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of the berth, and talked. I couldnā€™t see them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky theyā€™d been having. I was glad I didnā€™t drink whisky; but it wouldnā€™t made much difference anyway, because most of the time they couldnā€™t a treed me because I didnā€™t breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body couldnā€™t breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:

ā€œHeā€™s said heā€™ll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares to him now it wouldnā€™t make no difference after the row and the way weā€™ve served him. Shoreā€™s youā€™re born, heā€™ll turn Stateā€™s evidence; now you hear me. Iā€™m for putting him out of his troubles.ā€

ā€œSoā€™m I,ā€ says Packard, very quiet.

ā€œBlame it, Iā€™d sorter begun to think you wasnā€™t. Well, then, thatā€™s all right. Leā€™s go and do it.ā€

ā€œHold on a minute; I hainā€™t had my say yit. You listen to me. Shootingā€™s good, but thereā€™s quieter ways if the thingā€™s got to be done. But what I say is this: it ainā€™t good sense to go courtā€™n around after a halter if you can git at what youā€™re up to in some way thatā€™s jist as good and at the same time donā€™t bring you into no resks. Ainā€™t that so?ā€

ā€œYou bet it is. But how you goinā€™ to manage it this time?ā€

ā€œWell, my idea is this: weā€™ll rustle around and gather up whatever pickins weā€™ve overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then weā€™ll wait. Now I say it ainā€™t a-goinā€™ to be moreā€™n two hours befoā€™ this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? Heā€™ll be drownded, and wonā€™t have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon thatā€™s a considerble sight better ā€™n killinā€™ of him. Iā€™m unfavorable to killinā€™ a man as long as you can git arounā€™ it; it ainā€™t good sense, it ainā€™t good morals. Ainā€™t I right?ā€

ā€œYes, I reckā€™n you are. But sā€™pose she donā€™t break up and wash off?ā€

ā€œWell, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, canā€™t we?ā€

ā€œAll right, then; come along.ā€

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, ā€œJim!ā€ and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says:

ā€œQuick, Jim, it ainā€™t no time for fooling around and moaning; thereā€™s a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we donā€™t hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows canā€™t get away from the wreck thereā€™s one of ā€™em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat we can put all of ā€™em in a bad fixā ā€”for the sheriffā€™ll get ā€™em. Quickā ā€”hurry! Iā€™ll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, andā ā€”ā€

ā€œOh, my lordy, lordy! Rafā€™? Dey ainā€™ no rafā€™ no moā€™; she done broke loose en gone Iā ā€”en here we is!ā€

XIII

Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warnā€™t no time to be sentimentering. Weā€™d got to find that boat nowā ā€”had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, tooā ā€”seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didnā€™t believe he could go any furtherā ā€”so scared he hadnā€™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:

ā€œHeave that blame lantern out oā€™ sight, Bill!ā€

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:

ā€œAll readyā ā€”shove off!ā€

I couldnā€™t hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:

ā€œHold onā ā€”ā€™d you go through him?ā€

ā€œNo. Didnā€™t you?ā€

ā€œNo. So heā€™s got his share oā€™ the cash yet.ā€

ā€œWell, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money.ā€

ā€œSay, wonā€™t he suspicion what weā€™re up to?ā€

ā€œMaybe he wonā€™t. But we got to have it anyway. Come along.ā€

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 didnā€™t touch an oar, and we didnā€™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 downstream 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

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