hen it's you
that blinds yourself. I reckon the dervish and the camel-driver was just
a pair--a fine, smart, brainy rascal, and a dull, coarse, ignorant one,
but both of them rascals, just the same."

"Mars Tom, does you reckon dey's any o' dat kind o' salve in de worl'
now?"

"Yes, Uncle Abner says there is. He says they've got it in New York, and
they put it on country people's eyes and show them all the railroads in
the world, and they go in and git them, and then when they rub the salve
on the other eye the other man bids them goodbye and goes off with their
railroads. Here's the treasure-hill now. Lower away!"

We landed, but it warn't as interesting as I thought it was going to
be, because we couldn't find the place where they went in to git the
treasure. Still, it was plenty interesting enough, just to see the mere
hill itself where such a wonderful thing happened. Jim said he wou'dn't
'a' missed it for three dollars, and I felt the same way.

And to me and Jim, as wonderful a thing as any was the way Tom could
come into a strange big country like this and go straight and find a
little hump like that and tell it in a minute from a million other humps
that was almost just like it, and nothing to help him but only his own
learning and his own natural smartness. We talked and talked it over
together, but couldn't make out how he done it. He had the best head on
him I ever see; and all he lacked was age, to make a name for himself
equal to Captain Kidd or George Washington. I bet you it would 'a'
crowded either of THEM to find that hill, with all their gifts, but it
warn't nothing to Tom Sawyer; he went across Sahara and put his finger
on it as easy as you could pick a nigger out of a bunch of angels.

We found a pond of salt water close by and scraped up a raft of salt
around the edges, and loaded up the lion's skin and the tiger's so as
they would keep till Jim could tan them.

CHAPTER XI. THE SAND-STORM

WE went a-fooling along for a day or two, and then just as the full moon
was touching the ground on the other side of the desert, we see a string
of little black figgers moving across its big silver face. You could
see them as plain as if they was painted on the moon with ink. It was
another caravan. We cooled down our speed and tagged along after it,
just to have company, though it warn't going our way. It was a rattler,
that caravan, and a most bully sight to look at next morning when the
sun come a-