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Tom Sawyer, Detective 161
wonder what's the trouble. Another five and I says to myself he's getting real uneasy — he's walking the floor now. Another five, and I says to myself, there's two mile and a half behind me, and he's awful uneasy — beginning to cuss, I reckon. Pretty soon I says to myself, forty minutes gone — he knows there's something up! Fifty minutes — the truth's a-busting on him now! he is reckoning I found the di'monds whilst we was searching, and shoved them in my pocket and never let on — yes, and he's starting out to hunt for me. He'll hunt for new tracks in the dust, and they'll as likely send him down the river as up.
" Just then I see a man coming down on a mule, and before I thought I jumped into the bush. It was stupid! When he got abreast he stopped and waited a little for me to come out; then he rode on again. But I didn't feel gay any more. I says to myself I've botched my chances by that; I surely have, if he meets up with Hal Clayton.
"Well, about three in the morning I fetched Elex-andria and see this stern-wheeler laying there, and was very glad, because I felt perfectly safe, now, you know. It was just daybreak. I went aboard and got this stateroom and put on these clothes and went up in the pilothouse— to watch, though I didn't reckon there was any need of it. I set there and played with my di'monds and waited and waited for the boat to start, but she didn't. You see, they was mending her machinery, but I didn't know anything about it, not being very much used to steamboats. |
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