Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Mark J. Twain Page A

the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man coming, all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path apiece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn’t seen anything.
    When he got along, I was hard at it taking up a “trot” line. ap He abused me a little for being so slow, but I told him I fell in the river and that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he would be asking questions. We got five cat-fish off of the lines and went home.
    While we laid off, after breakfast, to sleep up, both of us being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me; you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn’t see no way for a while, but by-and-by pap raised up a minute, to drink another barrel of water, and he says:
    “Another time a man comes a-prowling round here, you roust me out, you hear? That man warn’t here for no good. I’d a shot him. Next time, you roust me out, you hear?”
    Then he dropped down and went to sleep again—but what he had been saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody won’t think of following me.
    About twelve o‘clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of drift-wood going by on the rise. By-and-by, along comes part of a log raft—nine logs fast together. We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner. Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch more stuff; but that warn’t pap’s style. Nine logs was enough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and took the skiff and started off towing the raft about half-past three. I judged he wouldn’t come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had got a good start, then I out with my saw and went to work on that log again. Before he was ’tother side of the river I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder.
    I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of bacon; then the whisky jug; I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the bucket and gourd, I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and matches and other things—everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn’t any, only the one out at the wood pile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.
    I had wore the ground a good deal, crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there,—for it was bent up at that place, and didn’t quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot away and didn’t know it was sawed, you wouldn’t ever notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin and it warn’t likely anybody would go fooling around there.
    It was all grass clear to the canoe; so I hadn’t left a track. I followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods and was hunting around for some birds, when I see a wild pig; hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.
    I took the axe and smashed in the door—I beat it and hacked it