The Adventures of Huckleberry Finncountry, on the road to Lafayette.’
‘All right,’ I says, ‘I can walk it in three days. And I’ll start
this very afternoon.’
‘No you wont, you’ll start NOW; and don’t you lose any
time about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just
keep a tight tongue in your head and move right along, and
then you won’t get into trouble with US, d’ye hear?’
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played
for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans.
‘So clear out,’ he says; ‘and you can tell Mr. Foster what-
ever you want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that
Jim IS your nigger — some idiots don’t require documents
— leastways I’ve heard there’s such down South here. And
when you tell him the handbill and the reward’s bogus,
maybe he’ll believe you when you explain to him what the
idea was for getting ‘em out. Go ‘long now, and tell him
anything you want to; but mind you don’t work your jaw
any BETWEEN here and there.’
So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn’t look
around, but I kinder felt like he was watching me. But
I knowed I could tire him out at that. I went straight out
in the country as much as a mile before I stopped; then I
doubled back through the woods towards Phelps’. I reck-
oned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling
around, because I wanted to stop Jim’s mouth till these fel-
lows could get away. I didn’t want no trouble with their kind.
I’d seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely
shut of them.