Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVI.

WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a
little ways behind a monstrous long raft that
was as long going by as a procession. She had four
long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as
many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams
aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the mid-
dle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a
power of style about her. It AMOUNTED to something
being a raftsman on such a craft as that.

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the
night clouded up and got hot. The river was very
wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides;
you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.
We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we
would know it when we got to it. I said likely we
wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but
about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen
to have them lit up, how was we going to know we
was passing a town? Jim said if the two big rivers
joined together there, that would show. But I said
maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an
island and coming into the same old river again. That
disturbed Jim -- and me too. So the question was,
what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a
light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming
along with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at
the business, and wanted to know how far it was to
Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a
smoke on it and waited.

There warn't nothing to do now but to look out
sharp for the town, and not pass it without seeing it.
He said he'd be mighty sure to see it, because he'd be
a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it
he'd be in a slave country again and no more show for
freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:

"Dah she is?"

But it warn't. It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning
bugs; so he set down again, and went to watching,
same as before. Jim said it made him all over trembly
and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can
tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too,
to hear him, because I begun to get it through my
head that he WAS most free -- and who was to blame
for it? Why, ME. I couldn't get that out of my con-
science, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me
so I couldn't rest; I couldn't stay still in one place.
It hadn't ever come home to me before, what this
thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it
stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I
tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame,
because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner;
but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every
time, "But you knowed he was running