m go by, and then dropped in behind them. They'd had
all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the robbers; but by this
time somebody had let them loose, and here they come, making powwow
enough for a million; but they was our dogs; so we stopped in our tracks
till they catched up; and when they see it warn't nobody but us, and no
excitement to offer them, they only just said howdy, and tore right ahead
towards the shouting and clattering; and then we up-steam again, and
whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill, and then struck
up through the bush to where my canoe was tied, and hopped in and pulled
for dear life towards the middle of the river, but didn't make no more
noise than we was obleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable,
for the island where my raft was; and we could hear them yelling and
barking at each other all up and down the bank, till we was so far away
the sounds got dim and died out. And when we stepped on to the raft I
says:

"NOW, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a
slave no more."

"En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, en it
'uz done beautiful; en dey ain't NOBODY kin git up a plan dat's mo'
mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz."

We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because
he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.

When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel so brash as what we did before.
It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him in the
wigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but he
says:

"Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don't stop now; don't fool around
here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set
her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!--'deed we did. I wish WE'D a had
the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't a been no 'Son of Saint Louis,
ascend to heaven!' wrote down in HIS biography; no, sir, we'd a whooped
him over the BORDER--that's what we'd a done with HIM--and done it just
as slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps--man the sweeps!"

But me and Jim was consulting--and thinking. And after we'd thought a
minute, I says:

"Say it, Jim."

So he says:

"Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz HIM dat 'uz
bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on
en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat like
Mars Tom Sawyer?