red miles
an hour, you go higher or drop lower till you find a storm-current that's
going your way. There's a hundred miles an hour in this old thing without
any wind to help. There's two-hundred-mile gales to be found, any time
you want to hunt for them."

"We'll hunt for them, sir."

"See that you do. Sometimes you may have to go up a couple of miles, and
it'll be p'ison cold, but most of the time you'll find your storm a good
deal lower. If you can only strike a cyclone--that's the ticket for you!
You'll see by the professor's books that they travel west in these
latitudes; and they travel low, too."

Then he ciphered on the time, and says--

"Seven thousand miles, three hundred miles an hour--you can make the trip
in a day--twenty-four hours. This is Thursday; you'll be back here
Saturday afternoon. Come, now, hustle out some blankets and food and
books and things for me and Huck, and you can start right along. There
ain't no occasion to fool around--I want a smoke, and the quicker you
fetch that pipe the better."

All hands jumped for the things, and in eight minutes our things was out
and the balloon was ready for America. So we shook hands good-bye, and
Tom gave his last orders:

"It's 10 minutes to 2 P.M. now, Mount Sinai time. In 24 hours you'll be
home, and it'll be 6 to-morrow morning, village time. When you strike the
village, land a little back of the top of the hill, in the woods, out of
sight; then you rush down, Jim, and shove these letters in the
post-office, and if you see anybody stirring, pull your slouch down over
your face so they won't know you. Then you go and slip in the back way to
the kitchen and git the pipe, and lay this piece of paper on the kitchen
table, and put something on it to hold it, and then slide out and git
away, and don't let Aunt Polly catch a sight of you, nor nobody else.
Then you jump for the balloon and shove for Mount Sinai three hundred
miles an hour. You won't have lost more than an hour. You'll start back
at 7 or 8 A.M., village time, and be here in 24 hours, arriving at 2 or 3
P.M., Mount Sinai time."

Tom he read the piece of paper to us. He had wrote on it:

"THURSDAY AFTERNOON. Tom Sawyer the Erro-nort
sends his love to Aunt Polly from Mount Sinai
where the Ark was, and so does Huck Finn, and she
will get it to-morrow morning half-past six." *

[* This misplacing of the Ark is probably Huck's error, not
Tom's.--M.T.]

"That'll m