it on, and then let them find me if they can. So I got
the false whiskers and the goggles and this countrified
suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in a hand-
bag; and when I was passing a shop where they sell all
sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my pals
through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad,
you bet. I says to myself, I’ll see what he buys. So
I kept shady, and watched. Now what do you reckon
it was he bought?”
“Whiskers?” said I.
“No.”
“Goggles?”
“No.”
“Oh, keep still, Huck Finn, can’t you, you’re only
just hendering all you can. What WAS it he bought,
Jake?”
“You’d never guess in the world. It was only just
a screwdriver — just a wee little bit of a screwdriver.”
“Well, I declare! What did he want with that?”
“That’s what I thought. It was curious. It clean
stumped me. I says to myself, what can he want with
that thing? Well, when he come out I stood back out
of sight, and then tracked him to a second-hand slop-
shop and see him buy a red flannel shirt and some old
ragged clothes — just the ones he’s got on now, as
you’ve described. Then I went down to the wharf and
hid my things aboard the up-river boat that we had
picked out, and then started back and had another
streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay in HIS stock
of old rusty second-handers. We got the di’monds
and went aboard the boat.
“But now we was up a stump, for we couldn’t go
to bed. We had to set up and watch one another.
Pity, that was; pity to put that kind of a strain on us,
because there was bad blood between us from a
couple of weeks back, and we was only friends in the
way of business. Bad anyway, seeing there was only
two di’monds betwixt three men. First we had supper,
and then tramped up and down the deck together
smoking till most midnight; then we went and set
down in my stateroom and locked the doors and looked
in the piece of paper to see if the di’monds was all
right, then laid it on the lower berth right in full sight;
and there we set, and set, and by-and-by it got to be
dreadful hard to keep awake. At last Bud Dixon he
dropped off. As soon as he was snoring a good regular
gait that was likely to last, and had his chin on his
breast and looked permanent, Hal Clayton nodded
towards the di’monds and then towards the outside
door, and I understood. I reached and got the paper,
and then we stood up and waited perfectly still; Bud
never stirred; I turned the key of the outside door
very soft and slow, then turned the knob the same
way, and we went tiptoeing out onto the guard, and
shut the door very soft and gentle.
“There warn’t nobody stirring anywhere, and the
boat was slipping along, swift and steady, through the
big water in the smoky moonlight. We never said a
word, but went straight up onto the hurricane-deck and
plumb back aft, and set down on the end of the sky-
light. Both of us knowed what that meant, without
having to explain to one another. Bud Dixon would
wake up and miss the swag, and would come straight
for us, for he ain’t afeard of anything or anybody, that
man ain’t. He would come, and we would heave him
overboard, or get killed trying. It made me shiver,
because I ain’t as brave as some people, but if I
showed the white feather — well, I knowed better than
do that. I kind of hoped the boat would land somers,
and we could skip ashore and not have to run the risk
of this row, I was so scared of Bud Dixon, but she
was an upper-river tub and there warn’t no real chance
of that.
“Well, the time strung along and along, and that
fellow never come! Why, it strung along till dawn