put a twenty-dollar gold
piece on this board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty
mean to leave you; but my kingdom! it won't do to fool with small-pox,
don't you see?"

"Hold on, Parker," says the man, "here's a twenty to put on the board
for me. Good-by, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'll be all
right."

"That's so, my boy--good-by, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggers
you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it."

"Good-by, sir," says I; "I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I
can help it."

They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because
I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me
to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get _started_ right
when he's little ain't got no show--when the pinch comes there ain't
nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat.
Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd 'a'
done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do
now? No, says I, I'd feel bad--I'd feel just the same way I do now.
Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right when it's
troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the
wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I
reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but after this always do
whichever come handiest at the time.

I went into the wigwam; Jim warn't there. I looked all around; he
warn't anywhere. I says:

"Jim!"

"Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o' sight yit? Don't talk loud."

He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I
told him they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:

"I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was
gwyne to shove for sho' if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to
de raf' agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool 'em, Huck!
Dat _wuz_ de smartes' dodge! I tell you, chile, I 'spec it save' ole
Jim--ole Jim ain't going to forgit you for dat, honey."

Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise--twenty
dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat
now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free
states. He said twenty mile more warn't far for the raft to go, but he
wished we was already there.

Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about
hiding the raft good. Then he worked