
horses and capered around the old man, and peppered
away at him, and he peppered away at them. Him
and his horse both went home pretty leaky and crip-
pled, but the Grangerfords had to be FETCHED home --
and one of 'em was dead, and another died the next
day. No, sir; if a body's out hunting for cowards he
don't want to fool away any time amongst them Shep-
herdsons, becuz they don't breed any of that KIND."

Next Sunday we all went to church, about three
mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their
guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their
knees or stood them handy against the wall. The
Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery
preaching -- all about brotherly love, and such-like
tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good ser-
mon, and they all talked it over going home, and had
such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works
and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don't
know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the
roughest Sundays I had run across yet.

About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing
around, some in their chairs and some in their rooms,
and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and a dog was
stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I
went up to our room, and judged I would take a nap
myself. I found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in
her door, which was next to ours, and she took me in
her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if
I liked her, and I said I did; and she asked me if I
would do something for her and not tell anybody,
and I said I would. Then she said she'd forgot her
Testament, and left it in the seat at church between two
other books, and would I slip out quiet and go there
and fetch it to her, and not say nothing to nobody. I
said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the
road, and there warn't anybody at the church, except
maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the
door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time
because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go
to church only when they've got to; but a hog is
different.

Says I to myself, something's up; it ain't natural
for a girl to be in such a sweat about a Testament.
So I give it a shake, and out drops a little piece of
paper with "HALF-PAST TWO" wrote on it with a pencil.
I ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I
couldn't make anything out of that, so I put the paper
in the book again, and when I got home and upstairs
there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me.
She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked
in the Testament till she found the paper, and as soon
as she read it she looked glad; and before a body
could think she grabbed me and give me a squeeze,
and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to
tell anybody. She was mighty red in the face for a
minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it made her
powerful pretty. I was a good deal astonished, but
when I got my breath I asked her what the paper was
about, and she asked me if I had read it, and I said
no, and she asked me if I could read writing, and I
told her "no, only coarse-hand," and then she said
the paper warn't anything but a book-mark to keep
her place, and I might go and play now.

I went off down to the river, studying over this
thing, and pretty soon I noticed that my nigger was
following along behind. When we was out of sight of
the house he looked back and around a second, and
then comes a-running, and says:

"Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp
I'll show you a whole stack o' water-moccasins."

Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yester-
day. He oughter know a body don't love water-
moccasins enough to go around hunting for them.
What is he up to, anyway? So I says:

"All right; trot ahead."

I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the
swamp, and waded ankle deep as much as another
half-mile. We come to a little flat piece of land which
was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and
vines, and he says:

"You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars
Jawge; dah's whah dey is. I's seed 'm befo'; I
don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'."

Then he slopped right along and went away, and
pretty soon the trees hid him. I poked into the place
a-ways and come to a little open patch as big as a
bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man
laying there asleep -- and, by jings, it was my old Jim!

I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be
a grand surprise to him to see me again, but it warn't.
He nearly cried he was so glad, but he warn't sur-
prised. Said he swum along behind me that night,
and heard me yell every time, but dasn't answer, be-
cause he didn't want nobody to pick HIM up and take
him into slavery again. Says he:

"I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz
a considable ways behine you towards de las'; when
you landed I reck'ned I could ketch up wid you on de
lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I see dat
house I begin to go slow. I 'uz off too fur to hear
what dey say to you -- I wuz 'fraid o' de dogs; but
when it 'uz all quiet agin I knowed you's in de house,
so I struck out for de woods to wait for day. Early
in de mawnin' some er de niggers come along, gwyne
to de fields, en dey tuk me en showed me dis place,
whah de dogs can't track me on accounts o' de water,
en dey brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me
how you's a-gitt'n along."

"Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here
sooner, Jim?"

"Well, 'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we
could do sumfn -- but we's all right now. I ben a-
buyin' pots en pans en vittles, as I got a chanst, en a-
patchin' up de raf' nights when --"

"WHAT raft, Jim?"

"Our ole raf'."

"You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all
to flinders?"

"No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal --
one en' of her was; but dey warn't no great harm
done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'. Ef we hadn'
dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night
hadn' ben so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben
sich punkin-heads, as de sayin' is, we'd a seed de raf'.
But it's jis' as well we didn't, 'kase now she's all fixed
up agin mos' as good as new, en we's got a new lot o'
stuff, in de place o' what 'uz los'."

"Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim
-- did you catch her?"

"How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods?
No; some er de niggers foun' her ketched on a snag
along heah in de ben', en dey hid her in a crick
'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout
which un 'um she b'long to de mos' dat I come to
heah 'bout it pooty soon, so I ups en settles de trouble
by tellin' 'um she don't b'long to none uv um, but to
you en me; en I ast 'm if dey gwyne to grab a young
white genlman's propaty, en git a hid'n for it? Den I
gin 'm ten cents apiece, en dey 'uz mighty well satis-
fied, en wisht some mo' raf's 'ud come along en make
'm rich agin. Dey's mighty good to me, dese niggers
is, en whatever I wants 'm to do fur me I doan' have
to ast 'm twice, honey. Dat Jack's a good nigger, en
pooty smart."

"Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here;
told me to come, and he'd show me a lot of water-
moccasins. If anything happens HE ain't mixed up in
it. He can say he never seen us together, and it 'll
be the truth."

I don't want to talk much about the next day. I
reckon I'll cut it pretty short. I waked up about
dawn, and was a-going to turn over and go to sleep
again when I noticed how still it was -- didn't seem
to be anybody stirring. That warn't usual. Next I
noticed that Buck was up and gone. Well, I gets up,
a-wondering, and goes down stairs -- nobody around;
everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside.
Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the wood-
pile I comes across my Jack, and says:

"What's it all about?"

Says he:

"Don't you know, Mars Jawge?"

"No," says I, "I don't."

"Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has.
She run off in de night some time -- nobody don't
know jis' when; run off to get married to dat young
Harney Shepherdson, you know -- leastways, so dey
'spec. De fambly foun' it out 'bout half an hour
ago -- maybe a little mo' -- en' I TELL you dey warn't
no time los'. Sich another hurryin' up guns en hosses
YOU never see! De women folks has gone for to stir
up de relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey
guns en rode up de river road for to try to ketch dat
young man en kill him 'fo' he kin git acrost de river
wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n dey's gwyne to be mighty
rough times."

"Buck went off 'thout waking me up."

"Well, I reck'n he DID! Dey warn't gwyne to mix
you up in it. Mars Buck he loaded up his gun en
'lowed he's gwyne to fetch home a Shepherdson or
bust. Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en
you bet you he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst."

I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By
and by I begin to hear guns a good ways off. When
I came in sight of the log store and the woodpile
where the steamboats lands I worked along under the
trees and brush till I got to a good place, and then I
clumb up into the forks of a cottonwood that was out
of reach, and watched. There was a wood-rank four
foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first I
was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was
luckier I didn't.

There was four or five men cavorting around on their
horses in the open place before the log store, cussing
and yelling, and trying to get at a couple of young
chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside of
the steamboat landing; but they couldn't come it.
Every time one of them showed himself on the river
side of the woodpile he got shot at. The two boys
was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they
could watch both ways.

By and by the men stopped cavorting around and
yelling. They started riding towards the store; then
up gets one of the boys, draws a steady bead over the
wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle.
All the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the
hurt one and started to carry him to the store; and
that minute the two boys started on the run. They
got half way to the tree I was in before the men
noticed. Then the men see them, and jumped on
their horses and took out after them. They gained on
the boys, but it didn't do no good, the boys had too
good a start; they got to the woodpile that was in
front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and so they
had the bulge on the men again. One of the boys
was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap about
nineteen years old.

The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away.
As soon as they was out of sight I sung out to Buck
and told him. He didn't know what to make of my
voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful
surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him
know when the men come in sight again; said they
was up to some devilment or other -- wouldn't be gone
long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn't
come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed
that him and his cousin Joe (that was the other young
chap) would make up for this day yet. He said his
father and his two brothers was killed, and two or
three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for
them in ambush. Buck said his father and brothers
ought to waited for their relations -- the Shepherdsons
was too strong for them. I asked him what was be-
come of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said
they'd got across the river and was safe. I was glad
of that; but the way Buck did take on because he
didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him
-- I hain't ever heard anything like it.

All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or
four guns -- the men had slipped around through the
woods and come in from behind without their horses!
The boys jumped for the river -- both of them hurt --
and as they swum down the current the men run along
the bank shooting at them and singing out, "Kill
them, kill them!" It made me so sick I most fell out
of the tree. I ain't a-going to tell ALL that happened --
it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I
wished I hadn't ever come ashore that night to see
such things. I ain't ever going to get shut of them --
lots of times I dream about them.

I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid
to come down. Sometimes I heard guns away off in
the woods; and twice I seen little gangs of men gallop
past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the trouble
was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I
made up my mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house
again, because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow.
I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss
Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past
two and run off; and I judged I ought to told her
father about that paper and the curious way she acted,
and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this
awful mess wouldn't ever happened.

When I got down out of the tree I crept along down
the river bank a piece, and found the two bodies laying
in the edge of the water, and tugged at them till I got
them ashore; then I covered up their faces, and got
away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was
covering up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me.

It was just dark now. I never went near the house,
but struck through the woods and made for the
swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so I tramped off in
a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows,
red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful
country. The raft was gone! My souls, but I was
scared! I couldn't get my breath for most a minute.
Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five foot
from me says:

"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no
noise."

It was Jim's voice -- nothing ever sounded so good
before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard,
and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad
to see me. He says:

"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's
dead agin. Jack's been heah; he say he reck'n you's
ben shot, kase you didn' come home no mo'; so I's
jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf
er de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en
leave soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for certain
you IS dead. Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git you back
again, honey.

I says:

"All right -- that's mighty good; they won't find
me, and they'll think I've been killed, and floated down
the river -- there's something up there that 'll help them
think so -- so don't you lose no time, Jim, but just
shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can."

I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below
there and out in the middle of the Mississippi. Then
we hung up our signal lantern, and judged that we was
free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eat
since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers
and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens --
there ain't nothing in the world so good when it's
cooked right -- and whilst I eat my supper we talked
and had a good time. I was powerful glad to get
away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from
the swamp. We said there warn't no home like a
raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up
and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free
and easy and comfortable on a raft.