Another voice said, pretty loud:
Its a lie, Jim Turner. Youve acted this way before. You always want moren your share of the truck, and youve always got it, too, because youve swore t if you didnt youd tell. But this time youve said it jest one time too many[112]. Youre the meanest, treacherousest hound in this country.
By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldnt back out now, and so I wont either; Im a-going to see whats going on here. So I dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in the dark till there warnt but one stateroom betwixt me and the cross-hall of the texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol. This one kept pointing the pistol at the mans head on the floor, and saying:
Id LIKE to! And I orter, too a mean skunk!
The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, Oh, please dont, Bill; I haint ever goin to tell.
And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say:
Deed you AINT! You never said no truer thing n that, you bet you. And once he said: Hear him beg![113] and yit if we hadnt got the best of him and tied him hed a killed us both. And what FOR? Jist for nothn. Jist because we stood on our RIGHTS thats what for. But I lay you aint a-goin to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put UP that pistol, Bill.
Bill says:
I dont want to, Jake Packard. Im for killin him and didnt he kill old Hatfield jist the same way and dont he deserve it?
But I dont WANT him killed, and Ive got my reasons for it.
Bless yo heart for them words, Jake Packard! Ill never forgit you longs I live! says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didnt take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldnt make very good time; so to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. The man came a-pawing along in the dark[114], and when Packard got to my stateroom, he says:
Here come in here.
And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there, with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldnt see them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky theyd been having. I was glad I didnt drink whisky; but it wouldnt made much difference anyway, because most of the time they couldnt a treed me because I didnt breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body COULDNT breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:
Hes said hell tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares to him NOW it wouldnt make no difference after the row and the way weve served him. Shores youre born, hell turn States evidence[115]; now you hear ME. Im for putting him out of his troubles.
Som I, says Packard, very quiet.
Blame it, Id sorter begun to think you wasnt. Well, then, thats all right. Les go and do it.
Hold on a minute; I haint had my say yit. You listen to me. Shootings good, but theres quieter ways if the things GOT to be done. But what I say is this: it aint good sense to go courtn around after a halter if you can git at what youre up to in some way thats jist as good and at the same time dont bring you into no resks. Aint that so?
You bet it is. But how you goin to manage it this time?
Well, my idea is this: well rustle around and gather up whatever pickins weve overlooked in the staterooms[116], and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then well wait. Now I say it aint a-goin to be moren two hours befo this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? Hell be drownded, and wont have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon thats a considerble sight better n killin of him. Im unfavorable to killin a man as long as you can git aroun it; it aint good sense, it aint good morals. Aint I right?
Yes, I reckn you are. But spose she DONT break up and wash off?
Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, cant we?
All right, then; come along.
So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there[117]; 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 aint no time for fooling around and moaning; theres a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we dont hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows cant get away from the wreck theres 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! Ill 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 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 warnt no time to be sentimentering. Wed 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 didnt believe he could go any further so scared he hadnt 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[118]; 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[119]!
I couldnt hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:
Hold on d you go through him?
No. Didnt you?
No. So hes got his share o the cash yet.
Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money[120].
Say, wont he suspicion what were up to?
Maybe he wont. But we got to have it anyway. Come along.
So they got out and went in.
The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went!