k a gown from Aunt Sally."

"Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves."

"Not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his
bed to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger
woman's gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When
a prisoner of style escapes it's called an evasion. It's always called
so when a king escapes, f'rinstance. And the same with a king's son;
it don't make no difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural
one."

So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller
wench's frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front
door, the way Tom told me to. It said:

_Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout.
UNKNOWN FRIEND._

Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull
and crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a
coffin on the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They
couldn't 'a' been worse scared if the place had 'a' been full of
ghosts laying for them behind everything and under the beds and
shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and
said "ouch!" if anything fell, she jumped and said "ouch!" if you
happened to touch her, when she warn't noticing, she done the same;
she couldn't face no way and be satisfied, because she allowed there
was something behind her every time--so she was always a-whirling
around sudden, and saying "ouch," and before she'd got two-thirds
around she'd whirl back again, and say it again; and she was afraid to
go to bed, but she dasn't set up. So the thing was working very well,
Tom said; he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory. He said
it showed it was done right.

So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the
streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we
better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going
to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down
the lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was
asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This
letter said:

_Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gang
of cutthroats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your
runaway nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as
you will stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of