Another voice said, pretty loud:
Its a lie, Jim Turner. Youve acted this way before. You always want moren your share of the truck, and youve always got it, too, because youve swore t if you didnt youd tell. But this time youve said it jest one time too many[112]. Youre 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 wouldnt back out now, and so I wont either; Im a-going to see whats going on here. So I dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in the dark till there warnt 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 mans head on the floor, and saying:
Id LIKE to! And I orter, too a mean skunk!
The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, Oh, please dont, Bill; I haint ever goin to tell.
And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say:
Deed you AINT! You never said no truer thing n that, you bet you. And once he said: Hear him beg![113] and yit if we hadnt got the best of him and tied him hed a killed us both. And what FOR? Jist for nothn. Jist because we stood on our RIGHTS thats what for. But I lay you aint a-goin to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put UP that pistol, Bill.
Bill says:
I dont want to, Jake Packard. Im for killin him and didnt he kill old Hatfield jist the same way and dont he deserve it?
But I dont WANT him killed, and Ive got my reasons for it.
Bless yo heart for them words, Jake Packard! Ill never forgit you longs I live! says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didnt 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 couldnt 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[114], 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 couldnt see them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky theyd been having. I was glad I didnt drink whisky; but it wouldnt made much difference anyway, because most of the time they couldnt a treed me because I didnt breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body COULDNT breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:
Hes said hell tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares to him NOW it wouldnt make no difference after the row and the way weve served him. Shores youre born, hell turn States evidence[115]; now you hear ME. Im for putting him out of his troubles.
Som I, says Packard, very quiet.
Blame it, Id sorter begun to think you wasnt. Well, then, thats all right. Les go and do it.
Hold on a minute; I haint had my say yit. You listen to me. Shootings good, but theres quieter ways if the things GOT to be done. But what I say is this: it aint good sense to go courtn around after a halter if you can git at what youre up to in some way thats jist as good and at the same time dont bring you into no resks. Aint that so?
You bet it is. But how you goin to manage it this time?
Well, my idea is this: well rustle around and gather up whatever pickins weve overlooked in the staterooms[116], and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then well wait. Now I say it aint a-goin to be moren two hours befo this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? Hell be drownded, and wont have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon thats a considerble sight better n killin of him. Im unfavorable to killin a man as long as you can git aroun it; it aint good sense, it aint good morals. Aint I right?
Yes, I reckn you are. But spose she DONT break up and wash off?
Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, cant 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[117]; 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 aint no time for fooling around and moaning; theres a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we dont hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows cant get away from the wreck theres 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! Ill 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 en here we is!
Chapter XIII
Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warnt no time to be sentimentering. Wed 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 before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didnt believe he could go any further so scared he hadnt 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[118]; 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[119]!
I couldnt hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:
Hold on d you go through him?
No. Didnt you?
No. So hes got his share o the cash yet.
Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money[120].
Say, wont he suspicion what were up to?
Maybe he wont. 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 didnt touch an oar, and we didnt 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 hadnt had time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there aint 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 well land a hundred yards below it or above it, in a place where its a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then Ill go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape[121], 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; everybody 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. AsI 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, whats up? Dont cry, bub. Whats the trouble?
I says:
Pap, and mam, and sis, and
Then I broke down. He says:
Oh, dang it now, DONT take on so; we all has to have our troubles, and this n ll come out all right[122]. Whats the matter with em?
Theyre theyre are you the watchman of the boat?
Yes, he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. Im the captain and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck-hand; and sometimes Im the freight and passengers. I aint as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I cant be so blame generous and good to Tom, Dick, and Harry[123] as what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but Ive told him a many a time t I wouldnt trade places with him; for, says I, a sailors lifes the life for me, and Im derned if ID live two mile out o town, where there aint nothing ever goin on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I
I broke in and says:
Theyre in an awful peck of trouble, and
WHO is?
Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if youd take your ferryboat and go up there
Up where? Where are they?
On the wreck.
What wreck?
Why, there aint but one.
What, you dont mean the Walter Scott?
Yes.
Good land! what are they doin THERE, for gracious sakes?
Well, they didnt go there a-purpose.
I bet they didnt! Why, great goodness, there aint no chance for em if they dont 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, Booths Landing go on.
She was a-visiting there at Booths 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 friends house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I 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 didnt notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so WE saddle-baggsed[124]; but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple and oh, he WAS the best cretur! I most wisht it had been me, I do.
My George! Its the beatenest thing I ever struck. And THEN what did you all do?
Well, we hollered and took on, but its so wide there we couldnt 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 didnt strike help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and hed fix the thing[125]. 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 aint no sense in it; go for the steam ferry. Now if youll go and
By Jackson, Id LIKE to, and, blame it, I dont know but I will; but who in the dingnations a-going to PAY for it? Do you reckon your pap
Why THATS 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 youll come to the tavern; tell em to dart you out to Jim Hornbacks, and hell foot the bill[126]. And dont you fool around any, because hell want to know the news. Tell him Ill have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; Im 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 couldnt rest easy till I could see the ferryboat start. But take it all around[127], I was feeling 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.