If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd a
got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to
goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder
of the island. I could hear the booming now and then, further and
further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more. The
island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the foot, and was
giving it up. But they didn't yet a while. They turned around the foot
of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, under
steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over to that
side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island they
quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the
town.
I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after me.
I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick
woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under
so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a catfish and haggled him
open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had
supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.
When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well
satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set
on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the
stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed;
there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't
stay so, you soon get over it.
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