ng, and just went on laughing
and laughing and laughing till he was 'most dead, and Tom looked so put
out and cheap that I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished
he hadn't. But old Hooker never let up on him. He raked up everything a
person ever could want to kill another person about, and any fool could
see they didn't any of them fit this case, and he just made no end of
fun of the whole business and of the people that had been hunting the
body; and he said:

"If they'd had any sense they'd 'a' knowed the lazy cuss slid out
because he wanted a loafing spell after all this work. He'll come
pottering back in a couple of weeks, and then how'll you fellers feel?
But, laws bless you, take the dog, and go and hunt his remainders. Do,
Tom."

Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-rod laughs of hisn.
Tom couldn't back down after all this, so he said, "All right, unchain
him;" and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that old
man laughing yet.

It was a lovely dog. There ain't any dog that's got a lovelier
disposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. He
capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free
and have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any intrust
in him, and said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before he
ever started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell
everybody, and we'd never hear the last of it.

So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and
not talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field we
heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and
he was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and then
canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.

It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink
down and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked at
one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few
inches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a
sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out, and says:

"Come away, Huck--it's found."

I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men that
come along. They got a spade at the crib and dug out the body, and you
never see such an excitement. You couldn't make anything out of the
face, but you didn't need to. Everybody said:

"Poor Jubiter; it's his clothes, to