CHAPTER XXX
AS the earliest suspicion of dawn appeared on Sunday morning, Huckcame groping up the hill and rapped gently at the old Welshman's door.The inmates were asleep, but it was a sleep that was set on ahair-trigger, on account of the exciting episode of the night. A callcame from a window:
"Who's there!"
Huck's scared voice answered in a low tone:
"Please let me in! It's only Huck Finn!"
"It's a name that can open this door night or day, lad!--and welcome!"
These were strange words to the vagabond boy's ears, and thepleasantest he had ever heard. He could not recollect that the closingword had ever been applied in his case before. The door was quicklyunlocked, and he entered. Huck was given a seat and the old man and hisbrace of tall sons speedily dressed themselves.
"Now, my boy, I hope you're good and hungry, because breakfast will beready as soon as the sun's up, and we'll have a piping hot one, too--make yourself easy about that! I and the boys hoped you'd turn up andstop here last night."
"I was awful scared," said Huck, "and I run. I took out when thepistols went off, and I didn't stop for three mile. I've come now becuzI wanted to know about it, you know; and I come before daylight becuz Ididn't want to run across them devils, even if they was dead."
"Well, poor chap, you do look as if you'd had a hard night of it--butthere's a bed here for you when you've had your breakfast. No, theyain't dead, lad--we are sorry enough for that. You see we knew rightwhere to put our hands on them, by your description; so we crept alongon tiptoe till we got within fifteen feet of them--dark as a cellarthat sumach path was--and just then I found I was going to sneeze. Itwas the meanest kind of luck! I tried to keep it back, but no use--'twas bound to come, and it did come! I was in the lead with my pistolraised, and when the sneeze started those scoundrels a-rustling to getout of the path, I sung out, 'Fire boys!' and blazed away at the placewhere the rustling was. So did the boys. But they were off in a jiffy,those villains, and we after them, down through the woods. I judge wenever touched them. They fired a shot apiece as they started, but theirbullets whizzed by and didn't do us any harm. As soon as we lost thesound of their feet we quit chasing, and went down and stirred up theconstables. They got a posse together, and went off to guard the riverbank, and as soon as it is light the sheriff and a gang are going tobeat up the woods. My boys will be with them presently. I wish we hadsome sort of description of those rascals--'twould help a good deal.But you couldn't see what they were like, in the dark, lad, I suppose?"
"Oh yes; I saw them down-town and follered them."
"Splendid! Describe them--describe them, my boy!"
"One's the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that's ben around here once ortwice, and t'other's a mean-looking, ragged--"
"That's enough, lad, we know the men! Happened on them in the woodsback of the widow's one day, and they slunk away. Off with you, boys,and tell the sheriff--get your breakfast to-morrow morning!"
The Welshman's sons departed at once. As they were leaving the roomHuck sprang up and exclaimed:
"Oh, please don't tell ANYbody it was me that blowed on them! Oh,please!"
"All right if you say it, Huck, but you ought to have the credit ofwhat you did."
"Oh no, no! Please don't tell!"
When the young men were gone, the old Welshman said:
"They won't tell--and I won't. But why don't you want it known?"
Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew toomuch about one of those men and would not have the man know that heknew anything against him for the whole world--he would be killed forknowing it, sure.
The old man promised secrecy once more, and said:
"How did you come to follow these fellows, lad? Were they lookingsuspicious?"
Huck was silent while he framed a duly cautious reply. Then he said:
"Well, you see, I'm a kind of a hard lot,--least everybody says so,and I don't see nothing agin it--and sometimes I can't sleep much, onaccount of thinking about it and sort of trying to strike out a new wayof doing. That was the way of it last night. I couldn't sleep, and so Icome along up-street 'bout midnight, a-turning it all over, and when Igot to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I backedup agin the wall to have another think. Well, just then along comesthese two chaps slipping along close by me, with something under theirarm, and I reckoned they'd stole it. One was a-smoking, and t'other onewanted a light; so they stopped right before me and the cigars lit uptheir faces and I see that the big one was the deaf and dumb Spaniard,by his white whiskers and the patch on his eye, and t'other one was arusty, ragged-looking devil."
"Could you see the rags by the light of the cigars?"
This staggered Huck for a moment. Then he said:
"Well, I don't know--but somehow it seems as if I did."
"Then they went on, and you--"
"Follered 'em--yes. That was it. I wanted to see what was up--theysneaked along so. I dogged 'em to the widder's stile, and stood in thedark and heard the ragged one beg for the widder, and the Spaniardswear he'd spile her looks just as I told you and your two--"
"What! The DEAF AND DUMB man said all that!"
Huck had made another terrible mistake! He was trying his best to keepthe old man from getting the faintest hint of who the Spaniard mightbe, and yet his tongue seemed determined to get him into trouble inspite of all he could do. He made several efforts to creep out of hisscrape, but the old man's eye was upon him and he made blunder afterblunder. Presently the Welshman said:
"My boy, don't be afraid of me. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your headfor all the world. No--I'd protect you--I'd protect you. This Spaniardis not deaf and dumb; you've let that slip without intending it; youcan't cover that up now. You know something about that Spaniard thatyou want to keep dark. Now trust me--tell me what it is, and trust me--I won't betray you."
Huck looked into the old man's honest eyes a moment, then bent overand whispered in his ear:
"'Tain't a Spaniard--it's Injun Joe!"
The Welshman almost jumped out of his chair. In a moment he said:
"It's all plain enough, now. When you talked about notching ears andslitting noses I judged that that was your own embellishment, becausewhite men don't take that sort of revenge. But an Injun! That's adifferent matter altogether."
During breakfast the talk went on, and in the course of it the old mansaid that the last thing which he and his sons had done, before goingto bed, was to get a lantern and examine the stile and its vicinity formarks of blood. They found none, but captured a bulky bundle of--
"Of WHAT?"
If the words had been lightning they could not have leaped with a morestunning suddenness from Huck's blanched lips. His eyes were staringwide, now, and his breath suspended--waiting for the answer. TheWelshman started--stared in return--three seconds--five seconds--ten--then replied:
"Of burglar's tools. Why, what's the MATTER with you?"
Huck sank back, panting gently, but deeply, unutterably grateful. TheWelshman eyed him gravely, curiously--and presently said:
"Yes, burglar's tools. That appears to relieve you a good deal. Butwhat did give you that turn? What were YOU expecting we'd found?"
Huck was in a close place--the inquiring eye was upon him--he wouldhave given anything for material for a plausible answer--nothingsuggested itself--the inquiring eye was boring deeper and deeper--asenseless reply offered--there was no time to weigh it, so at a venturehe uttered it--feebly:
"Sunday-school books, maybe."
Poor Huck was too distressed to smile, but the old man laughed loudand joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot,and ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a-man's pocket,because it cut down the doctor's bill like everything. Then he added:
"Poor old chap, you're white and jaded--you ain't well a bit--nowonder you're a little flighty and off your balance. But you'll comeout of it. Rest and sleep will fetch you out all right, I
hope."
Huck was irritated to think he had been such a goose and betrayed sucha suspicious excitement, for he had dropped the idea that the parcelbrought from the tavern was the treasure, as soon as he had heard thetalk at the widow's stile. He had only thought it was not the treasure,however--he had not known that it wasn't--and so the suggestion of acaptured bundle was too much for his self-possession. But on the wholehe felt glad the little episode had happened, for now he knew beyondall question that that bundle was not THE bundle, and so his mind wasat rest and exceedingly comfortable. In