1!**

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

result was what might hare been foreseen : I lost my head in a
quarter of a minute, and didn't know what I was about; I started
too early to bring tbe boat around, but detected a green gleam of joy
in Brown's eye, and corrected my mistake : I started around once
more while too high up, but corrected myself again in time; I made
other false moves, and still managed to save myself; but at Jast I
grew so confused and anxious that I tumbled into the very worst
blunder of all—I got too far down before beginning to fetch the boat
around. Brown's chance was come.

His face turned red with passion; he made one bound, hurled me
across the house with a sweep of his arm, spun the wheel down, and
began to pour out a stream of vituperation upon me which lasted
till he was out of breath. In the course of this speech he called me
all the different kinds of hard names he could think of, and once or
twice I thought he was even going to swear—but he had never done
that, and he didn't this time. * Dod dern * was the nearest he
ventured to the luxury of swearing, for he had been brought up with
a wholesome respect for future fire and brimstone.

That was an uncomfortable hour; for there was a big audience on
the hurricane deck. When I went to bed that night, I killed Brown
in seventeen different wavs—all of them new.