Among the River Pirates

r behind, ignoring shouts from its deck to hal

say goodnight to the mate an’ you got in the boat an’ told me so cranky an’ all to push off before I got a chance

what seemed to Skippy an interminable time, he rocked to and fro

y could stand

’s the matter! Gee, it’s som

e M. Baxter jest as quick as yer kin! I got ter put as muc

op

ream. I can’t make head or tail uv it yet. I went

kippy en

like Ol’ Flint does. He’s a man uv few words. Anyways, I goes in a

Skippy asked clenching h

n’ the way he’d cheated me an’ I got tellin’ him so but he didn’t say nothin’, but jest kep’ sittin’ there a-grinnin’ that funny way. Well, I knowed as how he always was a ma

r him?” Skippy in

in hardly remember what happened ’ceptin’ I realized all uv a su

ny noise or anythin’?

und outa him all the time. His eyes seemed ter git funnier lookin’ though, but he kep’ on grinnin’ je

ha

the back,” Toby whispere

op

ully. “Then I knew he musta been dead all

too g

hat then, if he really was dead

him up that way after it happened. I could see in his bedroom off uv the room h

red as if to himself. Then, in a f

groaned. “I don’t even remember how long I stood there.

rting. “Who—what groaned that time? The se

orta come ter me full in the face an’ I was so f

r a few moments searched th

dn’t you tell the second mate, an’ me, right then? Why—why didn’t you

have ter admit ter that mate that I was mad enough ter choke Ol’ Flint ter death—he could see my fingers there ter pr

you only had

ere ter tell nobody nothin’, Skippy. Besides, do I know I didn’t choke him ter—ter...” He sobbed a m

rasped Toby’s damp flann

t him grinnin’ like from the time you got inside the room.” He hesitated a moment, then: “You

sound, Sonny—I d

g the little motor boat upstream. His tired young f

ck and head her downstream again an’ I’m goin’ aboard that Apollyon an’ explain the whole thing. I’ll tell ’em every

nued to rock back and forth

d turn ’round with me an’ go back an’ tel

ack ter the Minnie M. Baxter an’ think. Like a good b

nd over and over again he told himself the story of Josiah Flint’s strange death just as Toby had told it. But with each recurring thought, a strange suspicion asserted

xter, Skippy was fearful that possibly, after all, his father