“‘All right,’ I finally whispers, ‘I’ll show ye whar it’s hid, only thar ain’t room fer but two to go in.’ “Mike Fink swings ’round to his gang. ‘Git back on shore, ye lousy varmints!’ he bellers. When they’re all up on the bank, he pulls out his knife an’ holds it in his teeth, an’ I lead the way into the caboose here. It’s a right dark night an’ Mike he strikes a light an’ holds up a candle, while I’m rummagin’ round in the corner. Pretty soon I undo the ketch o’ this leetle trap door down here in the bulkhead, an’ open her up. ‘Whar’s that go?’ says the Snag. ‘That’s my secret hidin-place,’ I says--‘want me to go first, or you?’ An’ I’m still lettin’ on to be tremblin’ so I kin hardly talk. “‘You,’ says Mike, ‘an’ by the ol’ ’Tarnation I’ll cut you into stewin’ meat if you try any tricks.’ “So I crawls through the hole on my hands an’ knees, an’ waits fer him to follow.” Magoon opened the little trap door as he spoke, and Tad laughed when he saw a two-foot ledge of deck and then the river beyond it. “Wal,” the old man went on, “Mike didn’t come through, right off, an’ I tell you I _was_ scairt. ’Twas so durn dark outside, I knew he couldn’t see, but he stayed thar an’ tried to figger if I was up to anything. Finally he says, ‘Bring the money out here in the cabin.’ I’m workin’ at the moorin’-rope all this time, an’ now I make a noise like I’m tuggin’ an’ liftin’. ‘Can’t,’ says I. ‘It’s too heavy!’ “That fetched him, sure ’nough. Here he comes on all fours, with the knife still in his teeth. I gives the rope one last pull an’ it comes away, an’ then ’fore he rightly sees whar he is, I ketches him by the scruff o’ the neck an’ heaves him overboard. “You can bet I didn’t wait to see whether he was drowned, neither. I give a big shove with the oar an’ got out o’ reach o’ the bank, an’ then I stood by the gunwale with an ax, ready to cut the hands off anybody that tried to swim out an’ climb aboard. “It must have took Mike a few minutes to crawl out an’ git organized again. Anyhow they never follered me.” The last part of the story had been told out on the open deck, and Abe and Allen were listening with rapt attention. “Is that the same Mike Fink they call the ‘Snappin’ Turtle’ up our way?” asked Abe. “That’s him,” the old man nodded. “He’s called that above the Wabash. Both names is too good fer him. Wal, boys, how’s the dinner comin’ along?” Tad’s mind was filled with questions about the river pirates, but he postponed asking them long enough to do full justice to the planked catfish. When the meal was over he perched himself on the gunwale of the trading-boat and waited for the grizzled river-man to get his cob pipe going. “Mr. Magoon,” he said, when the blue smoke-clouds were rising at last, “who do you think is the worst outlaw you ever ran across?”