He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to be always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comes cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts sometimes a dozen logs together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the wood-yards and the sawmill.
I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and tother one out for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected thered be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it theyd raise up and laugh at him. But it warnt so this time. It was a drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her[53] ashore. Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees this shes worth ten dollars. But when I got to shore pap wasnt in sight yet, and as I was running her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and willows, I struck another idea: I judged Id hide her good, and then, stead of taking to the woods when I run off, Id go down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on foot.
It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man coming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadnt seen anything.
When he got along I was hard at it taking up a trot line. He abused me a little for being so slow[54]; but I told him I fell in the river, and that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he would be asking questions. We got five catfish off the lines and went home.
While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me; you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didnt see no way for a while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water, and he says:
Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you hear? That man warnt here for no good. Id a shot him. Next time you roust me out, you hear?
Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; but what he had been saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody wont think of following me.
About twelve oclock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the rise. By and by along comes part of a log raft nine logs fast together. We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner. Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch more stuff; but that warnt paps style. Nine logs was enough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-past three. I judged he wouldnt come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had got a good start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on that log again. Before he was tother side of the river I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder.
I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and matches and other things everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasnt any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.
I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could[55] from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place and didnt quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot away and didnt know it was sawed, you wouldnt never notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warnt likely anybody would go fooling around there.
It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadnt left a track. I followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods[56], and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.
I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it considerable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it all I could drag and I started it from the pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches[57]. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.
Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldnt drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the river. Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warnt no knives and forks on the place pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes and ducks too, you might say, in the season. There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles away, I dont know where, but it didnt go to the river. The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped paps whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldnt leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.
It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, theyll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for me. And theyll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They wont ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. Theyll soon get tired of that, and wont bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I want to. Jacksons Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things I want[58]. Jacksons Islands the place.