ill the raft was two mile below there and out in
the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and
judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eat
since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk,
and pork and cabbage and greens--there ain't nothing in the world so
good when it's cooked right--and whilst I eat my supper we talked and
had a good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and
so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home
like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and
smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and
comfortable on a raft.

CHAPTER XIX

Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum
by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we
put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there--sometimes a
mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes;
soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly
always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young
cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out
the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to
freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where
the water was about knee-deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a
sound anywheres--perfectly still--just like the whole world was
asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first
thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull
line--that was the woods on t'other side; you couldn't make nothing
else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading
around; then the river softened up away off, and warn't black any
more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so
far away--trading-scows, and such things; and long black
streaks--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or
jumbled-up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and
by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of
the streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks
on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl
up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you
make out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on
t'other side of the river, being a wood-yard, likely, and piled by
them che