again, and they
laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and
laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out something brisk, and said
let him alone. The first fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his old
woman--she would think it was pretty good; but he said that warn't
nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it
was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more
than about a week longer. After that the talk got further and further
away, and I couldn't make out the words any more; but I could hear the
mumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.

I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson's
Island, about two mile and a half down-stream, heavy-timbered and
standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid,
like a steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs of the bar
at the head--it was all under water now.

It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping
rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and
landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into a
deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow
branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could 'a' seen the
canoe from the outside.

I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked
out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the
town, three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling.
A monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile upstream, coming along
down, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping
down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say,
"Stern oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just as
plain as if the man was by my side.

There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods,
and laid down for a nap before breakfast.

CHAPTER VIII

The sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight
o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about
things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I
could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees
all about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places
on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the
freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was