Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Page 15

  CHAPTER XII.

  IT must a been close on to one o'clock when we got below the island atlast, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. ?If a boat was to comealong we was going to take to the canoe and break for the Illinoisshore; and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever thought toput the gun in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything to eat. ?Wewas in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many things. ?It warn'tgood judgment to put _everything_ on the raft.

  If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp fire Ibuilt, and watched it all night for Jim to come. ?Anyways, they stayedaway from us, and if my building the fire never fooled them it warn't nofault 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 abig bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches withthe hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like therehad been a cave-in in the bank there. ?A tow-head is a sandbar that hascottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.

  We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the Illinoisside, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so wewarn't afraid of anybody running across us. ?We laid there all day,and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, andup-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. ?I told Jim allabout the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim said she wasa smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she wouldn't setdown and watch a camp fire--no, sir, she'd fetch a dog. ?Well, then, Isaid, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a dog? ?Jim said hebet she did think of it by the time the men was ready to start, and hebelieved they must a gone up-town to get a dog and so they lost all thattime, or else we wouldn't be here on a towhead sixteen or seventeen milebelow 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 longas they didn't.

  When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of thecottonwood 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 snugwigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the thingsdry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more abovethe level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out ofreach of steamboat waves. ?Right in the middle of the wigwam we made alayer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it forto hold it to its place; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weatheror chilly; the wigwam would keep it from being seen. ?We made an extrasteering-oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snagor something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lanternon, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboatcoming down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn't haveto light it for up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they calla "crossing"; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks beingstill a little under water; so up-bound boats didn't always run thechannel, but hunted easy water.

  This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a currentthat 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 ofsolemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs lookingup at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and itwarn't often that we laughed--only a little kind of a low chuckle. ?Wehad mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened tous 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. ?Thefifth 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 thousandpeople in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderfulspread of lights at two o'clock that still night. ?There warn't a soundthere; everybody was asleep.

  Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o'clock at some littlevillage, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or otherstuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roostingcomfortable, and took him along. ?Pap always said, take a chicken whenyou get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easyfind somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. ?I never seepap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used tosay, anyway.

  Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed awatermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things ofthat kind. ?Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if youwas meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn'tanything 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 partlyright; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three thingsfrom the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more--then he reckonedit wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. ?So we talked it over allone night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our mindswhether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons,or what. ?But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, andconcluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons. ?We warn't feeling justright before that, but it was all comfortable now. ?I was glad the wayit come out, too, because crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmonswouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet.

  We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the morningor didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. ?Take it all round, welived pretty high.

  The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight, witha power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a solidsheet. 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 yonder!" It was a steamboat that had killed herself on a rock.?We was drifting straight down for her. ?The lightning showed her verydistinct. ?She was leaning over, with part of her upper deck abovewater, and you could see every little chimbly-guy clean and clear, and achair 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 wrecklaying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle of the river. ?Iwanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little, and see whatthere 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 notdey's a watchman on dat wrack."

  "Watchman your grandmother," I says; "there ain't nothing to watch butthe texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody's going to reskhis life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, whenit's likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?" ?Jimcouldn'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. ?Steamboatcaptains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and _they_ don'tcare a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it. ?Stick acandle 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, hewouldn't. He'd call it an adventure--that's what he'd call it; and he'dland on that wreck if it was his last act. ?And wouldn't he throw styleinto it?--wouldn't he spread himself, nor nothing? ?Why, you'd think itwas 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 morethan we could help, and then talk mighty low. ?The lightning showed usthe wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard derrick, andmade fast there.

  The deck was high out here. ?We w
ent sneaking down the slope of it tolabboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with ourfeet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was sodark we couldn't see no sign of them. ?Pretty soon we struck the forwardend of the skylight, and clumb on to it; and the next step fetched us infront of the captain's door, which was open, and by Jimminy, away downthrough the texas-hall we see a light! and all in the same second weseem to hear low voices in yonder!

  Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to comealong. ?I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft; but justthen 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 wantmore'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, becauseyou've swore 't if you didn't you'd tell. ?But this time you've saidit jest one time too many. ?You're the meanest, treacherousest hound inthis country."

  By this time Jim was gone for the raft. ?I was just a-biling withcuriosity; 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 Idropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aftin the dark till there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and thecross-hall of the texas. ?Then in there I see a man stretched on thefloor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and oneof 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, andsaying:

  "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 andsay:

  "'Deed you _ain't!_ ?You never said no truer thing 'n that, you betyou." And once he said: ?"Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got thebest of him and tied him he'd a killed us both. ?And what _for_? ?Jistfor noth'n. Jist because we stood on our _rights_--that's what for. ?ButI 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 killold 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 youlong'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 nailand started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Billto come. ?I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boatslanted so that I couldn't make very good time; so to keep from gettingrun 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 mystateroom, he says:

  "Here--come in here."

  And in he come, and Bill after him. ?But before they got in I was upin 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 seethem, 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 differenceanyway, because most of the time they couldn't a treed me because Ididn't breathe. ?I was too scared. ?And, besides, a body _couldn't_breathe and hear such talk. ?They talked low and earnest. ?Bill wantedto kill Turner. ?He says:

  "He's said he'll tell, and he will. ?If we was to give both our sharesto him _now_ it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the waywe've served him. ?Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's evidence; nowyou 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 wasn't. ?Well, then, that's allright. ?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 bedone. But what I say is this: ?it ain't good sense to go court'n aroundafter a halter if you can git at what you're up to in some way that'sjist as good and at the same time don't bring you into no resks. ?Ain'tthat 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 whateverpickins we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hidethe truck. Then we'll wait. ?Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be more'n twohours 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 ownself. ?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; itain'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 scrambledforward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarsewhisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of amoan, and I says:

  "Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's agang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and sether drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from thewreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. ?But if we find theirboat 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. Youstart at the raft, and--"

  "Oh, my lordy, lordy! ?_raf'_? ?Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done brokeloose en gone I--en here we is!"