’Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day.  I don’t mean the kind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone—­not that.  They was quiet, but they all drunk more than usual—­not together—­but each man sidled off and took it private, by himself.

’After dark the off watch didn’t turn in; nobody sung, nobody talked; the boys didn’t scatter around, neither; they sort of huddled together, forrard; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking steady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while.  And then, here comes the bar’l again.  She took up her old place.  She staid there all night; nobody turned in.  The storm come on again, after midnight.  It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the thunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and the lightning spread over everything in big sheets of glare, and showed the whole raft as plain as day; and the river lashed up white as milk as far as you could see for miles, and there was that bar’l jiggering along, same as ever.  The captain ordered the watch to man the after sweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go—­no more sprained ankles for them, they said.  They wouldn’t even walk aft.  Well then, just then the sky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning killed two men of the after watch, and crippled two more.  Crippled them how, says you?  Why, sprained their ankles!

’The bar’l left in the dark betwixt lightnings, towards dawn.  Well, not a body eat a bite at breakfast that morning.  After that the men loafed around, in twos and threes, and talked low together.  But none of them herded with Dick Allbright.  They all give him the cold shake.  If he come around where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away.  They wouldn’t man the sweeps with him.  The captain had all the skiffs hauled up on the raft, alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn’t let the dead men be took ashore to be planted; he didn’t believe a man that got ashore would come back; and he was right.

’After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to be trouble if that bar’l come again; there was such a muttering going on.  A good many wanted to kill Dick Allbright, because he’d seen the bar’l on other trips, and that had an ugly look.  Some wanted to put him ashore.  Some said, let’s all go ashore in a pile, if the bar’l comes again.

’This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being bunched together forrard watching for the bar’l, when, lo and behold you, here she comes again.  Down she comes, slow and steady, and settles into her old tracks.  You could a heard a pin drop.  Then up comes the captain, and says:—­

’"Boys, don’t be a pack of children and fools; I don’t want this bar’l to be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and you don’t; well, then, how’s the best way to stop it?  Burn it up,—­that’s the way.  I’m going to fetch it aboard,” he says.  And before anybody could say a word, in he went.