a year or more."

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they
said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think
of anything to do--everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most
ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered
them Miss Watson--they could kill her. Everybody said:

"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."

Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,
and I made my mark on the paper.

"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"

"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.

"But who are we going to rob?--houses, or cattle, or--"

"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary,"
says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We
are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks
on, and kill the people and take their watches and money."

"Must we always kill the people?"

"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but
mostly it's considered best to kill them--except some that you bring
to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed."

"Ransomed? What's that?"

"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so
of course that's what we've got to do."

"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"

"Why, blame it all, we've _got_ to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the
books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books,
and get things all muddled up?"

"Oh, that's all very fine to _say,_ Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation
are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it
to them?--that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon
it is?"

"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're
ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead."

"Now, that's something _like._ That'll answer. Why couldn't you said
that before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a
bothersome lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always
trying to get loose."

"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard
over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"

"A guard! Well, that _is_ good. So somebody's got to set up all night
and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's
foolishness