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warn't lucky. De dream say let Balum inves' de ten cents en he'd make a

raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in church he

hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po' len' to de Lord, en boun'

to git his money back a hund'd times. So Balum he tuck en give de ten

cents to de po', en laid low to see what wuz gwyne to come of it."

"Well, what did come of it, Jim?"

"Nuffn never come of it. I couldn' manage to k'leck dat money no way; en

Balum he couldn'. I ain' gwyne to len' no mo' money 'dout I see de

security. Boun' to git yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher says!

Ef I could git de ten CENTS back, I'd call it squah, en be glad er de

chanst."

"Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again

some time or other."

"Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth

eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'."

CHAPTER IX.

I WANTED to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island

that I'd found when I was exploring; so we started and soon got to it,

because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile

wide.

This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot

high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and

the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over it, and by and

by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on the side

towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two or three rooms bunched

together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was cool in there.

Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we didn't

want to be climbing up and down there all the time.

Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps

in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island,

and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides, he said them

little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to

get wet?

So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern, and

lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to

hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some fish off of

the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner.

The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one

side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a

good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked dinner.

We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there.

We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern. Pretty soon

it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was right

about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too,

and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer

storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and

lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a

little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of

wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the

leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set

the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next,

when it was just about the bluest and blackest--FST! it was as bright as

glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away

off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see

before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let

go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down

the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels

down stairs--where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you

know.

"Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but

here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."

"Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd a ben

down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded, too; dat

you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de

birds, chile."

The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at

last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on the

island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side it was

a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same old

distance across--a half a mile--because the Missouri shore was just a

wall of high bluffs.

Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cool

and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We

went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung

so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every old

broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; and

when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on

account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your hand

on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles--they would

slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of them.

We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.

One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft--nice pine planks.

It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the

top stood above water six or seven inches--a solid, level floor. We

could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go;

we didn't show ourselves in daylight.

Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before

daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side. She was a

two-story, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out and got aboard

--clumb in at an upstairs window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we

made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.

The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then we

looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and two

old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there was

clothes hanging against the wall. There was something laying on the

floor in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim says:

"Hello, you!"

But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says:

"De man ain't asleep--he's dead. You hold still--I'll go en see."

He went, and bent down and looked, and says:

"It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's ben shot in de back.

I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan' look

at his face--it's too gashly."

I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he

needn't done it; I didn't want to see him. There was heaps of old greasy

cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles, and a

couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls was the

ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal. There was two

old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some women's underclothes

hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, too. We put the lot

into the canoe--it might come good. There was a boy's old speckled straw

hat on the floor; I took that, too. And there was a bottle that had had

milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a baby to suck. We would a took

the bottle, but it was broke. There was a seedy old chest, and an old

hair trunk with the hinges broke. They stood open, but there warn't

nothing left in them that was any account. The way things was scattered

about we reckoned the people left in a hurry, and warn't fixed so as to

carry off most of their stuff.

We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle, and a

bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow

candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty

old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins and

beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a hatchet

and some nails, and a fishline as thick as my little finger with some

monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar,

and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label on

them; and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, and

Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps was

broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg, though it

was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find the

other one, though we hunted all around.

And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready to

shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty

broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the

quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways

off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down most a half

a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water under the bank, and hadn't no

accidents and didn't see nobody. We got home all safe.

CHAPTER X.

AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he

come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would fetch bad

luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us; he said a man

that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than one that

was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't

say no more; but I couldn't keep from studying over it and wishing I

knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for.

We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed

up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said he reckoned the

people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the money

was there they wouldn't a left it. I said I reckoned they killed him,

too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that. I says:

"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the

snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday?

You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin

with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this

truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some bad luck like

this every day, Jim."

"Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart. It's

a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."

It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after

dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the

ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some, and

found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled him up on the

foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun when

Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, and

when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the

snake's mate was there, and bit him.

He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the

varmint curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a

second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun to pour

it down.

He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all

comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave

a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it. Jim told

me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body

and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it would help

cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist,

too. He said that that would help. Then I slid out quiet and throwed

the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn't going to let Jim

find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.

Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head

and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he went

to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did

his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was

all right; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky.

Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone

and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt

of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it.

Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he said that

handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to

the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left

shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his

hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always

reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of

the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker

done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got

drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so that he

was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways

between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but

I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the

moon that way, like a fool.

Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks

again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks

with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a

man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds.

We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois. We