maybe he's washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge.  I hope so, anyway.” I didn't hope so.  They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might.  I could see them first-rate, but they couldn't see me.  Then the captain sung out: “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