In the middle of the island there was a steep hill, and near the top we found a big cave in the rock. Jim could stand up straight in it. I didn’t want to climb up and down all the time, but Jim said if anybody came to the island, we could hide up there, and they would never find us without dogs. And besides, the little birds had told him it was going to rain. Did I want our things to get wet?
So we carried everything up to the cave and hid the canoe down by the bank, among the thick willows. We made a fire at the door of the cave, cooked dinner and ate it inside, on our blankets.
Soon it got dark, and the birds were right. The rain came down as hard as it could, and the wind bent the trees down. Outside it was all blue-black and lovely. Then there was a flash as bright as day, and you could see the tops of the trees far away, tossing in the storm. The next second it was black again, and the thunder came with an awful crash and went rolling down the sky like empty barrels down a long flight of stairs.
“Jim, this is nice,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Pass me another piece of fish and some hot corn bread.”
“Well, you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Jim. You’d be down there in the woods without any dinner, and nearly drowned too, honey.”
The river went on rising for ten or twelve days, until the low parts of the island were under water. We paddled all over the island in the canoe, through the cool, shady woods.
One night we caught a piece of a big lumber raft, made of nice pine boards, about twelve feet wide and fifteen feet long. We kept it.
Another night, just before daylight, a house came floating down the river. It was two stories high and leaned over to one side. We paddled out to it, climbed in through an upstairs window and waited for the light.
When it came, we saw a bed, a table, two old chairs and clothes hanging on the wall. In the far corner something was lying on the floor. It looked like a man.
“Hello, you!” Jim called. But it didn’t move.
Jim went over and bent down and looked. Then he said:
“It’s a dead man. He’s been shot in the back. I think he’s been dead two or three days. Don’t look at his face, Huck. It’s too awful.”
I didn’t look at him at all. Jim threw some old rags over him, but he didn’t need to; I didn’t want to see him. There were old cards and whiskey bottles on the floor. We took what we could use: some old dresses, a woman’s sun hat, some men’s clothes, a lantern, a knife, candles, a hatchet, a fishing line with big hooks, a blanket and plenty more.
By then it was broad daylight, so I made Jim lie down in the canoe under the blanket. If he sat up, people could see from far away that he was a Black man. I paddled back close to the shore, and nobody saw us. We got home safe.