up the
river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better off
they used to was, and how they didn't know but they'd made a mistake
coming to our town, instead of letting well alone--and so on and so on,
till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was
going on in the town; but by and by she dropped on to pap and the murder,
and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told
about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only she got it
ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I
was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says:

"Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on down in
Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn."

"Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people HERE that'd like
to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself."

"No--is that so?"

"Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come
to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it
was done by a runaway nigger named Jim."

"Why HE--"

I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never
noticed I had put in at all:

"The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there's a
reward out for him--three hundred dollars. And there's a reward out for
old Finn, too--two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning
after the murder, and told about it, and was out with 'em on the
ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they
wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found
out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten
o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you
see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and
went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all
over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he got
drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty
hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain't
come back sence, and they ain't looking for him back till this thing
blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and
fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get
Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People
do say he warn'