is head, and wouldn't let me come
a-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill me, and no
end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn't do anything at
all with him; so I says, I got to have HELP somehow; and the minute I
says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says he'll help, and
he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I judged he must be a
runaway nigger, and there I WAS! and there I had to stick right straight
along all the rest of the day and all night. It was a fix, I tell you!
I had a couple of patients with the chills, and of course I'd of liked to
run up to town and see them, but I dasn't, because the nigger might get
away, and then I'd be to blame; and yet never a skiff come close enough
for me to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until daylight this
morning; and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuller,
and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too,
and I see plain enough he'd been worked main hard lately. I liked the
nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a
thousand dollars--and kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed,
and the boy was doing as well there as he would a done at home--better,
maybe, because it was so quiet; but there I WAS, with both of 'm on my
hands, and there I had to stick till about dawn this morning; then some
men in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was
setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so
I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and
tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble.
And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars
and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice and quiet, and the
nigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start. He ain't
no bad nigger, gentlemen; that's what I think about him."

Somebody says:

"Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say."

Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful to
that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was
according to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a good
heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they all
agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some
notice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised, right o