he had a long-handled shovel over his
shoulder, and we see the white patch on the old work-gown. So Tom says:

"He's a-walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed to follow him and
see where he's going to. There, he's turned down by the tobacker-field.
Out of sight now. It's a dreadful pity he can't rest no better."

We waited a long time, but he didn't come back any more, or if he did
he come around the other way; so at last we was tuckered out and went
to sleep and had nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we was
awake again, because meantime a storm had come up and been raging, and
the thunder and lightning was awful, and the wind was a-thrashing the
trees around, and the rain was driving down in slanting sheets, and the
gullies was running rivers. Tom says:

"Looky here, Huck, I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Up
to the time we went out last night the family hadn't heard about Jake
Dunlap being murdered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and Bud Dixon
away would spread the thing around in a half an hour, and every neighbor
that heard it would shin out and fly around from one farm to t'other and
try to be the first to tell the news. Land, they don't have such a big
thing as that to tell twice in thirty year! Huck, it's mighty strange; I
don't understand it."

So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up, so we could turn out
and run across some of the people and see if they would say anything
about it to us. And he said if they did we must be horribly surprised
and shocked.

We was out and gone the minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day
then. We loafed along up the road, and now and then met a person and
stopped and said howdy, and told them when we come, and how we left the
folks at home, and how long we was going to stay, and all that, but none
of them said a word about that thing; which was just astonishing, and no
mistake. Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores we would find
that body laying there solitary and alone, and not a soul around. Said
he believed the men chased the thieves so far into the woods that the
thieves prob'ly seen a good chance and turned on them at last, and maybe
they all killed each other, and so there wasn't anybody left to tell.

First we knowed, gabbling along that away, we was right at the
sycamores. The cold chills trickled down my back and I wouldn't budge
another step, for all Tom's persuading. But he couldn't hold in; he'd
GOT to