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 about a dozen times, but I didn't get any answer; so I
grabbed a plank that touched me while I was "treading water," and struck
out for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see that the
drift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which meant that I
was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way.

It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a good
long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clumb up the bank.
I couldn't see but a little ways, but I went poking along over rough
ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across a big
old-fashioned double log-house before I noticed it. I was going to rush
by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to howling and
barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another peg.

CHAPTER XVII.

IN about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his head
out, and says:

"Be done, boys! Who's there?"

I says:

"It's me."

"Who's me?"

"George Jackson, sir."

"What do you want?"

"I don't want nothing, sir