TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE

room and put on these clothes and went up in the pilot-

house — to watch, though I didn’t reckon there was

any need of it. I set there and played with my

di’monds and waited and waited for the boat to start,

but she didn’t. You see, they was mending her

machinery, but I didn’t know anything about it, not

being very much used to steamboats.

“Well, to cut the tale short, we never left there till

plumb noon; and long before that I was hid in this

stateroom; for before breakfast I see a man coming,

away off, that had a gait like Hal Clayton’s, and it

made me just sick. I says to myself, if he finds out

I’m aboard this boat, he’s got me like a rat in a trap.

All he’s got to do is to have me watched, and wait —

wait till I slip ashore, thinking he is a thousand miles

away, then slip after me and dog me to a good place

and make me give up the di’monds, and then he’ll —

oh, I know what he’ll do! Ain’t it awful — awful!

And now to think the OTHER one’s aboard, too! Oh,

ain’t it hard luck, boys — ain’t it hard! But you’ll help

save me, WON’T you? — oh, boys, be good to a poor

devil that’s being hunted to death, and save me — I’ll

worship the very ground you walk on!”

We turned in and soothed him down and told him

we would plan for him and help him, and he needn’t

be so afeard; and so by and by he got to feeling kind

of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and

held up his di’monds this way and that, admiring them

and loving them; and when the light struck into them

they WAS beautiful, sure; why, they seemed to kind of

bust, and snap fire out all around. But all the same I

judged he was a fool. If I had been him I would a

handed the di’monds to them pals and got them to go

ashore and leave me alone. But he was made differ-

ent. He said it was a whole fortune and he couldn’t

bear the idea.

Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and laid a

good while, once in the night; but it wasn’t dark

enough, and he was afeard to skip. But the third

time we had to fix it there was a better chance. We

laid up at a country woodyard about forty mile above

Uncle Silas’s place a little after one at night, and it was

thickening up and going to storm. So Jake he laid for

a chance to slide. We begun to take in wood. Pretty

soon the rain come a-drenching down, and the wind

blowed hard. Of course every boat-hand fixed a

gunny sack and put it on like a bonnet, the way they

do when they are toting wood, and we got one for

Jake, and he slipped down aft with his hand-bag and

come tramping forrard just like the rest, and walked

ashore with them, and when we see him pass out of the

light of the torch-basket and get swallowed up in the

dark, we got our breath again and just felt grateful and

splendid. But it wasn’t for long. Somebody told, I

reckon; for in about eight or ten minutes them two

pals come tearing forrard as tight as they could jump

and darted ashore and was gone. We waited plumb

till dawn for them to come back, and kept hoping they

would, but they never did. We was awful sorry and

low-spirited. All the hope we had was that Jake had

got such a start that they couldn’t get on his track, and

he would get to his brother’s and hide there and be

safe.

He was going to take the river road, and told us to

find out if Brace and Jubiter was to home and no

strangers there, and then slip out about sundown and

tell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of

sycamores right back of Tom’s uncle Silas’s tobacker

field on the river road, a lonesome place.

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