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 sourŅand 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 halfpast
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 aspinning
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.