“But I don’t want him killed, and I’ve got my reasons for it.”

“Bless yo’ heart for them words, Jake Packard!

I’ll never forgit you long’s I live!” says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.

Packard didn’t take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail and started toward where I was, there in the dark, and motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn’t make very good time; so to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. The man came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to my stateroom, he says:

“Here — come in here.”