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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, they'll follow the track of

that sackful of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for me. And they'll

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 won't

ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of

that, and won't bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I

want to. Jackson's 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. Jackson's Island's the place.

I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed, I was asleep. When I

woke up I didn't know where I was, for a minute. I set up and looked

around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles

across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs that went a

slipping along, black and still, hundred of yards out from shore. Everything was

dead quiet, and it looked late, and smelt late. You know what I mean -- I don't

know the words to put it in. ssssssssss

I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start, when

I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I made it out. It

was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working in rowlocks

when it's a still night. I peeped out through the willow branches, and there

it was -- a skiff, away across the water. I couldn't tell how many was in it. It

kept a-coming, and when it was abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in

it. Thinks I, maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped

below me, with the current, and by-and-by he come a-swinging up shore in the

easy water, and he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched

him. Well, it was pap, sure enough -- and sober, too, by the way he laid to his

oars.

I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down stream soft but

quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then struck

out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river, because pretty

soon I would be passing the ferry landing and people might see me and hail

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