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ainā€™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 stillā€”never saying a word.







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CHAPTER XII.

IT must a been close on to one oā€™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 didnā€™t come, for we hadnā€™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 warnā€™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 warnā€™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 warnā€™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 wouldnā€™t set down and watch a camp fireā€”no, sir, sheā€™d fetch a dog.  Well, then, I said, why couldnā€™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 wouldnā€™t be here on a towhead sixteen or seventeen mile below the villageā€”no, indeedy, we would be in that same old town again.  So I said I didnā€™t care what was the reason they didnā€™t get us as long as they didnā€™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 wouldnā€™t have to light it for up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they call a ā€œcrossingā€; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water; so up-bound boats didnā€™t always run the channel, but hunted easy water.

This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current that was making over four mile an hour.  We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness.  It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didnā€™t ever feel like talking loud, and it warnā€™t often that we laughedā€”only a little kind of a low chuckle.  We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at allā€”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 oā€™clock that still night.  There warnā€™t a sound there; everybody was asleep.

Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten oā€™clock at some little village, and buy ten or fifteen centsā€™ worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warnā€™t roosting comfortable, and took him along.  Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you donā€™t want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ainā€™t ever forgot.  I never see pap when he didnā€™t want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.





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Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind.  Pap always said it warnā€™t no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warnā€™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 wouldnā€™t borrow them any moreā€”then he reckoned it wouldnā€™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 pā€™simmons.  We warnā€™t feeling just right before that, but it was all comfortable now.  I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ainā€™t ever good, and the pā€™simmons wouldnā€™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 didnā€™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, ā€œHel-lo, Jim, looky yonder!ā€ 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:

ā€œLeā€™s land on her, Jim.ā€

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

ā€œI doanā€™ want to go foolā€™n ā€™long er no wrack.  Weā€™s doinā€™ blameā€™ well, en we better let blameā€™ well alone, as de good book says.  Like as not deyā€™s a watchman on dat wrack.ā€

ā€œWatchman your grandmother,ā€ I says; ā€œthere ainā€™t nothing to watch but the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybodyā€™s going to resk his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when itā€™s likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?ā€  Jim couldnā€™t say nothing to that, so he didnā€™t try.  "And besides,ā€ I says, ā€œwe might borrow something worth having out of the captainā€™s stateroom.  Seegars, I bet youā€”and cost five cents apiece, solid cash.  Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and they donā€™t care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it.  Stick a candle in your pocket; I canā€™t rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging.  Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing?  Not for pie, he wouldnā€™t. Heā€™d call it an adventureā€”thatā€™s what heā€™d call it; and heā€™d land on that wreck if it was his last act.  And wouldnā€™t he throw style into it?ā€”wouldnā€™t he spread himself, nor nothing?  Why, youā€™d think it was Christopher Cā€™lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come.  I wish Tom Sawyer was here.ā€

Jim he grumbled a little, but give in.  He said we mustnā€™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 couldnā€™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 captainā€™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:

ā€œOh, please donā€™t, boys; I swear I wonā€™t ever tell!ā€

Another voice said, pretty loud:

ā€œItā€™s a lie, Jim Turner.  Youā€™ve acted this way before.  You always want moreā€™n your share of the truck, and youā€™ve always got it, too, because youā€™ve swore ā€™t if you didnā€™t youā€™d tell.  But this time youā€™ve said it jest one time too many.  Youā€™re the meanest, treacherousest hound in this country.ā€

By this time Jim was gone for the raft.  I was just a-biling with curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldnā€™t back out now, and so I wonā€™t either; Iā€™m a-going to see whatā€™s going on here.  So I dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in the dark till there warnā€™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

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