The two boys flew on and on, toward the village,
speechless with horror. They glanced backward
over their shoulders from time to time, apprehensively,
as if they feared they might be followed. Every
stump that started up in their path seemed a man and
an enemy, and made them catch their breath; and as
they sped by some outlying cottages that lay near
the village, the barking of the aroused watch-dogs
seemed to give wings to their feet.
“If we can only get to the old tannery before
we break down!” whispered Tom, in short catches
between breaths. “I can’t stand it
much longer.”
Huckleberry’s hard pantings were his only reply,
and the boys fixed their eyes on the goal of their
hopes and bent to their work to win it. They
gained steadily on it, and at last, breast to breast,
they burst through the open door and fell grateful
and exhausted in the sheltering shadows beyond.
By and by their pulses slowed down, and Tom whispered:
“Huckleberry, what do you reckon’ll come
of this?”
“If Doctor Robinson dies, I reckon hanging’ll
come of it.”
“Do you though?”
“Why, I know it, Tom.”
Tom thought a while, then he said:
“Who’ll tell? We?”
“What are you talking about? S’pose
something happened and Injun Joe didn’t
hang? Why, he’d kill us some time or other,
just as dead sure as we’re a laying here.”
“That’s just what I was thinking to myself,
Huck.”
“If anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it, if
he’s fool enough. He’s generally
drunk enough.”
Tom said nothing—went on thinking.
Presently he whispered:
“Huck, Muff Potter don’t know it.
How can he tell?”
“What’s the reason he don’t know
it?”
“Because he’d just got that whack when
Injun Joe done it. D’you reckon he could
see anything? D’you reckon he knowed anything?”
“By hokey, that’s so, Tom!”
“And besides, look-a-here—maybe that
whack done for him!”
“No, ’taint likely, Tom. He had liquor
in him; I could see that; and besides, he always has.
Well, when pap’s full, you might take and belt
him over the head with a church and you couldn’t
phase him. He says so, his own self. So
it’s the same with Muff Potter, of course.
But if a man was dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack
might fetch him; I dono.”
After another reflective silence, Tom said:
“Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?”
“Tom, we got to keep mum. You know
that. That Injun devil wouldn’t make any
more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was
to squeak ’bout this and they didn’t hang
him. Now, look-a-here, Tom, less take and swear
to one another—that’s what we got
to do—swear to keep mum.”
“I’m agreed. It’s the best
thing. Would you just hold hands and swear that
we—”
