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 state-
room and put on these clothes and went up in the pilot-
house -- 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.
"Well, to cut the tale short, we never left there till
plumb noon; and long before that I was hid in this
stateroom; for before breakfast I see a man coming,
away off, that had a gait like Hal Clayton's, and it
made me just sick. I says to myself, if he finds out
I'm aboard this boat, he's got me like a rat in a trap.
All he's got to do is to have me watched, and wait --
wait till I slip ashore, thinking he is a thousand miles
away, then slip after me and dog me to a good place
and make me give up the di'monds, and then he'll --
oh, I know what he'll do! Ain't it awful -- awful!
And now to think the OTHER one's aboard, too! Oh,
ain't it hard luck, boys -- ain't it hard! But you'll help
save me, WON'T you? -- oh, boys, be good to a poor
devil that's being hunted to death, and save me -- I'll
worship the very ground you walk on!"
We turned in and soothed him down and told him
we would plan for him and help him, and he needn't
be so afeard; and so by and by he got to feeling kind
of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and
held up his di'monds this way and that, admiring them
and loving them; and when the light struck into them
they WAS beautiful, sure; why, they seemed to kind of
bust, and snap fire out all around.
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