The poet was pretty chipper for a spell. He set on the thwart and bragged about what he’d do when he got back to “Petey” again. He said we couldn’t git rid of him so easy. Then he spun yarns about what him and Brown did when they was out West together. They was interestin’ yarns, but we could see why Peter wa’n’t anxious to introduce Cousin Henry to Belle. Then the Patience M. got out where ’twas pretty rugged, and she rolled consider’ble, and after that we didn’t hear much more from friend Booth—he was too busy to talk.
That night me and Jonadab took watch and watch. In the mornin’ it thickened up and looked squally. I got kind of worried. By nine o’clock there was every sign of a no’theaster, and we see we’d have to put in somewheres and ride it out. So we headed for a place we’ll call Baytown, though that wa’n’t the name of it. It’s a queer, old-fashioned town, and it’s on an island; maybe you can guess it from that.
Well, we run into the harbor and let go anchor. Jonadab crawled into the cabin to git some terbacker, and I was for’ard coilin’ the throat halyard. All to once I heard oars rattlin’, and I turned my head; what I see made me let out a yell like a siren whistle.
There was that everlastin’ poet in the skiff—you remember we’d been towin’ it astern—and he was jest cuttin’ the painter with his jackknife. Next minute he’d picked up the oars and was headin’ for the wharf, doublin’ up and stretchin’ out like a frog swimmin’, and with his curls streamin’ in the wind like a rooster’s tail in a hurricane. He had a long start ’fore Jonadab and me woke up enough to think of chasin’ him.
But we woke up fin’lly, and the way we flew round that catboat was a caution. I laid into them halyards, and I had the gaff up to the peak afore Jonadab got the anchor clear of the bottom. Then I jumped to the tiller, and the Patience M. took after that skiff like a pup after a tomcat. We run alongside the wharf jest as Booth Hank climbed over the stringpiece.
“Git after him, Barzilla!” hollers Cap’n Jonadab. “I’ll make her fast.”
Well, I hadn’t took more’n three steps when I see ’twas goin’ to be a long chase. Montague unfurled them thin legs of his and got over the ground somethin’ wonderful. All you could see was a pile of dust and coat tails flappin’.
Up on the wharf we went and round the corner into a straggly kind of road with old-fashioned houses on both sides of it. Nobody in the yards, nobody at the windows; quiet as could be, except that off ahead, somewheres, there was music playin’.
That road was a quarter of a mile long, but we galloped through it so fast that the scenery was nothin’ but a blur. Booth was gainin’ all the time, but I stuck to it like a good one. We took a short cut through a yard, piled over a fence and come out into another road, and up at the head of it was a crowd of folks—men and women and children and dogs.
“Stop thief!” I hollers, and ’way astern I heard Jonadab bellerin’: “Stop thief!”