When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the cottonwood 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 snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it for to hold it to its place; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra steering-oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn’t have to light it for up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they call a “crossing”; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water; so up-bound boats didn’t always run the channel, but hunted easy water.
This second night we run between seven and eight hours,with a current that 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 of solemn, drifting down the big,still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars,and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud,and it warn’t often that we laughed—only a little kind of a low chuckle.We had mighty good weather as a general thing,and nothing ever happened to us 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.The fifth 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 thousand people in St.Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o’clock that still night. There warn’t a sound there; everybody was asleep.
Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o’clock at some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents’ worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn’t roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don’t want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain’t ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn’t want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.
Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon,or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn,or things of that kind.Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn’t anything 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 partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn’t borrow them any more—then he reckoned it wouldn’t be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, or what. But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and concluded to drop crabapples and p’simmons. We warn’t feeling just right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain’t ever good, and the p’simmons wouldn’t be ripe for two or three months yet.
We shot a water-fowl, now and,then that got up too early in the morning or didn’t go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we lived pretty high.
The fifth night below St.Louis we had a big storm after midnight,with a power of thunder and lightning,and the rain poured down in a solid sheet.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 very distinct.She was leaning over,with part of her upper deck above water,and you could see every little chimbly-guy clean and clear,and a chair 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 wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle of the river. I wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little, and see what there 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 not dey’s a watchman on dat wrack.”
“Watchman your grandmother,” I says;“there ain’t nothing to watch but the texas and the pilot-house;and do you reckon anybody’s going to resk his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when it’s likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?” Jim couldn’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. Steamboat captains is always rich,and get sixty dollars a month,and _they_ don’t care a cent what a thing costs,you know, long as they want it.Stick a candle 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, he wouldn’t.He’d call it an adventure—that’s what he’d call it;and he’d land on that wreck if it was his last act.And wouldn’t he throw style into it?—wouldn’t he spread himself, nor nothing?Why, you’d think it was 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 more than we could help,and then talk mighty low.The lightning showed us the wreck again just in time,and we fetched the stabboard derrick,and made fast there.
The deck was high out here.We went sneaking down the slope of it to labboard,in the dark, towards the texas,feeling our way slow with our feet,and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys,for it was so dark we couldn’t see no sign of them.Pretty soon we struck the forward end of the skylight,and clumb on to it;and the next step fetched us in front of the captain’s door,which was open, and by Jimminy,away down through the texas-hall we see a light!and all in the same second we seem to hear low voices in yonder!
Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick,and told me to come along. I says, all right,and was going to start for the raft;but just then 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 want more’n your share of the truck,and you’ve always got it, too,because you’ve swore ’t if you didn’t you’d tell.But this time you’ve said it jest one time too many.You’re the meanest,treacherousest hound in this country.”