ecide to save another trip by taking him along then.

The treasure-digging adventure in the book had this foundation in fact:
It was said that two French trappers had once buried a chest of gold
about two miles above Hannibal, and that it was still there. Tom
Blankenship (Huck) one morning said he had dreamed just where the
treasure was, and that if the boys--Sam Clemens and John Briggs--would go
with him and help dig, he would divide. The boys had great faith in
dreams, especially in Huck's dreams. They followed him to a place with
some shovels and picks, and he showed them just where to dig. Then he
sat down under the shade of a pawpaw-bush and gave orders.

They dug nearly all day. Huck didn't dig any himself, because he had
done the dreaming, which was his share. They didn't find the treasure
that day, and next morning they took two long iron rods to push and drive
into the ground until they should strike something. They struck a number
of things, but when they dug down it was never the money they found.
That night the boys said they wouldn't dig any more.

But Huck had another dream. He dreamed the gold was exactly under the
little pawpaw-tree. This sounded so circumstantial that they went back
and dug another day. It was hot weather, too--August--and that night
they were nearly dead. Even Huck gave it up then. He said there was
something wrong about the way they dug.

This differs a good deal from the treasure incident in the book, but it
shows us what respect the boys had for the gifts of the ragamuffin
original of Huck Finn. Tom Blankenship's brother Ben was also used, and
very importantly, in the creation of our beloved Huck. Ben was
considerably older, but certainly no more reputable, than Tom. He
tormented the smaller boys, and they had little love for him. Yet
somewhere in Ben Blankenship's nature there was a fine, generous strain
of humanity that provided Mark Twain with that immortal episode--the
sheltering of Nigger Jim. This is the real story:

A slave ran off from Monroe County, Missouri, and got across the
river into Illinois. Ben used to fish and hunt over there in the
swamps, and one day found him. It was considered a most worthy act
in those days to return a runaway slave; in fact, it was a crime not
to do it. Besides, there was for this one a reward of fifty
dollars--a fortune to ragged, out-cast Ben Blankenship. That money,
and the honor he could acquire, must have been te