on; and, speakin’ o’ home, you’d ort ’o be there by all means—­your house might catch afire and burn up while you’re gone!” And jist then the boat give a suddent shove under him—­some feller’d div under and tilted it—­and far a minute it throwed him off his guard and the boys closed in.  Still he had the advantage, bein’ in the boat, and as fast as a feller would climb in he’d git a whack o’ the oar, tel finally they got to pilin’ in a little too fast far him to manage, and he hollered then ’at we’d have to come to the bottom ef we got him, and with that he div out o’ the end o’ the boat, and we lost sight of him; and I’ll be blame ef he didn’t give us the slip after all.

Wellsir, we watched far him, and some o’ the boys swum on down stream, expectin’ he’d raise, but couldn’t find hide ner hair of him; so we left the boat a-driftin’ off down stream and swum ashore, a-thinkin’ he’d jist drownded hisse’f a-purpose.  But ther’ was more su’prise waitin’ far us yit,—­for lo-and-behold-you, when we got ashore ther’ wasn’t no trace o’ Steve er the baby to be found.  Ezry said he seed Steve when he fetched little Annie ashore, and she was all right on’y she was purt nigh past cryin’; and he said Steve had lapped his coat around her and give her to him to take charge of, and he got so excited over the fight he laid her down betwixt a couple o’ logs and kind o’ forget about her tel the thing was over, and he went to look far her, and she was gone.  Couldn’t a-be’n ’at she’d a-wundered off her-own-se’f; and it couldn’t a-be’n ’at Steve’d take her, ’thout a-lettin us know it.  It was a mighty aggervatin’ conclusion to come to, but we had to do it, and that was, Bills must a got ashore unbeknownst to us and packed her off.  Sich a thing wasn’t hardly probable, yit it was a thing ‘at might be; and after a-talkin’ it over we had to admit ’at it must a-be’n the way of it.  But where was Steve?  W’y, we argied, he’d discivvered she was gone, and had put out on track of her ‘thout losin’ time to stop and explain the thing.  The next question was, what did Bills want with her agin?  He’d tried to drownd her onc’t.  We could ast questions enough, but c’rect answers was mighty skearce, and we jist concluded ’at the best thing to do was to put out far the ford, far that was the nighdest place Bills could cross ’thout a boat, and ef it was him tuck the child he was still on our side o’ the river, o’ course.  So we struck out far the ford, a-leav-in’ a couple o’ men to search up the river.  A drizzlin’ sort o’ rain had set in by this time, and with that and the darkness and the moanin’ of the wind, it made ’bout as lonesome a prospect as a feller ever wants to go through agin.