"Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone.  If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd a got the corpse they was after.  Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder of the island.  I could hear the booming now and then, further and further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more.  The island was three mile long.  I judged they had got to the foot, and was giving it up.  But they didn't yet a while.  They turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they went.  I crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town.

I knowed I was all right now.  Nobody else would come a-hunting after me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods.  I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under so the rain couldn't get at them.  I catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had supper.  Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.

When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed; there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it.

And so for three days and nights.  No difference—just the same thing. But the next day I went exploring around down through the island.  I was boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time.  I found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show.  They would all come handy by and by, I judged.

Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far from the foot of the island.  I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.

My heart jumped up amongst my lungs.  I never waited for to look further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever I could.  Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else.  I slunk along another piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so on.  If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too.