and go on believin' that until you began to catch fish and
needed lots of bait and found you hadn't none, or to find out you hadn't
none all of a sudden and then go get some in time for the fishin' that
got good? And so, wasn't it better to find out that Tom Sawyer didn't
live and find it out suddenly than to go along being fooled until
something serious happened, and be a fool to the end, and maybe lose
some good chance?" What I wanted to tell Mitch was that our case was
real, that we had found treasure and would get it on Christmas; but I
had promised my pa I wouldn't tell, and I didn't. I only said to Mitch:
"We're just as sure to get treasure as the sun shines." And Mitch said:
"Maybe, but not real treasure, not money, not jewels, or things like
that."

As I said, I was surely losin' Mitch, for he was goin' considerable now
with Charley King and George Heigold. I don't know what he found with
them to like; only they were older and as it turned out, he did things
with them that he and I never did. I tried my best to hold on to him,
but couldn't. Sometimes I'd think I wasn't losin' him, that it was just
fancy. Just the same things wasn't the same. The Miller family wasn't
the same; there wasn't as much fun up there; and now Mr. Miller was away
a good deal selling atlases; and sometimes when I was there of evenings
Mrs. Miller would be sittin' alone, no one reading to her, and the girls
kind of walkin' the rooms, and Mitch a good deal away of evenings, not
home like he always was before.

You see I had a pony all the time; but pa loaned him here and there, and
sometimes took him out to pasture across the river to a farmer's and
that's how it was I didn't ride him sometimes out to the farm. But now
he was in the barn, and as I didn't have Mitch, I rode about the country
by myself. And once went out to the farm for a few hours, comin' back to
town in a gallop all the way, to see how quick I could make it.

Finally I thought I'd go out to the farm on my pony and stay for a few
days, and go camping with my uncle over to Blue Lake. I was goin' the
next day and was out under the oak tree when Mitch came along. He seemed
stronger, bigger, more like Charley King and George Heigold; there was
somethin' about him kind of hard. He seemed as if he'd fight easier; he
was quick to talk back, he seemed to be learnin' about things I didn't
know. There was a different look in his eyes. He was changed. That's all
I know. Mitch set dow