It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse
whisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a
moan, and I says:
"Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's a
gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set
her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the
wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their
boat we can put ALL of 'em in a bad fix--for the sheriff 'll get 'em.
Quick--hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard.
You start at the raft, and--"
"Oh, my lordy, lordy! RAF'? Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke
loose en gone I--en here we is!"
CHAPTER XIII.
WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such
a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd GOT to
find that boat now--had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking
and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too--seemed a
week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't
believe he could go any further--so scared he hadn't hardly any strength
left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are
in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again.
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