Kitabı oku: «Adventures of Tom Sawyer», sayfa 4

Chapter VII

harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his ideas wandered. So at last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up. It seemed to him that the noon recess would never come. The air was utterly dead. There was not a breath stirring. It was the sleepiest of sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees. Away off in the flaming sunshine, Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep. Tom’s heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to pass the dreary time. His hand wandered into his pocket and his face lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know it. Then furtively the percussion-cap box came out. He released the tick and put him on the long flat desk. The creature probably glowed with a gratitude that amounted to prayer, too, at this moment, but it was premature: for when he started thankfully to travel off, Tom turned him aside with a pin and made him take a new direction.

Tom’s bosom friend sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and now he was deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in an instant. This bosom friend was Joe Harper. The two boys were sworn friends all the week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays. Joe took a pin out of his lapel and began to assist in exercising the prisoner. The sport grew in interest momently. Soon Tom said that they were interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit of the tick. So he put Joe’s slate on the desk and drew a line down the middle of it from top to bottom.

“Now,” said he, “as long as he is on your side you can stir him up and I’ll let him alone; but if you let him get away and get on my side, you’re to leave him alone as long as I can keep him from crossing over.”

“All right, go ahead; start him up.”

The tick escaped from Tom, presently, and crossed the equator. Joe harassed him a while, and then he got away and crossed back again. This change of base occurred often. While one boy was worrying the tick with absorbing interest, the other would look on with interest as strong, the two heads bowed together over the slate, and the two souls dead to all things else. At last luck seemed to settle and abide with Joe. The tick tried this, that, and the other course, and got as excited and as anxious as the boys themselves, but time and again just as he would have victory in his very grasp, so to speak, and Tom’s fingers would be twitching to begin, Joe’s pin would deftly head him off, and keep possession. At last Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was too strong. So he reached out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was angry in a moment. Said he:

“Tom, you let him alone.”

“I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe.”

“No, sir, it ain’t fair; you just let him alone.”

“Blame it, I ain’t going to stir him much.”

“Let him alone, I tell you.”

“I won’t!”

“You shall – he’s on my side of the line.”

“Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?”

“I don’t care whose tick he is – he’s on my side of the line, and you sha’n’t touch him.”

“Well, I’ll just bet I will, though. He’s my tick and I’ll do what I blame please with him, or die!”

A tremendous whack came down on Tom’s shoulders, and its duplicate on Joe’s; and for the space of two minutes the dust continued to fly from the two jackets and the whole school to enjoy it. The boys had been too absorbed to notice the hush that had stolen upon the school a while before when the master came tip-toeing down the room and stood over them. He had contemplated a good part of the performance before he contributed his bit of variety to it.

When school broke up at noon, Tom flew to Becky Thatcher, and whispered in her ear:

“Put on your bonnet and let on you’re going home; and when you get to the corner, give the rest of ’em the slip, and turn down through the lane and come back. I’ll go the other way and come it over ’em the same way.”

So the one went off with one group of scholars, and the other with another. In a little while the two met at the bottom of the lane, and when they reached the school they had it all to themselves. Then they sat together, with a slate before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil and held her hand in his, guiding it, and so created another surprising house. When the interest in art began to wane, the two fell to talking. Tom was swimming in bliss. He said:

“Do you love rats?”

“No! I hate them!”

“Well, I do, too – live ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your head with a string.”

“No, I don’t care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum.”

“Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now.”

“Do you? I’ve got some. I’ll let you chew it a while, but you must give it back to me.”

That was agreeable, so they chewed it turn about, and dangled their legs against the bench in excess of contentment.

“Was you ever at a circus?” said Tom.

“Yes, and my pa’s going to take me again some time, if I’m good.”

“I been to the circus three or four times – lots of times. Church ain’t shucks to a circus. There’s things going on at a circus all the time. I’m going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up.”

“Oh, are you! That will be nice. They’re so lovely, all spotted up.”

“Yes, that’s so. And they get slathers of money – most a dollar a day, Ben Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?”

“What’s that?”

“Why, engaged to be married.”

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

“I reckon so. I don’t know. What is it like?”

“Like? Why it ain’t like anything. You only just tell a boy you won’t ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that’s all. Anybody can do it.”

“Kiss? What do you kiss for?”

“Why, that, you know, is to – well, they always do that.”

“Everybody?”

“Why, yes, everybody that’s in love with each other. Do you remember what I wrote on the slate?”

“Ye – yes.”

“What was it?”

“I sha’n’t tell you.”

“Shall I tell you?”

“Ye – yes – but some other time.”

“No, now.”

“No, not now – to-morrow.”

“Oh, no, now. Please, Becky – I’ll whisper it, I’ll whisper it ever so easy.”

Becky hesitating, Tom took silence for consent, and passed his arm about her waist and whispered the tale ever so softly, with his mouth close to her ear. And then he added:

“Now you whisper it to me – just the same.”

She resisted, for a while, and then said:

“You turn your face away so you can’t see, and then I will. But you mustn’t ever tell anybody – will you, Tom? Now you won’t, will you?”

“No, indeed, indeed I won’t. Now, Becky.”

He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath stirred his curls and whispered, “I – love – you!”

Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches, with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her little white apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and pleaded:

“Now, Becky, it’s all done – all over but the kiss. Don’t you be afraid of that – it ain’t anything at all. Please, Becky.” And he tugged at her apron and the hands.

By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and said:

“Now it’s all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain’t ever to love anybody but me, and you ain’t ever to marry anybody but me, ever never and forever. Will you?”

“No, I’ll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I’ll never marry anybody but you – and you ain’t to ever marry anybody but me, either.”

“Certainly. Of course. That’s part of it. And always coming to school or when we’re going home, you’re to walk with me, when there ain’t anybody looking – and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because that’s the way you do when you’re engaged.”

“It’s so nice. I never heard of it before.”

“Oh, it’s ever so gay! Why, me and Amy Lawrence—”

The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.

“Oh, Tom! Then I ain’t the first you’ve ever been engaged to!”

The child began to cry. Tom said:

“Oh, don’t cry, Becky, I don’t care for her any more.”

“Yes, you do, Tom – you know you do.”

VAIN PLEADING.

Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and turned her face to the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed again. Then his pride was up, and he strode away and went outside. He stood about, restless and uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping she would repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began to feel badly and fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle with him to make new advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and entered. She was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with her face to the wall. Tom’s heart smote him. He went to her and stood a moment, not knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly:

“Becky, I – I don’t care for anybody but you.”

No reply – but sobs.

“Becky” – pleadingly. “Becky, won’t you say something?”

More sobs.

Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob from the top of an andiron, and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said:

“Please, Becky, won’t you take it?”

She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she flew around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called:

“Tom! Come back, Tom!”

She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions but silence and loneliness. So she sat down to cry again and upbraid herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she had to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross of a long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers about her to exchange sorrows with.

Chapter VIII

dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He crossed a small “branch” two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of Cardiff Hill, and the school-house was hardly distinguishable away off in the valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak. There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken by no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a woodpecker, and this seemed to render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the more profound. The boy’s soul was steeped in melancholy; his feelings were in happy accord with his surroundings. He sat long with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed to him that life was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so lately released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and caressing the grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve about, ever any more. If he only had a clean Sunday-school record he could be willing to go, and be done with it all. Now as to this girl. What had he done? Nothing. He had meant the best in the world, and been treated like a dog – like a very dog. She would be sorry some day – maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die temporarily!

But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away – ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas – and never came back any more! How would she feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only to fill him with disgust. For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights were an offense, when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague august realm of the romantic. No, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all war-worn and illustrious. No – better still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on the war-path in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the Far West, and away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with feathers, hideous with paint, and prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy summer morning, with a blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all his companions with unappeasable envy. But no, there was something gaudier even than this. He would be a pirate! That was it! Now his future lay plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor. How his name would fill the world, and make people shudder! How gloriously he would go plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the Spirit of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, “It’s Tom Sawyer the Pirate! – the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!”

TOM MEDITATES.

Yes, it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away from home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning. Therefore he must now begin to get ready. He would collect his resources together. He went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under one end of it with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded hollow. He put his hand there and uttered this incantation impressively:

“What hasn’t come here, come! What’s here, stay here!”

Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and sides were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom’s astonishment was boundless! He scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:

“Well, that beats anything!”

Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. The truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and all his comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you buried a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated. But now, this thing had actually and unquestionably failed. Tom’s whole structure of faith was shaken to its foundations. He had many a time heard of this thing succeeding but never of its failing before. It did not occur to him that he had tried it several times before, himself, but could never find the hiding-places afterward. He puzzled over the matter some time, and finally decided that some witch had interfered and broken the charm. He thought he would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched around till he found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in it. He laid himself down and put his mouth close to this depression and called—

“Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know! Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!”

The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a second and then darted under again in a fright.

“He dasn’t tell! So it was a witch that done it. I just knowed it.”

He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:

“Brother, go find your brother!”

He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each other.

Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned a suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log, disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin trumpet, and in a moment had seized these things and bounded away, barelegged, with fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a great elm, blew an answering blast, and then began to tip-toe and look warily out, this way and that. He said cautiously – to an imaginary company:

“Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow.”

Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom. Tom called:

“Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?”

“Guy of Guisborne wants no man’s pass. Who art thou that – that—”

“Dares to hold such language,” said Tom, prompting – for they talked “by the book,” from memory.

“Who art thou that dares to hold such language?”

“I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff carcase soon shall know.”

“Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw? Right gladly will I dispute with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have at thee!”

ROBIN HOOD AND HIS FOE.

They took their lath swords, dumped their other traps on the ground, struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and began a grave, careful combat, “two up and two down.” Presently Tom said:

“Now, if you’ve got the hang, go it lively!”

So they “went it lively,” panting and perspiring with the work. By and by Tom shouted:

“Fall! fall! Why don’t you fall?”

“I sha’n’t! Why don’t you fall yourself? You’re getting the worst of it.”

“Why, that ain’t anything. I can’t fall; that ain’t the way it is in the book. The book says, ‘Then with one back-handed stroke he slew poor Guy of Guisborne.’ You’re to turn around and let me hit you in the back.”

There was no getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received the whack and fell.

“Now,” said Joe, getting up, “you got to let me kill you. That’s fair.”

“Why, I can’t do that, it ain’t in the book.”

“Well, it’s blamed mean – that’s all.”

“Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tuck or Much the miller’s son, and lam me with a quarter-staff; or I’ll be the Sheriff of Nottingham and you be Robin Hood a little while and kill me.”

This was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out. Then Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. And at last Joe, representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth, gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, “Where this arrow falls, there bury poor Robin Hood under the greenwood tree.” Then he shot the arrow and fell back and would have died, but he lit on a nettle and sprang up too gaily for a corpse.

DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD.

The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss. They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.

Chapter IX

half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual. They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark. Everything was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little, scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly’s chamber. And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the bed’s head made Tom shudder – it meant that somebody’s days were numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air, and was answered by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last he was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to doze, in spite of himself; the clock chimed eleven, but he did not hear it. And then there came, mingling with his half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of “Scat! you devil!” and the crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt’s wood-shed brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and out of the window and creeping along the roof of the “ell” on all fours. He “meow’d” with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof of the wood-shed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end of half an hour they were wading through the tall grass of the graveyard.

TOM’S MODE OF EGRESS.

It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill, about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board fence around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over the graves, leaning for support and finding none. “Sacred to the memory of” So-and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no longer have been read, on the most of them, now, even if there had been light.

A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of the grave.

Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom’s reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said in a whisper:

“Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?”

Huckleberry whispered:

“I wisht I knowed. It’s awful solemn like, ain’t it?”

“I bet it is.”

There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter inwardly. Then Tom whispered:

“Say, Hucky – do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?”

“O’ course he does. Least his sperrit does.”

Tom, after a pause:

“I wish I’d said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody calls him Hoss.”

“A body can’t be too partic’lar how they talk ’bout these-yer dead people, Tom.”

This was a damper, and conversation died again.

Presently Tom seized his comrade’s arm and said:

“Sh!”

“What is it, Tom?” And the two clung together with beating hearts.

“Sh! There ’tis again! Didn’t you hear it?”

“I—”

“There! Now you hear it.”

“Lord, Tom, they’re coming! They’re coming, sure. What’ll we do?”

“I dono. Think they’ll see us?”

“Oh, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn’t come.”

“Oh, don’t be afeard. I don’t believe they’ll bother us. We ain’t doing any harm. If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won’t notice us at all.”

“I’ll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I’m all of a shiver.”

“Listen!”

The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard.

“Look! See there!” whispered Tom. “What is it?”

“It’s devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful.”

Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable little spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a shudder:

“It’s the devils sure enough. Three of ’em! Lordy, Tom, we’re goners! Can you pray?”

“I’ll try, but don’t you be afeard. They ain’t going to hurt us. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I—’”

TOM’S EFFORT AT PRAYER.

“Sh!”

“What is it, Huck?”

“They’re humans! One of ’em is, anyway. One of ’em’s old Muff Potter’s voice.”

“No – ’tain’t so, is it?”

“I bet I know it. Don’t you stir nor budge. He ain’t sharp enough to notice us. Drunk, the same as usual, likely – blamed old rip!”

“All right, I’ll keep still. Now they’re stuck. Can’t find it. Here they come again. Now they’re hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot! They’re p’inted right, this time. Say, Huck, I know another o’ them voices; it’s Injun Joe.”

“That’s so – that murderin’ half-breed! I’d druther they was devils a dern sight. What kin they be up to?”

The whisper died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the grave and stood within a few feet of the boys’ hiding-place.

“Here it is,” said the third voice; and the owner of it held the lantern up and revealed the face of young Doctor Robinson.

Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a couple of shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open the grave. The doctor put the lantern at the head of the grave and came and sat down with his back against one of the elm trees. He was so close the boys could have touched him.

“Hurry, men!” he said, in a low voice; “the moon might come out at any moment.”

They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was no noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight of mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck upon the coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or two the men had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid with their shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the ground. The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face. The barrow was got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered with a blanket, and bound to its place with the rope. Potter took out a large spring-knife and cut off the dangling end of the rope and then said:

“Now the cussed thing’s ready, Sawbones, and you’ll just out with another five, or here she stays.”

“That’s the talk!” said Injun Joe.

“Look here, what does this mean?” said the doctor. “You required your pay in advance, and I’ve paid you.”

“Yes, and you done more than that,” said Injun Joe, approaching the doctor, who was now standing. “Five years ago you drove me away from your father’s kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and you said I warn’t there for any good; and when I swore I’d get even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant. Did you think I’d forget? The Injun blood ain’t in me for nothing. And now I’ve got you, and you got to settle, you know!”

He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time. The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground. Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed:

“Here, now, don’t you hit my pard!” and the next moment he had grappled with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, trampling the grass and tearing the ground with their heels. Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched up Potter’s knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping, round and round about the combatants, seeking an opportunity. All at once the doctor flung himself free, seized the heavy headboard of Williams’s grave and felled Potter to the earth with it – and in the same instant the half-breed saw his chance and drove the knife to the hilt in the young man’s breast. He reeled and fell partly upon Potter, flooding him with his blood, and in the same moment the clouds blotted out the dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went speeding away in the dark.

Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over the two forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately, gave a long gasp or two and was still. The half-breed muttered:

“That score is settled – damn you.”

Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in Potter’s open right hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin. Three – four – five minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and moan. His hand closed upon the knife; he raised it, glanced at it, and let it fall, with a shudder. Then he sat up, pushing the body from him, and gazed at it, and then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe’s.

“Lord, how is this, Joe?” he said.

“It’s a dirty business,” said Joe, without moving.

“What did you do it for?”

“I! I never done it!”

“Look here! That kind of talk won’t wash.”

Potter trembled and grew white.

“I thought I’d got sober. I’d no business to drink to-night. But it’s in my head yet – worse’n when we started here. I’m all in a muddle; can’t recollect anything of it, hardly. Tell me, Joe – honest, now, old feller – did I do it? Joe, I never meant to – ’pon my soul and honor, I never meant to, Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe. Oh, it’s awful – and him so young and promising.”

“Why, you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the headboard and you fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and staggering like, and snatched the knife and jammed it into him, just as he fetched you another awful clip – and here you’ve laid, as dead as a wedge til now.”