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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-41-
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-42-
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-43-
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-44-
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-45-
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-46-
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-47-
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-48-
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.
|
|
