ter beginning to melt
and run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty soon, when one of
them says, "I'M for going and getting in the cabin FIRST and right NOW,
and catching them when they come," I most dropped; and a streak of butter
come a-trickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turns
white as a sheet, and says:

"For the land's sake, what IS the matter with the child? He's got the
brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!"

And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes the
bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me,
and says:

"Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it ain't
no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, and
when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the color
and all it was just like your brains would be if--Dear, dear, whyd'nt you
TELL me that was what you'd been down there for, I wouldn't a cared. Now
cler out to bed, and don't lemme see no more of you till morning!"

I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one,
and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly get my
words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must
jump for it now, and not a minute to lose--the house full of men, yonder,
with guns!

His eyes just blazed; and he says:

"No!--is that so? AIN'T it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over
again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till--"

"Hurry! HURRY!" I says. "Where's Jim?"

"Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him. He's
dressed, and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out and give the
sheep-signal."

But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them
begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man say:

"I TOLD you we'd be too soon; they haven't come--the door is locked.
Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the
dark and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece,
and listen if you can hear 'em coming."

So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on us
whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all right,
and out through the hole, swift but soft--Jim first, me next, and Tom
last, which was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the lean-to,
and heard trampings close by outside. So