While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me; you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn"t see no way for a while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water, and he says:
"Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you hear? That man warn"t here for no good. I"d a shot him. Next time you roust me out, you hear?"
Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; but what he had been saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so n.o.body won"t think of following me.
About twelve o"clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the rise. By and by along comes part of a log raft?nine logs fast together.
We went out with the skiff and towed it ash.o.r.e. Then we had dinner.
Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch more stuff; but that warn"t pap"s style. Nine logs was enough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-past three.
I judged he wouldn"t come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had got a good start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on that log again. Before he was t"other side of the river I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder.
I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and matches and other things?everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn"t any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.
I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place and didn"t quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot away and didn"t know it was sawed, you wouldn"t never notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn"t likely anybody would go fooling around there.
It was all gra.s.s clear to the canoe, so I hadn"t left a track. I followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods, and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.
I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it considerable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground?hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it?all I could drag?and I started it from the pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches. n.o.body could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.
Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn"t drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the river. Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house.
I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn"t no knives and forks on the place?pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the gra.s.s and through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes?and ducks too, you might say, in the season. There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles away, I don"t know where, but it didn"t go to the river. The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap"s whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn"t leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.
It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they"ll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the sh.o.r.e and then drag the river for me. And they"ll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They won"t ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carca.s.s. They"ll soon get tired of that, and won"t bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I want to.
Jackson"s Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well, and n.o.body ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson"s Island"s the place.
I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I woke up I didn"t know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from sh.o.r.e. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and _smelt_ late.
You know what I mean?I don"t know the words to put it in.
I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working in rowlocks when it"s a still night. I peeped out through the willow branches, and there it was?a skiff, away across the water.
I couldn"t tell how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it was abreast of me I see there warn"t but one man in it. Think"s I, maybe it"s pap, though I warn"t expecting him. He dropped below me with the current, and by and by he came a-swinging up sh.o.r.e in the easy water, and he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him.
Well, it _was_ pap, sure enough?and sober, too, by the way he laid his oars.
I didn"t lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down stream soft but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river, because pretty soon I would be pa.s.sing the ferry landing, and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood, and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float.
I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky; not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before.
And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said, too?every word of it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short nights now. T"other one said _this_ warn"t one of the short ones, he reckoned?and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn"t laugh; he ripped out something brisk, and said let him alone. The first fellow said he "lowed to tell it to his old woman?she would think it was pretty good; but he said that warn"t nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it was nearly three o"clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn"t wait more than about a week longer. After that the talk got further and further away, and I couldn"t make out the words any more; but I could hear the mumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.
I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson"s Island, about two mile and a half down stream, heavy timbered and standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like a steamboat without any lights. There warn"t any signs of the bar at the head?it was all under water now.
It didn"t take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and landed on the side towards the Illinois sh.o.r.e. I run the canoe into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow branches to get in; and when I made fast n.o.body could a seen the canoe from the outside.
I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town, three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling. A monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile up stream, coming along down, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say, "Stern oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just as plain as if the man was by my side.
There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods, and laid down for a nap before breakfast.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight o"clock. I laid there in the gra.s.s and the cool shade thinking about things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very friendly.
I was powerful lazy and comfortable?didn"t want to get up and cook breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying on the water a long ways up?about abreast the ferry. And there was the ferryboat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the matter now. "Boom!" I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat"s side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my carca.s.s come to the top.
I was pretty hungry, but it warn"t going to do for me to start a fire, because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morning?so I was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the drownded carca.s.s and stop there. So, says I, I"ll keep a lookout, and if any of them"s floating around after me I"ll give them a show. I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could have, and I warn"t disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further. Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the sh.o.r.e?I knowed enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in. It was "baker"s bread"?what the quality eat; none of your low-down corn-pone.
I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied. And then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and done it. So there ain"t no doubt but there is something in that thing?that is, there"s something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don"t work for me, and I reckon it don"t work for only just the right kind.
I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I"d have a chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in close, where the bread did. When she"d got pretty well along down towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread, and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place. Where the log forked I could peep through.
By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a run out a plank and walked ash.o.r.e. Most everybody was on the boat.
Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more.
Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says:
"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he"s washed ash.o.r.e and got tangled amongst the brush at the water"s edge. I hope so, anyway."
I didn"t hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see them first-rate, but they couldn"t see me. Then the captain sung out:
"Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone. If they"d a had some bullets in, I reckon they"d a got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn"t hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder of the island. I could hear the booming now and then, further and further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn"t hear it no more.
The island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the foot, and was giving it up. But they didn"t yet a while. They turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri sh.o.r.e and went home to the town.
I knowed I was all right now. n.o.body else would come a-hunting after me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under so the rain couldn"t get at them. I catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.
When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed; there ain"t no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can"t stay so, you soon get over it.
And so for three days and nights. No difference?just the same thing.
But the next day I went exploring around down through the island. I was boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They would all come handy by and by, I judged.
Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn"t far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn"t shot nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went sliding off through the gra.s.s and flowers, and I after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.
My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further, but unc.o.c.ked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn"t hear nothing else. I slunk along another piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too.
When I got to camp I warn"t feeling very brash, there warn"t much sand in my craw; but I says, this ain"t no time to be fooling around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last year"s camp, and then clumb a tree.
I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn"t see nothing, I didn"t hear nothing?I only _thought_ I heard and seen as much as a thousand things. Well, I couldn"t stay up there forever; so at last I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast.
By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and dark I slid out from sh.o.r.e before moonrise and paddled over to the Illinois bank?about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all night when I hear a _plunkety-plunk, plunkety-plunk_, and says to myself, horses coming; and next I hear people"s voices. I got everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn"t got far when I hear a man say:
"We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about beat out. Let"s look around."
I didn"t wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.
I didn"t sleep much. I couldn"t, somehow, for thinking. And every time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn"t do me no good. By and by I says to myself, I can"t live this way; I"m a-going to find out who it is that"s here on the island with me; I"ll find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off.
So I took my paddle and slid out from sh.o.r.e just a step or two, and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day.
I poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound asleep. Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island. A little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying the night was about done. I give her a turn with the paddle and brung her nose to sh.o.r.e; then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge of the woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the leaves. I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to blanket the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops, and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn"t no luck somehow; I couldn"t seem to find the place. But by and by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I went for it, cautious and slow. By and by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the fan-tods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I set there behind a clump of bushes, in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson"s Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. I says:
"h.e.l.lo, Jim!" and skipped out.