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all the time.

I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the

time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops

that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly I

hears the whoop BEHIND me. I was tangled good now. That was somebody

else's whoop, or else I was turned around.

I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me

yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its

place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again,

and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head down-stream, and I

was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering. I

couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don't look

natural nor sound natural in a fog.

The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a

cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed me

off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared,

the currrent was tearing by them so swift.

In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set

perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn't

draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.

I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was an

island, and Jim had gone down t'other side of it. It warn't no towhead

that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a

regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than half a

mile wide.

I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I

was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don't

ever think of that. No, you FEEL like you are laying dead still on the

water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don't think to

yourself how fast YOU'RE going, but you catch your breath and think, my!

how that snag's tearing along. If you think it ain't dismal and lonesome

out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it once--you'll

see.

Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears

the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn't do it,

and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had little

dim glimpses of them on both sides of me--sometimes just a narrow channel

between, and some that I couldn't see I knowed was there because I'd hear

the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash that hung

over the banks. Well, I warn't long loosing the whoops down amongst the

towheads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because

it was worse than chasing a Jack-o'-lantern. You never knowed a sound

dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much.

I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to

keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the raft

must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would get

further ahead and clear out of hearing--it was floating a little faster

than what I was.

Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn't

hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a

snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laid

down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no more. I didn't want to

go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn't help it; so I

thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.

But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars

was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a big

bend stern first. First I didn't know where I was; I thought I was

dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come up

dim out of last week.

It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind

of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the

stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the water.

I took after it; but when I got to it it warn't nothing but a couple of

sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and chased that;

then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.

When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his

knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The

other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and

branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.

I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and began to gap,

and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:

"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?"

"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead--you ain'

drownded--you's back agin? It's too good for true, honey, it's too

good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you ain'

dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck--de same ole

Huck, thanks to goodness!"

"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?"

"Drinkin'? Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin'?"

"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"

"How does I talk wild?"

"HOW? Why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all that

stuff, as if I'd been gone away?"

"Huck--Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. HAIN'T you

ben gone away?"

"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain't been gone

anywheres. Where would I go to?"

"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is. Is I ME, or who IS

I? Is I heah, or whah IS I? Now dat's what I wants to know."

"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a

tangle-headed old fool, Jim."

"I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn't you tote out de line in de

canoe fer to make fas' to de tow-head?"

"No, I didn't. What tow-head? I hain't see no tow-head."

"You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't de line pull loose en de

raf' go a-hummin' down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in de

fog?"

"What fog?"

"Why, de fog!--de fog dat's been aroun' all night. En didn't you whoop,

en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un us got

los' en t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn' know whah he

wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible

time en mos' git drownded? Now ain' dat so, boss--ain't it so? You

answer me dat."

"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor no

islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with

you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon

I done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of course

you've been dreaming."

"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?"

"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it

happen."

"But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as--"

"It don't make no difference how plain it is; there ain't nothing in it.

I know, because I've been here all the time."

Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying

over it. Then he says:

"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain't de

powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo' dat's

tired me like dis one."

"Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body like

everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all

about it, Jim."

So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it

happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must start

in and "'terpret" it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the

first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the

current was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops was

warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn't try

hard to make out to understand them they'd just take us into bad luck,

'stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles we was

going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks,

but if we minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate them, we

would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river,

which was the free States, and wouldn't have no more trouble.

It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it was

clearing up again now.

"Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim," I

says; "but what does THESE things stand for?"

It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You could

see them first-rate now.

Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash

again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he couldn't

seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place again right

away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he looked at me

steady without ever smiling, and says:

"What do dey stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out

wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos'

broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become er me en

de raf'. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en soun', de

tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo' foot, I's so

thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could make a fool uv

ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is TRASH; en trash is what people is

dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em ashamed."

Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without

saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean

I could almost kissed HIS foot to get him to take it back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble

myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it

afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't

done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way.

CHAPTER XVI.

WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a

monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had

four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty

men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open

camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a

power of style about her. It AMOUNTED to something being a raftsman on

such a craft as that.

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got

hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both

sides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We talked

about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it. I

said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but about a

dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have them lit up, how

was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the two big

rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we might

think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old

river again. That disturbed Jim--and me too. So the question was, what

to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell

them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was a green

hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim

thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited.

There warn't nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and

not pass it without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to see it,

because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it

he'd be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every

little while he jumps up and says:

"Dah she is?"

But it warn't. It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set

down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him

all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can

tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him,

because I begun to get it through my head that he WAS most free--and who

was to blame for it? Why, ME. I couldn't get that out of my conscience,

no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest; I couldn't

stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to me before, what

this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me,

and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I

warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner;

but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you knowed

he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told

somebody." That was so--I couldn't get around that noway. That was

where it pinched. Conscience says to me, "What had poor Miss Watson done

to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and

never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you that

you could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she

tried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way

she knowed how. THAT'S what she done."