ut after dark on the raft.

Anybody that don't believe yet that it's foolishness to handle a
snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe
it now if they read on and see what more it done for us.

The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But we
didn't see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours and
more. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next
meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the river, and you
can't see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then along
comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged she would
see it. Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to us; they go out and
follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the reefs; but nights like
this they bull right up the channel against the whole river.

We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till she was
close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to see how
close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites off a
sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and thinks he's
mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said she was going to try and
shave us; but she didn't seem to be sheering off a bit. She was a big
one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black cloud with
rows of glow-worms around it; but all of a sudden she bulged out, big and
scary, with a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining like red-hot
teeth, and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right over us. There
was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the engines, a powwow
of cussing, and whistling of steam--and as Jim went overboard on one side
and I on the other, she come smashing straight through the raft.

I dived--and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot wheel had
got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I could
always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under a
minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I was
nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water out of
my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming current; and of
course that boat started her engines again ten seconds after she stopped
them, for they never cared much for raftsmen; so now she was churning
along up the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though I could
hear her.

I sung out for Jim ab