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Chapter VII.
"GIT up!
What you 'bout?"
I opened my eyes and looked around, trying
to make out where I was.
It was after sun-up, and I had been sound
asleep.
Pap was standing over me looking sour and
sick, too.
He says:
"What you doin' with this gun?"
I judged he didn't know nothing about what
he had been doing, so I says:
"Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying
for him."
"Why didn't you roust me out?"
"Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I
couldn't budge you."
"Well, all right.
Don't stand there palavering all day, but
out with you and see if there's a fish on
the lines for breakfast.
I'll be along in a minute."
He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up
the river-bank.
I noticed some pieces of limbs and such
things floating down, and a sprinkling of
bark; so I knowed the river had begun to
rise.
I reckoned I would have great times now if
I was over at the town.
The June rise used to be always luck for
me; because as soon as that rise begins
here comes cordwood floating down, and
pieces of log rafts--sometimes a dozen logs
together; so all you have to do is to catch
them and sell them to the wood-yards and
the sawmill.
I went along up the bank with one eye out
for pap and t'other one out for what the
rise might fetch along.
Well, all at once here comes a canoe; just
a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen
foot long, riding high like a duck.
I shot head-first off of the bank like a
frog, clothes and all on, and struck out
for the canoe.
I just expected there'd be somebody laying
down in it, because people often done that
to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a
skiff out most to it they'd raise up and
laugh at him.
But it warn't so this time.
It was a drift-canoe sure enough, and I
clumb in and paddled her ashore.
Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he
sees this--she's worth ten dollars.
But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight
yet, and as I was running her into a little
creek like a gully, all hung over with
vines and willows, I struck another idea:
I judged I'd hide her good, and then,
'stead of taking to the woods when I run
off, I'd go down the river about fifty mile
and camp in one place for good, and not
have such a rough time tramping on foot.
It was pretty close to the shanty, and I
thought I heard the old man coming all the
time; but I got her hid; and then I out and
looked around a bunch of willows, and there
was the old man down the path a piece just
drawing a bead on a bird with his gun.
So he hadn't seen anything.
When he got along I was hard at it taking
up a "trot" line.
He abused me a little for being so slow;
but I told him I fell in the river, and
that was what made me so long.
I knowed he would see I was wet, and then
he would be asking questions.
We got five catfish off the lines and went
home.
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
nobody 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
ashore.
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 grass 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.
Nobody 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 grass 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 shore 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 carcass.
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 nobody
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
shore.
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 shore 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 passing 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 shore.
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 nobody 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.