n't know. A month and a half."

"THIRTY-SEVEN YEAR--and he come out in China. THAT'S the kind. I wish
the bottom of THIS fortress was solid rock."

"JIM don't know nobody in China."

"What's THAT got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But
you're always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to
the main point?"

"All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he COMES out; and Jim
don't, either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too old to
be dug out with a case-knife. He won't last."

"Yes he will LAST, too. You don't reckon it's going to take thirty-seven
years to dig out through a DIRT foundation, do you?"

"How long will it take, Tom?"

"Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't take
very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. He'll
hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be to advertise Jim,
or something like that. So we can't resk being as long digging him out
as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple of years; but
we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this: that we
really dig right in, as quick as we can; and after that, we can LET ON,
to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch
him out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon
that 'll be the best way."

"Now, there's SENSE in that," I says. "Letting on don't cost nothing;
letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't mind letting
on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't strain me none,
after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a couple of
case-knives."

"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of."

"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says,
"there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the
weather-boarding behind the smoke-house."

He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:

"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and smouch
the knives--three of them." So I done it.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

AS soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the
lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our pile
of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of the way,
about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom said he
was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'