CHAPTER XV
WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to
Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio
River comes in, and that was what we was after. We
would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go
way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be
out of trouble.
Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and
we made for a towhead to tie to, for it wouldn't do
to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in
the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't
anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the
line around one of them right on the edge of the cut
bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft
come booming down so lively she tore it out by the
roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down,
and it made me so sick and scared I couldn't budge
for most a half a minute it seemed to me -- and then
there warn't no raft in sight; you couldn't see
twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back
to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her
back a stroke. But she didn't come. I was in such a
hurry I hadn't untied her. I got up and tried to
untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I
couldn't hardly do anything with them.
As soon as I got started I took out after the raft,
hot and heavy, right down the towhead. That was
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all right as far as it went, but the towhead warn't
sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot
of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and
hadn't no more idea which way I was going than a
dead man.
Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll
run into the bank or a towhead or something; I got
to set still and float, and yet it's mighty fidgety
business to have to hold your hands still at such a
time. I whooped and listened. Away down there
somewheres I hears a small whoop, and up comes my
spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp to
hear it again. The next time it come I see I warn't
heading for it, but heading away to the right of it.
And the next time I was heading away to the left of
it -- and not gaining on it much either, for I was
flying around, this way and that and t'other, but it
was going straight ahead 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.
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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
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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
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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?"
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"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."
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"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
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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."
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