CHAPTER IX.
I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the islandthat I'd found when I was exploring; so we started and soon got to it,because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a milewide.
This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foothigh. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep andthe bushes so thick. ?We tramped and clumb around all over it, and byand by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on theside towards Illinois. ?The cavern was as big as two or three roomsbunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. ?It was cool inthere. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said wedidn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time.
Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the trapsin the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island,and they would never find us without dogs. ?And, besides, he said themlittle birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things toget wet?
So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern,and lugged all the traps up there. ?Then we hunted up a place close byto hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. ?We took some fish offof the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner.
The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on oneside of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and agood place to build a fire on. ?So we built it there and cooked dinner.
We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there.We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern. ?Prettysoon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds wasright about it. ?Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury,too, and I never see the wind blow so. ?It was one of these regularsummer storms. ?It would get so dark that it looked all blue-blackoutside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick thatthe trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here wouldcome a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up thepale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust wouldfollow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if theywas just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest andblackest--_FST_! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a littleglimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm,hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin againin a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash,and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards theunder side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs--whereit's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.
"Jim, this is nice," I says. ?"I wouldn't want to be nowhere else buthere. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."
"Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. ?You'd a bendown dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded, too;dat you would, honey. ?Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so dode birds, chile."
The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till atlast it was over the banks. ?The water was three or four foot deep onthe island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. ?On that sideit was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the sameold distance across--a half a mile--because the Missouri shore was just awall of high bluffs.
Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cooland shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. ?Wewent winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hungso thick we had to back away and go some other way. ?Well, on every oldbroken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; andwhen the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, onaccount of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put yourhand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles--they wouldslide off in the water. ?The ridge our cavern was in was full of them.We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.
One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft--nice pine planks.It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, andthe top stood above water six or seven inches--a solid, level floor. ?Wecould see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go;we didn't show ourselves in daylight.
Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just beforedaylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side. ?She wasa two-story, and tilted over considerable. ?We paddled out and gotaboard--clumb in at an upstairs window. ?But it was too dark to see yet,so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.
The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. ?Thenwe looked in at the window. ?We could make out a bed, and a table, andtwo old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and therewas clothes hanging against the wall. ?There was something laying on thefloor in the far corner that looked like a man. ?So Jim says:
"Hello, you!"
But it didn't budge. ?So I hollered again, and then Jim says:
"De man ain't asleep--he's dead. ?You hold still--I'll go en see."
He went, and bent down and looked, and says:
"It's a dead man. ?Yes, indeedy; naked, too. ?He's ben shot in de back.I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. ?Come in, Huck, but doan' lookat his face--it's too gashly."
I didn't look at him at all. ?Jim throwed some old rags over him, buthe needn't done it; I didn't want to see him. ?There was heaps of oldgreasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles,and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the wallswas the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal.?There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and somewomen's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing,too. ?We put the lot into the canoe--it might come good. ?There was aboy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that, too. ?And therewas a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for ababy to suck. ?We would a took the bottle, but it was broke. ?There wasa seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke. ?Theystood open, but there warn't nothing left in them that was any account.?The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in ahurry, and warn't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff.
We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle, anda bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallowcandles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a rattyold bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins andbeeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a hatchetand some nails, and a fishline as thick as my little finger with somemonstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar,and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no labelon them; and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb,and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. ?The strapswas broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg, thoughit was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't findthe other one, though we hunted all around.
And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. ?When we was ready toshove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was prettybroad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with thequilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a goodways off. ?I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down mosta half a mile doing it. ?I crept up the dead water under the bank, andhadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody. ?We got home all safe.