After all the confusion was settled at Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas farm, Tom, and Jim and I decided to go down the river to the Indian Territory and go for howling adventures amongst the Injuns. So we fixed up a raft and said good-bye. A week later Tom and I ran out of money so we couldnt buy matches or cornmeal or any of that kinder stuff.
So the next town we stopped at (by the name of Hicksville), the rain was pouring down so hard and the wind was a howling and whooping and the thunder made you jump right out of yur pants, we tied up the raft and found a good dry place to put Jim and keep m hid (right under the dock where the platform reaches the land). Tom and I started to walk up towards the town and he told me about this book he read. It was about two boys who ran out of money whilst traveling down a river so they decide to sell rocks to people telling them that theyre magic. I got the feeling that Tom was trying to come up with ideas to make some money.
So I says Why dont we jest steal some money? And for the first time Tom agreed with me. So we stole some money from a blind man and ran as fast as we possibly could to the dock. Then we almost forgot Jim so Tom ran up to the end of the dock; went under it and told Jim it was all right to come out; we headed down the river, again. As we got further and further down the river, we realized we were in the Indian Territory. We tied up the raft on a tree that had falled down across the river. We set up a lean-to and cut some firewood, and put it in a dry place to keep it from the rain.
After we set up camp, Tom and I took our rifles and decided to go hunting. We caught ourselves a rabbit and figerd we best get back to camp before it got too late. When we got back to camp the lean-to was destroyed and Jim was gone. Well, it started to rain again and it was getting darker by the second. Tom looked over at me and said, Injuns! Page two, Peterson I dont know. says I. Do you have a plan, Tom? A plan for what? To find Jim. We dont know for surley if hes gone. Tom, Jim dont joke around like this! The ground is still pretty wet and soft, maybe we could find some foot prints.
Its too dark. Were going to have to wait until day break! No, if we wait till then he could be gone and sold up the river back into slavery! We can take a tree limb, wrap it up in some of those dirty wash rags and pour some of that whiskey you stole on it and light it on fire. Huck you might actually be gainin some common sense, either that or Im a loosin some! Go git me a tree branch! And, thank heavens it stopped rainin so hard! So Tom and I rigged us up a fine torch or two and set off looking for some Jim tracks. Well after I took about five or six steps I hear Tom hollar out, Huck!
I found me some Jim tracks, or maybe some Injun tracks! Then he comes running over to me and says, Come on, they look fresh. Maybe well catch ourselves a nice wild Jim! So I went with him, and we walked, and walked, and walked. We must of walked for hours. And then we both hear this crackle over toward the river on the East of us. We stopped dead in our tracks and Tom looks at me all wild in his eyes. Then we heard someone say out loud in a strong and angry voice, Whos out there in those woods oer yonder! Then we heard another voice say Its probly a deer or a coon. Come back oer here and make sure this nigger dont git away!
Well I looked over at Tom and all I could really see of him was his shadow flickering from the torch, and then it dawned on me that we need to blow the torch out before one of those men see it; coons, and squirrels, and deer dont carry torches! So I looked over at Tom again and whispered: Hey, Tom? If they see that torch theyre gonna shoot us, arent they? Tom almost jumped out of his pants when he heard me say that; quietly turned around with his back to the direction the men was in and blew out the torch. Tom was really scared, and so was I. I think that Jim knew we were there too, and that we were scared too.
