8 The Fate of the Wreck

CHAPTER 8 The Fate of the Wreck I caught my breath and almost fainted. Stuck on a wreck with a gang like that! But there was no time to be scared. We had to find their boat for ourselves. We searched and searched and finally we found it. We were almost on board when the door opened. One of the men looked out. He was standing just a couple of feet ahead of me, but he didn't see me. He moved back in to talk to the other man and I got into the boat with Jim right

behind me. I cut the rope with my knife and away we went! We didn't touch an oar. We didn't speak. We barely breathed. We went gliding silently away from the wreck. Soon we were so far away that the darkness covered her completely. We were safe and we knew it. When we were far downstream, we saw the lantern show like a little spark at the door for a second. We knew that the rascals now knew they had missed their boat. They were beginning to understand that they were in just as much trouble as their partner. I started to worry about those men. I said to Jim: "I'll think up some kind of story so I can get somebody to go for that gang and get them off that wreck." Soon after, we found our raft. We were mighty glad to be on it again. We piled all of the stuff from the gang's boat onto the raft and Jim

floated ahead with it a little ways. He lit a lantern so I could find him again later. I took the boat and rowed to the shore. When I got there I found a watchman asleep next to a ferryboat. I told him about the gang on the wreck, but it was too late. After he left and I found Jim again, we saw the wreck itself, dim and dusky, sliding along down the river! A cold shiver went through me. The wreck was very deep in the water and I couldn't see anyone on board. Before dawn, Jim and I hid the raft and the boat. Then we laid down and slept like dead people. When we got up, we went through the stuff the gang had stolen. We found a lot of clothes, books, and other things. We had never been so rich in our lives. We spent the afternoon talking and I read from the books. I told Jim about what had happened inside the wreck and said these things were adventures. He said he didn't want

any more of those. I read to him about kings and dukes and earls. The book described how they dressed and talked, calling each other your majesty, your grace, your lordship, and so on, instead of mister. Some of them even spoke French. We guessed that it would take us three nights to get to Cairo, which was at the bottom of Illinois where the Ohio River comes in. We could sell the raft and take a steamboat into Ohio. From there we could get into the free States, where we would be out of trouble. Jim missed his children terribly and talked about getting someone to fetch them for him once he was in the free states. I knew there would be big trouble for each of us if we were caught before we could get there. Jim would be punished for running away, and I could get in trouble for helping him. On the second night we got lost and separated in some fog. I was in the canoe and Jim was on

the raft. It took us a long time to find each other again. When we did, we found we had drifted right past Cairo. We had no choice but to take the canoe back. We slept all day among the cottonwood thicket so we could paddle back at night. When we went back to the raft after dark, the canoe was gone! We'd had a lot of bad luck by then and were mighty upset about it. We didn't say a word for a good while. There wasn't anything to say. We decided to go along down the river on the raft until we found a chance to buy a canoe. Then we would try to paddle back. We didn't want to borrow one, the way pap would, for that might set people after us. So we shoved out after dark on the raft. Then more bad luck hit us. The night got gray and thick, which is the next meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the river and you can't see far at all. It got to be very late and still.

Just then, along came a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern and judged she would see it. We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till she was close. She aimed right for us. They often do that and try to see how close they can come without touching. Then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs and thinks he's mighty smart. Well here she comes, and she didn't seem to be veering 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. There was a yell at us, a jingling of bells to stop the engines, and a lot of cursing and whistling of steam. As Jim went overboard on one side and I fell off the other, she came smashing straight through the raft!