is town than you ever
saw, if you only keep your eyes open. But I'll bet Shadder never hears
of it, and if you run with him you'll never hear of it either. Do you
know what's goin' to happen to-day?" "No," says I.

"Well," says Mitch, "Jack Plunkett, who was town marshal here once, and
Ruddy Hedgpeth are goin' to have a fight to see which can whip the
other."

"Where?" says I.

"Down near Old Salem," says Mitch, "on the flat sand by the river, clost
to the mill. And I want to see it, and so do you."

"You bet I want to see it," I said.

So Mitch went on to tell me that Jack Plunkett had never been whipped
and neither had Ruddy Hedgpeth. They had whipped everybody but each
other. And each said he could whip the other. And last Saturday Ruddy
was in town and went around the square sayin' he could whip Jack, and
Jack heard it and sent back word he'd fight him a week off, on a
Saturday, and this is the Saturday. And Mitch said we'd better hurry so
as to get there before the fight was over, Old Salem bein' about a mile
from town.

By this time Shadder had walked out of the orchard and was pretty near
to the house and Mitch said, "Now he's gone, let him go, and come on. If
he ever says you left him, you can say he left you, for he did."

It was a spring day--it was April--and we walked as fast as we could,
runnin' part of the time. Mitch was wild about the country, about trees,
birds, the river and the fields. And he whistled and sang. On the way
out he began to talk to me about "Tom Sawyer," and asked me if I had
read the book. This was one of the books I _had_ read; so I said so. And
Mitch says, "Do you know we can do exactly what Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
did?"

"What's that?" I said.

"Why, find treasure. It's just as surely here as anything. Of course
there ain't no caves around here, at least I don't know of any. But
think of the old houses--look at that old house down there by the ravine
that goes into the river across from Mr. Morris' wagon shop. Think of
those old houses clost to the Baptist Church; and think of the dead
limbs on the trees in Montgomery's woods. But of course if we go into
this, no one must know what we are doin'. We must keep still and if they
catch us diggin', we must lie. If you don't know how to lie very well,
Skeet, just listen to me and foller the story I tell."

I agreed to this. And Mitch went on.

"And by and by, we'll find treasure and divide it, for I have taken you
for my ch