Chapter 8 - Page 2

would find
me, and here it has gone and done it. So there ain't
no doubt but there is something in that thing -- that is,
there's something in it when a body like the widow or
the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I
reckon it don't work for only just the right kind.

I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went
on watching. The ferryboat was floating with the
current, and I allowed I'd have a chance to see who
was aboard when she come along, because she would
come in close, where the bread did. When she'd got
pretty well along down towards me, I put out my pipe
and went to where I fished out the bread, and laid
down behind a log on the bank in a little open place.
Where the log forked I could peep through.

By and by she come along, and she drifted in so
close that they could a run out a plank and walked
ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap, and
Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper,
and Tom Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and
Mary, and plenty more. Everybody was talking about
the murder, but the captain broke in and says:

"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest
here, and maybe he's washed ashore and got tangled
amongst the brush at the water's edge. I hope so,
anyway."

"I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned
over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watch-
ing with all their might. I could see them first-rate,
but they couldn't see me. Then the captain sung out:

"Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast
right before me that it made me deef with the noise and
pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was
gone. If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon
they'd a got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I
warn't hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on
and went out of sight around the shoulder of the island.
I could hear the booming now and then, further and
further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear
it no more. The island was three mile long. I judged
they had got to the foot, and was giving it up. But
they didn't yet a while. They turned around the foot
of the island and started up the channel on the Mis-
souri side, under steam, and booming once in a while
as they went. I crossed over to that side and watched
them. When they got abreast the head of the island
they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri
shore and went home to the town.

I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would
come a-hunting after me. I got my traps out of the
canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods. I
made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my
things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I
catched a