passage, and crept aft in the dark till there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and the cross-hall of the texas.  Then in there I see a man stretched on the floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol.  This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor, and saying: “I'd _like_ to!  And I orter, too--a mean skunk!” The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, “Oh, please don't, Bill; I hain't ever goin' to tell.” And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and say: “'Deed you _ain't!_  You never said no truer thing 'n that, you bet you.” And once he said: “Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the best of him and tied him he'd a killed us both.  And what _for_?  Jist for noth'n. Jist because we stood on our _rights_--that's what for.  But I lay you ain't a-goin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner.  Put _up_ that pistol, Bill.” Bill says: “I don't want to, Jake Packard.  I'm for killin' him--and didn't he kill old Hatfield jist the same way--and don't he deserve it?” “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 towards 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.” And in he come, and Bill after him.  But before they got in I was up in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come.  Then they stood there, with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked.  I coul