The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain [book club suggestions TXT] 📗

you was here; told me to come, and he’d show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens he ain’t mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it’ll be the truth.”

I don’t want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I’ll cut it pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over and go to sleep again when I noticed how still it was⁠—didn’t seem to be anybody stirring. That warn’t usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes downstairs⁠—nobody around; everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the woodpile I comes across my Jack, and says:

“What’s it all about?”

Says he:

“Don’t you know, Mars Jawge?”

“No,” says I, “I don’t.”

“Well, den, Miss Sophia’s run off! ’deed she has. She run off in de night some time⁠—nobody don’t know jis’ when; run off to get married to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know⁠—leastways, so dey ’spec. De fambly foun’ it out ’bout half an hour ago⁠—maybe a little mo’⁠—en’ I tell you dey warn’t no time los’. Sich another hurryin’ up guns en hosses you never see! De women folks has gone for to stir up de relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de river road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him ’fo’ he kin git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck’n dey’s gwyne to be mighty rough times.”

“Buck went off ’thout waking me up.”

“Well, I reck’n he did! Dey warn’t gwyne to mix you up in it. Mars Buck he loaded up his gun en ’lowed he’s gwyne to fetch home a Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey’ll be plenty un ’m dah, I reck’n, en you bet you he’ll fetch one ef he gits a chanst.”

I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By and by I begin to hear guns a good ways off. When I come in sight of the log store and the woodpile where the steamboats lands I worked along under the trees and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched. There was a wood-rank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first I was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier I didn’t.

There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the open place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to get at a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside of the steamboat landing; but they couldn’t come it. Every time one of them showed himself on the river side of the woodpile he got shot at. The two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could watch both ways.

By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle. All the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys started on the run. They got half way to the tree I was in before the men noticed. Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and took out after them. They gained on the boys, but it didn’t do no good, the boys had too good a start; they got to the woodpile that was in front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and so they had the bulge on the men again. One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap about nineteen years old.

The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they was out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn’t know what to make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or other⁠—wouldn’t be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn’t come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and ’lowed that him and his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relations⁠—the Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they’d got across the river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he didn’t manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him⁠—I hain’t ever heard anything like it.

All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns⁠—the men had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their horses! The boys jumped for the river⁠—both of them hurt⁠—and as they swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and singing out, “Kill them, kill them!” It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain’t a-going to tell all that happened⁠—it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night to see such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of them⁠—lots of times I dream about them.

I stayed in the tree till it begun