ish I
had an axe, for I would soon get across. I shall never find my way to
the Mississippi as long as I stay on this side the bayou."

While Tom was talking to himself in this way, he stood upon the bluffs,
which, by drawing near to one another, had gradually left the low lands
behind and brought the two banks of the stream within twenty feet--a
bad-looking place, for it went far to remind Tom of Dead Man's Elbow. It
was his only chance to cross the stream. While he stood there, looking
at the dark, muddy water that flowed between him and liberty, that is,
between him and the Mississippi, and trying hard to determine what his
chances were of passing the night in his wet clothes with no means of
starting a fire, his attention was attracted by the very sound he wanted
to hear. He listened, and when the blows began to fall in regular order,
as if the woodman was warming at his work, he left the bluffs behind him
and turned and went into the woods.

"That's an axe," thought Tom, "and as nobody but negroes can be chopping
out here, I'll go up and get a bite to eat; for, now that I think of it,
I'm hungry. I must be ten miles from my uncle's now, and of course no
one down here has heard of that grip-sack business. To-morrow morning I
will make him cut a tree across the bayou."

Guided by the sound of the woodman's axe, Tom felt his way through the
cane (for by this time it was so dark in there that feeling was the only
sense he could go by), and presently came within sight of the chopper.
He was a jolly, good-natured negro, who seemed a little startled on
discovering Tom's approach, but speedily recovered himself when the boy
addressed him by saying:

"Hallo, Snowball! What are you doing so far out of the world?"

"Sarvent, sar. Well, sar, you see all dis timber here? My moster is
needin' some rail timber mighty bad, so he sends me out here every
Monday and I stays here until Saturday. Say, boss, what you doin' out
here? Ise you los'?"

"You haven't seen a gray horse, with saddle and bridle on, going by
here, have you?" asked Tom in reply.

"No, sar, I aint. Did he threw you?"

"Nor any hounds giving tongue?"

"No, sar, I aint. Ise dey de ones you is lookin' for, boss?"

"They're gone, and the best thing I can do is to follow after them on
foot," said Tom, looking around for a handy log to sit down on; for, now
that his tramp for the day was ended and he had somebody to talk to, he
began to realize that he was ti