WHERE IS JOE?
It was now getting late, and Sam knew that it was not well for him to
talk longer. He felt so much better, however, that he knew he would
continue to talk in spite of himself unless the whole party should go to
sleep at once. Joe had not been in the drift cavern for more than two
hours, and Sam, observing his prolonged absence, said:
"Tom, I'm afraid some of us have hurt poor Joe's feelings. Go and look
at your water-mark, and while you are out, find the poor fellow and find
out what's the matter with him. He's a good boy, and has done his part
faithfully ever since we started. I can't bear to think of him moping."
Tom went out and examined his stake, which showed that the water was not
more than an inch or two over the bank, and was not rising very rapidly
now; but he could see nothing of Joe anywhere. He went to the look-out,
but the boy was not there, and a diligent search through the drift-pile,
showed that he was nowhere in the neighborhood of the fortress. Tom was
now fairly alarmed, and returning, was about to report the facts to Sam,
when little Judie, in a whisper, informed him that the big brother was
asleep. As his fever had risen somewhat, Judie rightly thought it better
not to disturb him, as he certainly could not aid in any way in finding
Joe.
"I must just think," Tom said to himself, "as Sam does, and then I can
do all there is to be done. Now I know Joe isn't anywhere in the
hammock, because I knew every place he could squeeze himself into, and
I've looked in every one of them. It's no use then to waste time looking
there any more. He must have left here, either accidentally or on
purpose. He couldn't have slipped off the drift and drowned, because he
can swim pretty well and would have swam out in a minute. There is no
other way in which he can have left here by accident, unless an Indian
has killed him on the drift-pile somewhere, and if that were so I would
have found his body. He must have run away on purpose."
But just as Tom reached this point in his thinking he remembered the
earnestness with which poor Joe had begged him to bear witness in any
and every event that he was not "a runaway nigger." And this reminded
Tom of all the queer ways he had noticed in Joe of late. The boy must
have had a premonition, he thought, that something was going to happen
to him. Only two theories remained. One was that Joe had gone crazy
under his long exile from civilized life and had madly put an end to
himself by jumping into the river; and the other that, persisting in his
belief in the instability of the drift-pile, he had gone to the upper
bank for safety and had fallen asleep there. In that event he must be
found, lest an Indian should discover him in the morning and put him to
death. Tom went ashore after explaining his purpose to Judie, so that
she might not be alarmed at his absence, and literally spent the entire
night in hunting for the black boy. Joe was nowhere to be found, and
when daylight came, Tom saw that a further search was of no use
whatever, and he therefore returned sadly to the drift cavern. The water
was now going down again, and the bank was free from it, but the sand in
the root fortress was still too wet to sit or lie upon, and so Tom made
no immediate preparation for their return.
Sam's fever was very slight that morning, and his first question was
about Joe. Tom told him of his night's search, and Sam's deduction from
all the facts was that the poor boy had committed suicide, had been
killed by an Indian and thrown into the river, or had fallen in
accidentally and drowned.
"He would never have left us in any case," said Sam, "and even had he
been less faithful, he would have been afraid to run away, not knowing
where to run or how to take care of himself in the woods."
They were too much grieved for Joe's loss, to relish their breakfast,
and that meal was dispatched very quickly. Tom watched the falling of
the water all day, and at night reported that the river was well inside
its banks again.