University of Virginia Library

Chapter XIII

Will, I catched my breath and most
fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such
a gang as that! But it warn't no time
to be sentimentering. We'd got to
find that boat, now—had to have it for
ourselves. So we went a quaking and
shaking down the stabboard side, and
slow work it was, too—seemed a week
before we got to the stern. No sign of
a boat. Jim said he didn't believe he
could go any further—so scared he
hadn't hardly any strength left, he said.
But I said come on, if we get left on this
wreck, we are in a fix, sure. So on we
prowled, again. We struck for the
stern of the texas, and found it, and
then scrabbled along forwards on the
skylight, hanging on from shutter to
shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close
to the cross-hall door, there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see
her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her;
but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out, only about a
couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again,
and says:

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in a fix.

"Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!"

He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself, and set

down. It was Packard. Then Bill he come out and got in. Packard says, in a
low voice:

"All ready—shove off!"

I couldn't hardly hang onto the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:

"Hold on—'d you go through him?"

"No. Didn't you?"

"No. So he's got his share o' the cash, yet."

"Well, then, come along—no use to take truck and leave money."

"Say—won't he suspicion what we're up to?"

"Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along."

So they got out and went in.

The door slammed to, because it was on the careened side; and in a half
second I was in the boat, and Jim come a tumbling after me. I out with my
knife and cut the rope, and away we went!

We didn't touch an oar, and we didn' speak nor whisper, nor hardly even
breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the paddlebox,
and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a hundred yards
below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last sign of her, and
we was safe, and knowed it.

When we was three or four hundred yards down stream, we see the lantern
show like a little spark at the texas door, for a second, and we knowed by that
that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to understand that they
was in just as much trouble, now, as Jim Turner was.

Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the first
time that I begun to worry about the men—I reckon I hadn't had time to before.
I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I
says to myself, there ain't no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself,
yet, and then how would I like it? So says I to Jim:

"The first light we see, we'll land a hundred yards below it or above it, in a
place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then I'll go and
fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang and get them
out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their time comes."

But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and this

time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light showed; everybody
in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river, watching for lights and
watching for our raft. After a long time the rain let up, but the clouds staid,
and the lightning kept whimpering, and by-and-by a flash showed us a black
thing ahead, floating, and we made for it.

[ILLUSTRATION]

"hello, what's up?"

It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We seen a
light, now, away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go for it. The skiff
was half full of plunder which that gang had stole, there on the wreck. We hustled
it onto the raft in a pile, and I told Jim to float along down, and show a light
when he judged he had gone about two mile, and keep it burning till I come;
then I manned my oars and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it, three
or four more showed—up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the
shore-light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by, I see it was a lantern
hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferry-boat. I skimmed around for the
watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by-and-by I found him roosting

on the bitts, forward, with his head down between his knees. I give his
shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.

He stirred up, in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only me, he
took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:

"Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?"

I says:

"Pap, and mam, and sis, and——"

Then I broke down. He says:

"Oh, dang it, now, don't take on so, we all has to have our troubles and this'n
'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?"

"They're—they're—are you the watchman of the boat?"

"Yes," he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. "I'm the captain and the
owner, and the mate, and the pilot, and watchman, and head deck-hand; and
sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich as old Jim Hornback,
and I can't be so blame' generous and good to Tom, Dick and Harry as what he
is, and slam around money the way he does; but I've told him a many a time 't I
wouldn't trade places with him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and
I'm derned if I'd live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin'
on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I——"

I broke in and says:

"They're in an awful peck of trouble, and——"

"Who is?"

"Why, pap, and mam, and sis, and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your
ferry-boat and go up there——"

"Up where? Where are they?"

"On the wreck."

"What wreck?"

"Why, there ain't but one."

"What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?"

"Yes."

"Good land! what are they doin' there, for gracious sakes?"

"Well, they didn't go there a-purpose."

"I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'em if

they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever git into
such a scrape?"

"Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting, up there to the town——"

"Yes, Booth's Landing—go on."

"She was a-visiting, there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of the
evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry, to stay all
night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her, I disremember her
name, and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and went a-floating
down, stern-first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferry
man and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she
made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark, we
come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn't notice the
wreck till we was right on it; and so we saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved
but Bill Whipple—and oh, he was the best cretur!—I most wish't it had been
me, I do."

"My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what did
you all do?"

"Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there, we couldn't make
nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help somehow.
I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, and Miss Hooker
she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he'd
fix the thing. I made the land about a mile below, and been fooling along ever
since, trying to get people to do something, but they said, "What, in such a night
and such a current? there ain't no sense in it; go for the steam-ferry.' Now if
you'll go, and——"

"By Jackson, I'd like to, and blame it I don't know but I will; but who in
the dingnation's agoin' to pay for it? Do you reckon your pap——"

"Why that's all right. Miss Hooker she told me, particular, that her uncle
Hornback——"

"Great guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light
over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter
of a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart you out to Jim Hornback's
and he'll foot the bill. And don't you fool around any, because he'll

want to know the news. Tell him I'll have his niece all safe before he can
get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'm agoing up around the corner here, to
roust out my engineer."

I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back
and got into my skiff and bailed her out and then pulled up shore in
the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some
woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferry-boat start. But
take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all
this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. I wished the
widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for helping
these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow
and good people takes the most interest in.

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the wreck.

Well, before long, here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along
down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for
her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chance
for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a little,
but there wasn't any answer; all dead still. I felt a little bit heavy-hearted
about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could stand it, I could.

Then here comes the ferry-boat; so I shoved for the middle of the river
on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach, I
laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck
for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncle
Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferry-boat give it up
and went for shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming down the river.

[ILLUSTRATION]

we turned in and slept.

It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and when it
did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I got there the
sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we struck for an island,
and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.