“But, Capting, I were all the time tryin’ to do _something_. Things had begun to look speckled green, and then _omniferous_; but findin’ I were not gone yet, by the way I were kickin’ and pawin’, and knowin’ I were goin’ _somewhere_, and expectin’ to the devil, there ain’t _no_ tellin’ how long or powerful I _did_ work! The fust thing I recollect arter that, was gittin’ a mouthful of wind! _Fact!_ I’d done, gone clean through, and were hangin’ on to a tree below the raft! But, Sir, I were _mighty_ weak, and couldent tell a stump from an old he, and ’spected smartly for some time that I were in the yother world, and commenced an excuse for comin’ so onexpectedly! However, presently I got sorter right, and when I found I were safe, I reckon you never _did_ see a man feel so _unanimous_ in your life, and I made the water fly for joy.” “Well, Jim, what had become of Chunkey? He did not leave you?” “Yes, —— if he diddent? He’d commenced gittin’ dry afore he shot the deer; and when Chunkey wants a drink, if his daddy was drounin’, Chunkey would go to the licker gourd afore he’d go to his daddy. I went to the house, and _thar_ he was settin’ at the table, jist a rattlin’ his teeth agin the bar’s ribs; he held a tin cup in one hand ’bout half full of licker; his head were sorter throwd back; he was breathin’ sorter hard, his eye set on the Governor, humpin’ himself on politics. “‘Down with the specie kurrency,’ says Chunkey; ’it ain’t no account, and I’m agin it. When we had good times, I drank five-dollar-a-gallon brandy, and had pockets full of money.’ “‘But,’ says the Governor, ‘you bought the brandy on a credit, and never paid for it!’ “‘What’s the difference?’ asks Chunkey. ‘Them what I bought it from never paid for it; they bought it on a credit from them fureigners, and never paid for it, and them fureigners, you say, are a pack of scoundrels, and I go in for ruinin’ ’em, so far as good licker is concarned.’ “‘You are drunk,’ says the Governor, and then——but, Capting, you look sleepy; let’s licker, and go to bed.” “No, I am not sleepy, Jim.” “Well, then, I’ll tell you how I sarved Chunkey for leavin’ me under the raft. Moses! diddent I pay him back! Did I ever tell you ’bout takin’ Chunkey out on Sky Lake, makin’ him drunk, takin’ his gun and knife away from him, and a puttin’ him to sleep in a panter’s nest?” “No, you never did; but was you not apprehensive they would kill him?” “Kill him! No! If they’d commenced bitin’ Chunkey, they’d have been looed, as that’s a game Chunkey _invented_! But here he comes; and if you mention it afore him, it puts the dander in him. Let’s licker.” ----- [13] A barrel of whiskey is called a “stranger,” from the fact that It is brought from a distance, there being none made in the country. XXII. DILLY JONES; OR, THE PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT.[14]