sweat, and scrambled
forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse
whisper, "Jim !" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a
moan, and I says:

"Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's a
gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set
her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the
wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their
boat we can put ALL of 'em in a bad fix--for the sheriff 'll get 'em.
Quick--hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard.
You start at the raft, and--"

"Oh, my lordy, lordy! RAF'? Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke
loose en gone I--en here we is!"

CHAPTER XIII.

WELL, 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:

"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 on to 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."