hat warn't pap's style. Nine logs was
enough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he
locked me in and took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about
half past three. I judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited
till I reckoned he had got a good start; then I out with my saw, and
went to work on that log again. Before he was t'other side of the
river I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the
water away off yonder.

[Illustration: HUCKLEBERRY FINN]

I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid,
and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the
same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the
coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the
wadding; I took the bucket and gourd; took a dipper and a tin cup, and
my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I
took fish-lines and matches and other things--everything that was
worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an ax, but there
wasn't any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was
going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.

I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and
dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from
the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the
smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into
its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it
there, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground.
If you stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was sawed, you
wouldn't never notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin,
and it warn't likely anybody would go fooling around there.

It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I
followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the
river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods,
and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon
went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the
prairie-farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.

I took the ax and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it
considerable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back
nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the ax, and laid
him down on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was
ground--hard pack